When Should You Leave a Church? (Part 2)

Mack: How do I know when it's
time to leave a church?

People will come and say:

"I'm really struggling

because this is the
situation with our church."

They'll give me the specifics.

And sometimes I'll think:

Well, now that's not a good enough reason

to leave a church -
what you just said there.

Maybe the couple's highly critical.

"Well, our pastor doesn't do evangelism

like 'Way of the Master'."

Well, that's not a basis
to leave a church, you know.

"Well, I don't like just singing hymns.

I want them to get some
praise music in there.

So I'm going to go to the church

that has great worship."

Well, that's an immature view.

Jesse: I don't know that you
should leave your present church.

Let me say this clearly.

You should not compare the pastor

that God has given to you

to your favorite Internet pastor.

So, we don't play the comparison game.

So should they leave their local church?

I don't know that they
should leave their local church.

You need to be careful
and prayerful about that.

Often, people are leaving
churches over preferences,

over byproducts of Christ and the Gospel

and they're making those primary

rather than secondary.

So I don't know that they should leave

their local church.

Mack: The heart of it is

if someone is in a church

and they see that a true
and accurate Gospel

is being preached,

they see true pastors

that are caring for the people,

and they see an atmosphere of godliness

where the people do love the Lord

and they can grow,

then it's hard for me to ever affirm

somebody leaving such a church.

Now they may say:

"Well, I don't agree -
I'm an amillenialist.

My pastor's a historic premillenialist.

I think I'm leaving."

I don't think that's a good enough reason.

If the true Gospel's being preached,

and the Word of God's being honored,

secondary things shouldn't drive us

away from a church.

So that brings me to say it this way:

I think only compromise on the essentials

should cause us to say we
need to leave this church;

not accuracy on the Gospel

or some major clear doctrinal issue.

You see that they're
teaching false doctrine.

Kevin: Often when people

are dissatisfied where they are

or when they're looking
for a church for a long time,

but can't find one,

they can latch on to
some Internet ministries

which can agree with them

that what they view as false is false,

but these can tend to be overcritical.

And they can get into
that overcritical spirit.

So then they start to
look for the new church

and they're overcritical about
something else that doesn't matter.

An overcritical spirit - there's
something wrong there.

I'll give you an example in our own lives.

When we were looking for a good church,

we found a Presbyterian
church in Blackburn.

It was a 40 minute drive
from where we lived

so we'd do it twice on a Sunday

for morning and evening service.

Forty minutes there, forty back.

And we didn't go in there thinking:

this is wrong, this is wrong.

We were just so glad to hear the preaching

of the true Gospel there;

be true believers,

the singing of hymns.

If you really are looking for
a true church with true believers,

you tend to be uncritical
and overlooking things.

Because we often find

when people come to our church

from other churches -

even if they're really bad,

they don't tend to be
trouble causers in there.

The trouble causers tend to just
take the trouble somewhere else.

So when someone comes to me

making trouble about everywhere else,

you tend to think they're probably

going to be talking like that about us

in six months time.

So not that overcritical spirit.

Jesse: If they are in a church

that does not preach the Gospel -

it doesn't mean they preach it the way

my favorite pastor preaches it -

but are they biblical in the proclamation

of the death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ?

I think Mark Dever's done a
great service to us in this

in his book "Nine Marks".

He talks about the expositional
preaching of the Word

which probably should be
a whole other question.

What does it mean to have
expositional preaching?

But he talks about the right view of God.

And I think in each of
those areas he gives,

I think we need to be mindful

that no church is going
to be perfected in those.

So if you say, well, he doesn't hold to

a high view of God like
this pastor or this church,

therefore I can't be a part of it.

Well, you have to remember,

all the churches are growing.

So the question is is there
a commitment to the Word?

To the sufficiency of Scripture?

To look to that?

And are they growing towards those things?

Very often I find people struggling

with their current church

because they want it to go faster.

And I mentioned this last year

in the conference.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book,

"Fellowship Together" -

he speaks about this notion

of people basically wanting to find

this perfect church.

They want their church

to be all that it could be.

And I think we all want that.
There's nothing wrong with that.

But they begin to struggle with
what their local church is.

So they love the idea of
what their church could be,

rather than the reality of
what the local church is.

The inevitability there is two issues:

Number one is this,

you've removed yourself

from being part of the problem,

and you're saying it's these people

or this pastor keeping me

from what I could experience.

And if I had the right pastor

or the right people,

then we could experience
this idea of the church

that I'd like to experience.

Well, the problem with that
is you've removed yourself

from the equation as part of the problem,

and the inevitability there
is spiritual pride

which leads to criticalness.

The moment you begin to think like that,

you become critical of everything

because you're not part of the equation

and you want the church
to be at a certain place.

Well, oftentimes it's the maturing
of the church to get there.

And people want it here. They want it now.

They want it today

and they're unwilling to wait.

And so yes, a right view of Scripture,

a right view of the Gospel,

a right view of God,

that practices church discipline -

these are essential things in the church,

but at the same time you have to allow

some room for growth in
all of those things as well.

Mack: So, that couple or that individual

may say: I see that I cannot keep myself

under this teaching anymore.

Whether the denial of Jesus' Lordship

as being essential to salvation,

or repentance as non-essential,

or the Gospel itself - what is the Gospel.

So when a person sees

that essentials are compromised,

and they actually know it
will be spiritually detrimental

for them to stay there,

they're probably going to have to leave.

But it's very important how they leave -

not with a critical heart.

Leave properly.

Because it's not their job

to disrupt the church

or create disunity or criticism.

They have to let Christ take care of that.

They're job is to maintain
their own spiritual health.

So, when your spiritual health is at stake

because essentials of the
faith are being compromised,

it's probably time to leave.