“Clark, I need to talk to you. I’m taking the offer to open the new office in Illinois.”
Our congregation was two and a half years old. Wayne, a young C.P.A., had been one of our strongest leaders since its birth. My wife and I were close friends with Wayne and his wife, Debbie. We had stayed in their home on our house-hunting trip before moving to the area. We had spent hours planning together for the church. We had taken childbirth preparation classes together, and our daughters were born two days apart. We had prayed with them, laughed with them, cried with them.
Now they were moving.
How could they? Just months shy of the ground breaking for our first building, we were knee-deep in financial arrangements. The church needed their financial expertise-not to mention their support. And they led a growing class of young couples who would miss them tremendously. They couldn’t go!
Yet, how could they not? The new office was near their parents. They would be able to rear their children in the surroundings they had always wanted. They could go home again. Besides, the move was a promotion. The new position would challenge Wayne.
Wayne and Debbie would be the first to move from our new church. How was I to take this hurt? How could our small congregation, which had grown from twenty-five to about seventy, largely due to their work, press forward without them?
Florida’s transient culture forces us to face many such situations when solid, ministering members move away. We discovered how crucial is our treatment of those who leave. Those who remain sense our reactions-good or ill-and it affects the whole congregation.
Personal reactions
I first had to deal with my personal reactions. I hurt over the loss of a friend. In a small, growing church, friendships are practically inevitable. We share life at its best and worst. To avoid friendship in such situations requires a heart of ice.
Then, one day our friends leave. No more Thanksgiving dinners together. No more late-night rehashing of the congregational meeting. No more swapping baby-sitting. We feel abandoned. Our friends are moving.
Eventually I learned to see it as exactly that: our friends are moving. They will still be our friends. Communication may be by letter or phone. We may snatch visits when we pass through their town on vacation or when they return for a few days. But we are still friends.
This came home in a poignant way. Wayne and Debbie have been gone now nearly four years. Not long ago my mother died, and a few moments before her funeral as I stood in the chapel, I looked up to see Wayne and Debbie. They had heard the news from church members in Florida and had driven three hours to be with us in Indiana at a time when we needed friends. We did not lose them as friends when they moved; we just have friends in central Illinois now.
When Dale and Deana moved to Michigan, I again felt a deep, personal loss. A vivacious couple, they had been with us only a few months. Their potential was just becoming recognized. Dale was a corporate manager, well-read in a variety of fields-Bible, music, art, sports, history, politics. My education grew simply by talking with him, and he supplied me with issues of the many magazines and journals he received.
He softened the blow of their leaving with four tickets to a Dodgers-Tigers spring-training game, but even that stung since it was our last game together. I knew I’d miss his lively and generous spirit. Although we don’t correspond much, I feel we could probably pick up our friendship where we left it, perhaps discussing one of John Stott’s books or how the Tigers are faring.
When I lose a key member, I also fear my increased workload.
As a teenager, I worked in a grocery store, and one of the employees there was convinced the store could not run without her. I remember the owner saying, “I have seen our government go on in spite of the deaths of two presidents, and I’m convinced no one is indispensable.” That has shaped my thinking about the body of Christ. This does not make me unappreciative of those who carry large loads, but it has helped my perspective when those people leave. God will provide leadership and workers for his church.
After four years as chairman of our congregation, Howard moved across state to a Christian retirement home. He had carried so much responsibility that I just knew my load would increase. He alone knew how to handle many tasks-making bank deposits, lining up communion servers, signing checks, checking the post office box, being my personal counselor. How could I go on?
Then I realized we had grown to about 120 under Howard’s chairmanship. Wouldn’t it be egocentric of either of us to think out of 120 people, only two were capable of handling those tasks? After listing the jobs in our newsletter, we gave six volunteers ministries they needed. My load was not increased at all, and if one of these new workers moves, we won’t have to replace nearly so many jobs.
A third personal reaction was hardly logical but real nonetheless: the feeling of rejection. If they really appreciated my ministry, they wouldn’t leave. They’d stay until the job is done if they were as committed to the Lord as I am. Such disparaging thoughts crept to mind.
Not wanting to let Satan put a barrier between them and me by construing their move as personal rejection, I find I need to ask, “Is there anything in our church that’s making you want to leave?” “Do you believe the Lord is in your move?” It helps me to be reminded that the move is triggered by circumstances far removed from the church. It helps them, too, to look for what God might be doing through the transition. For some, leaving the church is the worst part of the separation. I try to assure them the Lord can use them where they are going.
When I start feeling sorry for myself, I remember that they will probably irk their new church by talking about how things were done here.
Positive responses
What about the congregation’s response? In a small congregation or within small groups in a larger church, many lay people react to someone leaving much like I do. Friendships are uprooted, ministry loads are redistributed, and fears of rejection are kindled. Leaders’ attitudes can help in the transition. Here are some lessons we are learning that may help:
We let those leaving know we love them-without laying on guilt. As appropriate farewell gestures, we had a dinner for one family, gave a gift in the service to another, “roasted” another, and used church newsletter announcements for others. We tried to avoid doing the same thing every time so the farewell wouldn’t appear routine. We also did not want to hurt someone’s feelings by getting into can-you-top-this extravaganzas. We considered which groups the people had shared in and encouraged those groups to stage farewells.
We try to help members’ transitions by giving guidance on churches in their new community. We contact churches near their new location and ask them to welcome our former members. Letters, phone calls, cards, and church newsletters say “we miss you.” We do not try to keep their financial support or ask them to exert long-distance leadership because we let them know we expect them to be involved in a new congregation before long.
We trust the Lord to replace leaving members. It is amazing how God sends the right people at the right time. We once bade farewell to a special couple in the morning service and had a new couple appear at church that evening who eventually filled the vacated ministries. No, the new people will not be exactly the same, but God uses the unique gifts of new persons to good advantage.
We try to remember the local “heroes of the faith” as we grow and our history lengthens. Without looking backward all the time, we can incorporate into our program events that honor those who served at each stage of the church’s development. Anniversary Sundays, homecomings, and mortgage burnings are especially good times for remembering. So often we mention only those who have died. We want to let it be known there are living saints who still serve elsewhere. A display table or bulletin board with former members’ pictures, names, and special contributions serves this purpose well.
Having said this, I must admit I’ve never gotten used to saying farewell. In Florida we have nearly total turnover in a congregation every seven years. That means a lot of good-byes, but it also signals opportunity. In the midst of frequent farewells, we are determined to continue to minister to the thousands of newcomers to our area. After all, many of them were someone else’s leavers. As Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”
-Clark H. Scott
Palm Bay Christian Church
Palm Bay, Florida
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