Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
I am part of a creative community that meets up via zoom once a month. Tonight we discussed connecting within a church as creatives...and, should one leave a congregation if there is no room or opportunity to use one's creative gifting?
I have some ...convictions... about joining/ leaving a church...we, with our western consumer mindset, come to church expecting to receive. And, if we're not 'fed', then we should go somewhere else, where we are 'fed'...assuming being fed means having someone who as great teaching ability as either the pastor or a lay leader. I remember once many years ago I spoke with someone I had known as a child, who told me that his family had 'moved their letter' because 'they weren't fed' at their previous church. I was a rather young adult at the time, but I immediately thought, 'Isn't it a milestone to be feeding yourself?'
I have chewed on that for a long, long time.
I thought I was going to have to write a long post about how we came to be at our current church; turns out I have already posted a nutshell version of the story several years ago....why we stayed at our previous church as long as we did, and why we felt it was time to leave. There were, of course, lots of details left out. We were involved in a home church group for a while as we transitioned from one church to another. It wasn't planned, but it kept us grounded while we found our next place of service.
And, yeah, that's how we saw it. The next place where we were to serve. We stayed with the home group until we were asked to take on some leadership positions in our new church, and then we stepped out, speaking in a meeting of how we felt it wouldn't be easy to be committed to two places and we received their blessing.
That was...22ish? years ago. We are still at that church. But how did we pick THAT church? Out of all of them?
I am going to do a big condensation, leaving out lots of details again, but I am going to hit the more defining highlights.
I will say that we ditched cable and signed up with a Christian satellite TV service in the late 90's. One of the stations showed a TV program produced by Morningstar; every Sunday we would come home, eat dinner, and be ready to watch that program. It was 30 minutes long...a worship clip from a conference, which was really weird to me at the time, and about 20 minutes of a message. We would have to watch 3 - 4 programs to get the whole message (If you clicked through and read the first post, this was what I referred to as being fed by ravens). In the worship clips, there were shots of some back up singers that I tagged as 'the Older Lady, the Pretty Lady and The Guy'...just because I had no names for them but saw them frequently.
We were visiting different ministries at the time, not really sure where we would end up. There was one church that we had attended for special services now and then; I'd gotten acquainted with the pastors through my work with teens at our small church. We really wanted to attend that church but we could not...for whatever reason, our kids hated it. At one church we visited, the pastor's wife asked us what we were looking for and, kind of to my surprise, I replied, "God saying, 'This one.'"
We were looking for a word. I had Genesis 12:1 as my verse...for reasons I won't go into now.. "The LORD said...Leave...and go to the land I will show you."
We had saved one church to the last, because of the reputation for...being extra, I guess, lol, and we went on the first Sunday of Spring Break, 2000, while the kids were visiting their grandparents. The pastor made note of where we were in the crowd (we had inadvertently sat in the youth section, so I guess we were kinda obvious), and he came to us before we got out, which honestly shocked us because there were, like 300 people in that room...and thanked us for coming. He looked oddly familiar, but I couldn't place it. We returned with the kids a month later...they loved it...and found out that he and his wife had been associate pastors at the church that hosted most of those conferences we had watched on Sunday afternoons. Went home that day and popped in one of the VCR recordings we'd made and...they were the Pretty Lady and The Guy.
What were the chances?
I remember commenting to my hubby during those early visits that , 'That church could consume our lives if we let it." Then, after a moment, 'But maybe it's supposed to..."
By the end of that summer, we felt like we had heard from God, and began the membership classes.
We officially joined in January of 2002.
Has it been perfect? No. Have my hubby and I gotten crossways at times? Yes. Have we been hurt? Yes. Have their been golden opportunities to become offended and leave? Oh, yes. Have I learned how to deal with that? Mostly...I'm not perfect and it still flares from time to time. But our kids grew up there. Two are in another state, doing kids ministry, one is at another local church, doing kids ministry and also leading children in a local Bible Study Fellowship class, and the fourth is still serving in our church, at one of the satellite campuses. I am on staff now (just hit 16 years early this year). And I still feel in my bones that this is our place of service.
All of that is to say the point I really want to make...I honestly believe there is one reason to leave a church and one reason to join a church...and they are the same reason: 'God said'. But wait, you say, my church is bad because blah blah blah (and yes, I know there are bad/ abusive/ or just plain doctrinally wrong churches). If that is not your place, God will move you...if you listen to him, he will tell you when and how. If you leave a church wounded or offended, you will take that with you and things at the new place will seem to hit the same wound, even if they really are not. If you stay in a place longer than you should...you will keep someone from doing what God has called them to do, and you won't be doing what he is calling you to elsewhere.
Because God doesn't call people to a church to sit on a pew and be fed. Sometimes he will sit an individual down for a season...for whatever reason...but ultimately folks are in a church to serve. When the fallow season has run its course, there will be work to do. This is not in neglect of one's own home; this is in partnership with it. Ultimately, one is not serving a pastor or a program...the service is to God. And God is the one who knows where each of us will serve best. Serving is growing.
I know there are folks who don't really think God cares where you worship. As for me...I believe God is actually concerned with details, and that he does have plans and purposes. Every congregation has a post on the wall...and the people in the congregation have an assignment as well. And he will guide those who pay attention. Imagine the logistics of bringing all those plans together...no wonder we sometimes have to wait when it doesn't make sense to us.
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