Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The Main Reason People Leave a Church


Thom Rainer writes an excellent blog post on this important subject.  I believe the problem he addresses is one of the main sources, if not the main source, of lack of health in the church in America today.  I have seen for years in the Southeast that there is a deeply ingrained entitlement mentality among many people who go to churches.  Rainer hits the nail on the head in this one.

"Numbers of gifted persons and organizations have studied the phenomenon of the church “back door,” the metaphorical way we describe people leaving the church. And there will always be the anticipated themes of relocation or personal crises. We should recognize those issues, though we can respond to the latter more than the former.

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.

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."

Read the entire article here.

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