Church door

Past Andy Flowers

Maybe I'one thousand a petty biased, but I think my church is awesome! Information technology'south a place that is friendly, loving, gracious, and gospel-centered. I love being the pastor here. I love the people who faithfully attend here. I dear that we can see God moving in our midst.

This is a salubrious, well established church. Our finances are strong, the worship is great, and the preaching is dynamic! We have a wonderful children's ministry, a great youth group, community groups, a senior Bible written report, and a calendar full of social events. We have something for everyone!

Every year nosotros work hard to encourage more people to come to church building here. We want them to hear the gospel of salvation. Nosotros want their lives to exist transformed. We want them to grow in their relationship with God. We remember that this is a pretty dandy place to reach all those spiritual goals. We annunciate, hang banners, ship out fliers, and encourage people to invite their friends.

As the pastor I am enthusiastic about inviting people to come to church here! In fact, most pastors I know work hard to invite people to go to church. It'southward kind of a part of the job. There are tons of books and articles and conferences that we all go to in order to larn how to invite people to church more effectively.

The problem is that our beloved for our church and our enthusiasm for growth blinds u.s.a. to the fact that sometimes we have a responsibility to encourage people to go a different church building. I know it might sound crazy, but there are times when the most loving thing we can do is to aid people move on downwardly the route. As pastors we demand to know how to identify people who demand to be invited to go to a dissimilar church.

It hurts to encounter people become (sometimes) but there take been times in my ministry building when I knew that I needed to encourage people to move along. Hither are some examples:

  1. The Commuter– These are people who take moved merely outside of the reasonable driving radius of the church. I had one couple who lived almost an hour abroad who kept making the bulldoze in each Sunday. I knew it was a financial hardship on them and they struggled to stay faithful. But they just couldn't bring themselves to look for a different church building. Eventually I was able to recommend one of our sis churches that was much closer to their home and I gave them my blessing. Information technology was hard to run across them become, but they are at present plugged in to that local church trunk and very active in service.
  2. The Transfer– Every pastor has met this person. They are regular members of the church down the street, merely someone offended them somehow and they stormed off in a huff. Ofttimes they are only using you to make their other church feel bad for what they did. And commonly their complaint is petty. Whenever I come across someone like this I always encourage them to go dorsum to their home church building and talk things out. They need to make every effort to maintain the unity of the body. I understand that sometimes people have good reasons for switching churches, but I don't want my church to be the place where people come up just to avoid hard conversations or hide from church subject.
  3. The Traditionalist– Things change. That truth is something that some Christians seem to have a difficult time accepting. They just want things to be the way in that location were…before. This 1 usually involves music mode preferences. I had a couple who came to our church looking for a place to sing all their favorite hymns from the 1800's. For some odd reason they were having a tough time finding a church home. They came to my church because we would exercise a hymn every now and then and considering they liked the fact that I preached expository sermons. But when the 65 year old music leader left and a younger guy came everything fell apart. The kind of songs we sang didn't really alter, but considering the new guy was immature they couldn't stand him. They would often await out in the foyer until the music ended. That's not healthy. I did a piffling inquiry and found a small-scale church nearby that withal refused to permit drums on the alter and suggested to the couple that they might be happier there. I'd much rather have people move beyond their own personal preferences and testify grace, but for some people that kind of humility is non possible. Requite them permission to get.
  4. The Cancer– We all take critics. Criticism comes with the territory. Merely there are some people who accept such a critical spirit and a negative view of everything that it sours the church. It spreads like a cancer robbing the church of all joy or hope or sense of mission. These people resist any attempts at encouragement. Everything is always bad, even when things are skillful. These people don't even realize the harm that they are doing. Pastors have a trend to ignore them and hope it gets better. We feel weird about confronting them because they oasis't committed some groovy big sin. But the longer we ignore them the worse things get. Be prayerful, careful, and patient with these people. But don't ignore them.
  5. The Personality Clash– It is the height of arrogance to think that anybody in the globe will similar u.s.. Some people just won't care for your humor or your leadership style or your hairstyle. I became a senior pastor at the age of thirty. At that place was one lady who had a picture in her heed of what a pastor should be- onetime, stately, accommodate-wearing, and grandfatherly. She didn't like that my sermon illustrations often were about sports or cheeseburgers or video games. She didn't similar my sense of humor. She wanted a pastor who was more dignified. I met with her and suggested that if she was not able to respect me equally her pastor then she should get somewhere else.
  6. The Dissever Family– This seems to exist a growing trend in our civilisation. Both the married man and wife are Christians, but one spouse likes "Evangelical Church A" and the other prefers "Evangelical Church B."  So one of them attends one church on Sunday and the other goes somewhere else. The kids go where they have the most friends. The hubby refuses to change because he doesn't like how they do things over there; the wife refuses to change because all her friends are at this church building. This is usually a symptom of deeper marital problems. It's non a salubrious affair. My solution is to run across with whichever member is attending my church and walk them through Ephesians 5. If information technology is the wife, I encourage her to submit to her husband out of reverence to Christ and attend church building with her husband. If information technology's the husband that goes to my church I encourage him to love his wife in a sacrificial mode and go where she wants to become. I never counsel the married woman to force her husband to love and sacrifice, and I never counsel the husband to force the wife to submit.  It would be piece of cake to selfishly want that person to stay, just I am more concerned with ministering to the needs of that family unit than protecting my caput count.

People are messy and complicated. Sometimes they just need a little encouragement to put their preferences bated for the sake of unity, or some prayer over a critical spirit, or a reminder about the purpose of church, or a big hug. Asking someone to move on must be done with prayer and humility. But make sure you are a pastor who loves people enough to let them go.

Andy Flowers, a Western Seminary graduate is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Woodland, California, and Adjunct Professor at Western Seminary in Sacramento.

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