Church-Hopping

On the way back from school today the guys I ride with and I had a conversation about the goings on of the church. We are all ministers called by God to train ourselves theologically, and we are all members of the same denomination. One thing that came up was the subject of “church hopping.” This spawned from a larger issue of why the Christian Church is universally in decline. The subject of hopping came up from how many of the “growing” churches within Christianity are merely getting members that new to that church. These people are already churched and they are often discontent with one church, or even denomination, and choose to switch to another looking for more fulfillment. This is not real growth, just rearranging numbers on a page to give the appearance of growth. Real Kingdom growth comes when someone is reached with the Gospel that either has been churched but never accepted Christ as Lord and Savior; or even better, when someone who has never been reached at all makes the same decision. But, that is a tangent for another blog.

Today’s topic is indeed “church hopping.” First off, this only deals with people that have conscientiously joined a church with the intent to stay. If you are not currently active in a church and need to find one, church hopping is perfectly acceptable. That, coupled with copious prayer, is how you find a church in the first place. I am not admonishing someone who is earnestly trying to find a church to fellowship with others in.

I want to say that there are situations when someone must legitimately leave the church they are attending to go to another one. This often comes when God physically moves you to another location. All three of us here at Theophonics can relate to that. Despite the fact that we all grew up in the same hometown, none of us currently live in that said town anymore. I am the closest to that town, and I live around 100 miles away. Not that drastic a change, given the scope of our world, but it’s hard to maintain fellowship with a church that is over an hour and a half away.

Another situation arises when God calls you to another church for reasons you might not understand. You could still live in the same exact place, but God has work for you in another congregation. Sometimes this is because there is a need at that second church that God wants you to fill. Sometimes it is to wreck the calm complacency that has held you back from true Kingdom service. Much less often, it could be because the pastor at that church has gone off the deep end and the majority of the people are lemming-ing after him. Regardless the reason, there are God-Willed reasons why someone should leave a church for another one.

However, there are plenty of reasons that someone should not leave a church. These all boil down to selfishness and pride. When someone says “I don’t like the music,” “This preacher isn’t Calvanistic enough,” or “This preacher is way too Calvanistic,” chances are they are looking at surface issues. If you don’t like the music, maybe you need to ask God to open your heart up to new expressions of worship. Worship has nothing to do with music; it has to do with giving God the glory and honor that He as God deserves. If the person’s theological stance, within reason, is not up to your snuff then maybe God is trying to teach you other aspects of Him. I add “with reason” because there are people who do preach unbiblical doctrines that need to be avoided, it falls under the “gone off the deep end” clause above.

Between the three of us in the car today, all serving at different churches, we have seen the same couples make the rounds between our churches. They get upset, offended, mad, and then storm off to the next church of our denomination on the road. They have managed to attend, for about a year and a half each, every major church within two nearby cities trying to find one that doesn’t offend them. It could be that our denomination is not theologically in tuned with what they want. If that is the case, I beg them to find one that is so they can become active in it. But I’m almost willing to put money on the notion that they are not going to be happy till they fully surrender their service in the church over to God. God will put us in circumstances that will not make us happy. Jesus sweated drops of blood before going to the Cross, He begged over and over to not have to die, but He fulfilled His duty anyway. The point is not our temporal happiness; it’s about us being faithful to God.

Hosea 6:6 For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice; I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.