Why do People Leave Churches?

The_Open_Door_by_Jantiff_StocksAny church that’s been open for more than a few weeks knows the pain of people leaving the church. Sometimes the reasons are clear (i.e. they moved out of the area, the Lord took them home, etc.), but more often than not there’s almost no explanation whatsoever.

Tom Rainer gives some profound insights into the main reason people the church in this post. Here’s an excerpt:

But all the research studies of which I am aware, including my own, return to one major theme to explain the exodus of church members: a sense of some need not being filled. In other words, these members have ideas of what a local congregation should provide for them, and they leave because those provisions have not been met.

Certainly we recognize there are many legitimate claims by church members of unfulfilled expectations. It can undoubtedly be the fault of the local congregation and its leaders.

But many times, probably more than we would like to believe, a church member leaves a local body because he or she has a sense of entitlement. I would therefore suggest that the main reason people leave a church is because they have an entitlement mentality rather than a servant mentality.

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January 30 2013 05:00 am | Blog

  • Bernie Andringa

    More (good) reasons why someone might leave a church:

    – Church is not encouraging servant mentality by modeling it at the leadership level.

    - Pastor is spending huge amounts of time (years) in only one book of the Bible, at the expense of the rest of the Bible.

    -
    Church is putting too much time and energy into erecting perishable
    buildings that will fade instead of investing in human lives with
    incalculable worth.

    - Member who left did not feel like he/she
    was being spiritually fed in a way that allowed them to put words into
    faithful action (i.e. work for God).

  • DrewBuell

    There are some good reasons for leaving a church, but I think the point of this post is that the majority of the reasons why people leave church are very self-serving.