* WHY  DO  PEOPLE  LEAVE  
CHURCHES

-----------------------------------------------

by Dr Richard Hibbert.   Dr Hibbert is Head of the Sydney Missionary 
Bible College's School of Cross-Cultural Mission. He is a medical 
doctor who has served as a missionary with WEC in the Middle East and 
Europe, working among Muslim people. He has a Doctor of Missiology 
from Columbia Seminary in Georgia, and a PhD through Trinity 
Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago.  

It's safe to say that the 
vast majority of Australian churches have experienced the pain of 
having someone leave their gathering. At your church, it might have 
been someone who was moving out of the area or into a new phase of 
life - or, tragically, someone who has fallen away from Christ. But 
why do people really leave churches in Australia or in mission 
contexts? I conducted a case study in Bulgaria to find out some of 
the reasons why people leave - and to pull together some of the 
lessons we can learn as God's people. From the late 1980s to the 
mid-1990s, and especially immediately following the fall of 
Communism, thousands of previously Muslim, Turkish-speaking Roma in 
Bulgaria began to believe in Jesus. These Roma people are known as 
'Millet'.   In this period, the number of Millet churches grew from 
less than five to approximately 100 with an estimated 10,000 Millet 
church attendees.

A.  Sadly, the dramatic multiplication of Millet 
believers and churches was followed by an equally dramatic decline in 
the number of Millet church attendees in the late 1990s and early 
2000s.

B.  Stagnation and decline in the number of churches and church 
attendees have often been observed following periods of rapid church 
planting and multiplication. Missiologists have suggested a wide 
variety of reasons for this phenomena of 'cooling off', including a 
lack of leadership or of a contextualised pattern of leadership, poor 
patterns of communication and/or conflict within the church, failure 
to nurture new Christians, lack of meaningful rituals and structures 
of incorporation into the church, and the natural entropy common to 
all human institutions.

C.  But establishing the specific reasons for 
decline in a particular context is an important step in addressing 
decline and working towards future growth. The literature on 
defection from churches and other religious groups offers a range of 
possible explanations for people leaving churches. For example, Jorge 
Gomez's excellent 1995 study of people leaving evangelical churches 
in Costa Rica identifies several main reasons for defection which are 
relevant to the Millet experience: sinful conduct by some church 
leaders, the misuse of money in churches, defectors' sense of shame 
about their lifestyle not matching the standards of the gospel, and 
pressure from family and friends.At the same time, many studies 
suggest that deficiencies in the process of conversion can be 
associated with defections. These deficiencies might include a lack 
of meaningful ritual to demonstrate conversion or to signal 
incorporation into the church, insufficient development of social 
interaction with church members, and motivations for conversion that 
are primarily utilitarian without sufficient understanding of the 
full meaning of the gospel. Another important reason for leaving that 
is raised by many studies is the inability of newcomers to develop 
and maintain strong, satisfying bonds with church members and 
pastors.

D.  But what were the significant factors behind the Millet 
church's stagnation and decline? During late 2007 and early 2008, I 
visited several Millet neighbourhoods and spent a few weeks 
interviewing people who had left Turkish-speaking Millet churches 
('leavers') as well as people who had stayed in churches ('stayers'). 
The leavers I interviewed gave four main reasons for leaving: Being 
hurt by or disillusioned with their pastor or group of pastors; Lack 
of time due to work or other commitments, which in each case seemed 
to be a cover for actions they or others considered sinful and 
shameful; Opposition from husbands; Conflict with another believer.By 
far the most frequently cited reason for leaving was being hurt by or 
disillusioned with church leaders. Leaders making unilateral 
decisions, misusing money, fighting among themselves, failing to 
visit when the leaver had a problem, or insulting, shaming, or 
offending the leaver or their family: all of these leadership 
behaviours were highlighted as being hurtful or disillusioning for 
defectors. Indeed, the prominence of leader-related reasons for 
defection corresponds with the findings of many church growth 
studies. Problems of church leadership are often associated with 
decline.

E.  Having said that, my interviews with stayers revealed that 
support from   other believers was absolutely central to keeping 
Millet at church. Half of   the stayers I interviewed described times 
when they nearly or actually gave up believing in Jesus or going to 
church temporarily. Support from other believers - whether in the 
form of verbal encouragement, prayer, or home visits - was the factor 
most frequently mentioned as helping these Millet to stay at or 
return to church.This accords with the findings of Allen Swanson's 
1986 study of Taiwanese believers and those of Arthur Duck's 2001 
study of Brazilian churches. Each study revealed that support from 
other believers was a key factor associated with church members 
staying in their churches. One of the most striking findings of this 
study was that all the leavers, except for one, still expressed 
belief in Jesus and continued to pray regularly. The majority of 
church leavers were still very positive about Jesus and described him 
as a powerful helper, healer, and protector from evil and harm. In 
fact, all except two of the leavers indicated that their primary 
allegiance at the time of the interview was to Christ, and that they 
had an ongoing relationship with God which included experiences of 
God speaking to them and acting in their lives. I was surprised to 
find that the leavers were also overwhelmingly positive about the 
benefits of church meetings and of being part of the group of   
believers. Several of the leavers I interviewed expressed how they 
missed the relational togetherness they felt the group of believers 
used to have. How does this study help us to know why people leave 
churches, and what we can do about it? There are several key 
implications here for missionaries and local Christians.

1. Don't 
assume that those who have left the church have also left the faith. 
Almost all of the twenty Millet interviewees who had left the church 
still believed in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. They missed the 
church, and they wanted to be back in fellowship with the community 
of believers. Given their continuing love for the Lord and for his 
people, it is likely that they could be gathered again into existing 
or new churches. Studies suggest that in Western contexts, including 
Australia, many who have left churches have also not left their faith 
in Christ. Many of them may also be 'gatherable'.2. While most Millet 
defectors were positive about the thought of returning to church, 
they were prevented from doing so by a sense of sin or shame. 
Overcoming this barrier, in the Millet context, requires church 
members and/or leaders to intentionally reach out to the defectors. 
Visiting defectors in their homes will be the most effective way of 
doing this. Home visits should be one of the most important 
activities for Millet churches, since such visits, along with prayer 
and encouragement, led many Millet who had temporarily stopped coming 
to church to return.In other contexts, too, current church members or 
leaders would do well to visit people who have recently left the 
church - in the West, many who have left churches are discouraged by 
the church's failure to pursue them.3. People leave churches for many 
reasons, but many continue to believe in Jesus and live for him. For 
the Millet, the primary issue is poor leadership. In other contexts, 
other reasons are likely to predominate. Finding out why church 
leavers have left is crucial if we are to develop context-specific 
strategies for preventing defection and for helping defectors to 
return to church. The best way to do this is to sensitively ask the 
leavers themselves. As Stuart Murray points out, some church leavers 
"have abandoned their Christian faith; but many have abandoned only 
church",   and therefore, "Leavers have insights and perspectives that 
can sensitise churches to issues that hinder witness and community 
life - and that may prompt others to consider leaving". Having learnt 
church leavers' reasons for leaving, it is critical that churches 
evaluate their own practices and change to address the problems. If 
your church wants to begin this evaluation process, you could begin 
with the list of reasons for leaving given above alongside the 
specific reasons for leaving given by leavers in your context.4. Many 
church growth studies implicate poor leadership as a cause for church 
decline. Church leadership must be transparent, accountable, and 
culturally relevant. A major problem in mission contexts is that the 
expatriate missionaries impose their own inherited forms of church 
leadership and administration on local churches without realising 
that these may be counterproductive according to the values of the 
local culture. Sometimes the inherited forms are very difficult to 
let go of as they are thought to be inherently 'Christian' rather 
than simply one cultural expression of worship and church practice 
among many possible options. The missional principle here is work 
with the culture, not against it. The only way to do this is to 
seriously research both the culture and the Bible, being willing to 
let go of 'the way we've always done things' for the sake of finding 
culturally relevant expressions of biblical principles. This kind of 
research needs to involve local people in an empowering dialogue.5. 
Christian community is not primarily a meeting: it is a sharing of 
life together as an expression of our shared identity in Christ. It 
includes a sense of belonging to one another because we belong to 
God. The processes of entering and leaving the community of a local 
church hold great potential for nurturing a sense of belonging and 
shared identity, so it is important that churches mark the 
incorporation of new members into their group with special events or 
celebrations, including baptism. By the same token, when people leave 
the community of the local church, they should not be abandoned - 
pathways should be constructed which help them to come back into 
fellowship with the church they have left or with another local 
church.

Source: Dr Richard 
Hibbert

http://www.ausprayernet.org.au/