Two pastors debate whether alienating some people to attract others is good practical theology or a failure of leadership.
To grow, often a church must first lose some people. Many church leaders understand the reality of that principle. When members who resist changes that promote evangelism depart, the church is freer to achieve its mission. But in the long run, does the church benefit from a philosophy of “If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to leave”?
The answers significantly influence how a pastor leads change in the church. Two experienced pastors explain their differing stances.
Health Requires Pruning
by Robert V. Acker
My wife and I felt cramped sitting in the tiny church office with Steve and Brenda (not their real names). They wanted us to know they had decided to leave the church.
It was hard to believe what I was hearing. They were pillars. Between them, they had served on the church board, preached in worship, spoken at women’s retreats, coordinated the usher ministry, taught a Bible class, and given generously.
I considered them friends.
Steve and Brenda had become increasingly dissatisfied with the direction of the church. Caring for the 99 sheep ranked higher with them than reaching the lost or displaced ones. They felt uncomfortable with our growing plans and growing pains. We had talked many times before, and they tried to be part of the solution, but ultimately they found themselves sitting on the opposite side of the fence from me.
I felt sad when they left, but I blessed them in their decision. Sometimes you must lose members who don’t accept the church’s mission.
Outgrown spiritual heritage
Fact: People leave churches. Often the reasons are good: a job relocation or a move to attend college. Or their spiritual convictions change. Over time, they no longer find themselves in agreement with their church heritage.
Richard Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline and Prayer, writes about the five dimensions of spiritual life. These dimensions in many ways represent the main spiritual heritages of most Protestant churches:
- contemplative—the prayer-filled life,
- holiness—the virtuous life,
- charismatic—the Spirit-empowered life,
- social justice—the compassionate life,
- evangelical—the Word-centered life.
Many people, in their spiritual development, move from one tradition to another. What was once invigorating and positive becomes too familiar. Such people need a fresh setting; they’ve outgrown their heritage.
A friend grew up in a church with a strong social-justice heritage. He had a strong commitment to compassion, but he reached a point where he was drawn to a charismatic church. A different aspect of his spirit needed to be developed.
Each church must understand its spiritual heritage—where it fits, what it’s good at. Some members will inevitably move on because their church can’t provide what they want or need. I like to call this “graduating.”
Sometimes losing members is God’s way to church health and church growth.
Some members graduate from “our style church” to “another style church.” Sometimes this stretches them to grow; other times their leaving allows them to remain comfortable, since they don’t want to grow.
Strategic mission
Sometimes, however, church members leave because they cannot handle changes in the church or do not agree with its changing mission. They become ingrown, inwardly focused. Often they feel frustrated with the pastor, who is leading the church toward a new emphasis. The spiritual heritage of the church is not changing, but its methods are. When our church made small groups the primary means for discipleship, some members took issue. While the core of our spiritual heritage wasn’t changing, how we did ministry was—and some left.
It’s essential for pastors to remind people what it means to be a church. In addition to other biblical metaphors, I tell people that our church is
- a hospital
- a family
- an army
The hospital and family images reinforce healing and long-term relationships. Most people like being part of a family. Most also resonate with the hospital metaphor; healing and care refresh the soul.
The army motif, however, is vastly different. The stakes are high; lives are on the line. The leadership and the troops must be in accord. There is no room for rebels. Military leaders expel disloyal officers.
While we’re on this earth, and when thinking about our efforts for the kingdom, I believe the military metaphor is appropriate. The Great Commission and our evangelistic mandate cannot be set aside just because some church members don’t want to cooperate. As one pastor says, “Time is short, and hell is hot.”
The biblical purposes of a church are fixed, and the spiritual heritage of most churches usually doesn’t change. However, the specific mission and goals of a church are constantly evolving. The mission of a church, then, affects decisions about programs, songs, money, even buildings.
Loyalty within the church means affirming the mission (goals and strategies) established by those placed into leadership. As John Maxwell says, “Everything rises or falls on leadership.” The mission is too important for troops to be squabbling. Unless the pastor is heretical, immoral, or unstable, church members (and staff) need to demonstrate team loyalty so the mission can be accomplished. Those who don’t fit can’t stay. Losing church members not in full accord with the church’s mission is a welcome change.
That is not to say everyone who stays will have the same ministry. I affirm unity, not uniformity. While our church has a strong call to evangelize the unchurched and disconnected, our compassion givers—those assisting people in crisis—are integral to our mission. Though their gifts focus on the hospital metaphor, they understand how their work supports the larger mission.
For God, less is often more
The Old Testament story of Gideon reminds us that sometimes God’s battle plans involve less, not more. A mass of people who are not fully unified can’t be harnessed for God’s purposes.
To use another biblical metaphor, in John 15 Jesus teaches about fruitfulness, how the Father prunes unproductive branches. Our area used to sustain several vineyards, and I’ve seen pruned vines. They’re not pretty. However, the results are evident months later. Pruning keeps the vine healthy.
As God prunes believers—those whose lives may not be honoring to the Lord—some will leave the church because of hardness of heart. Of course, restoration is always the goal (Gal. 6; Matt. 18), but unrepentant sin, or perhaps a wolf in sheep’s clothing, will only hurt a church.
One of my most painful experiences in ministry was dismissing a rebellious leader who had great skills and gifts but whose integrity evaporated after repeated allegations of impropriety. I could feel the Lord’s pruning shears cutting off a sick limb from the body. We were healthier after he left, even though we felt the hurt.
In the weeks after our meeting with Steve and Brenda, my wife and I felt shocked, hurt, and confused. Tears were shed. But, as time went on, I also felt relieved. In many ways, their departure was a burden lifted from my shoulders. Those who remained felt a oneness of heart and a unity of purpose for our church’s mission, heritage, and future.
I imagine the Christians in Antioch struggled when Paul prohibited John Mark from traveling with him on a missionary journey (Acts 15). It smelled of a tough, calloused decision. But the result was God honoring: ministry was multiplied as both Paul and Mark served in different arenas.
While my pastoral instincts lead me at times to try to please people, I have come to realize that sometimes losing members is God’s way to church health and church growth.
Robert V. Acker is pastor of Community Baptist Church in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
Assimilation Isn’t Selective Annihilation
by David Hansen
When I began pastoral ministry, the New Testament passages emphasizing evangelism filled my vision. I preached evangelistically, I pastored evangelistically, I prayed evangelistically.
Sure enough, evangelism happened. People gave their lives to Christ and joined the church. I recognized by experience and affirmation that God had given me a gift for evangelism.
But evangelizing pagans and assimilating Christians are two different things. For me, assimilating new Christians into the church is much more difficult than evangelism. In my setting, assimilation isn’t trying to build a cross-cultural, inter-racial church. In rural Montana cross-cultural ministry means trying to mold folks who wear Wrangler boot-cut jeans with folks who wear Levi button-fly jeans.
No matter how much the congregation cheers for evangelism, the season ticket holders resent the influx of new people—for as many reasons as there are seats in the house.
The problem is as old as the New Testament.
Trash compactor eggs
For those early Christians, it seems as though evangelism was simpler than assimilation. Jesus predicted this in his high priestly prayer in John 17, where the burden of his prayer assumes success in evangelism. The real challenge, it seems, is the unity of believers: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one” (John 17:20-21, NRSV).
While Paul founded churches right and left until he felt like he needed to go to Spain for some fresh territory, the assimilation struggles his churches faced seemed to have no end. That is deeply ironic. Paul the great church planter never wrote a letter on church planting; instead, all of his letters addressed the issue of assimilation.
Nevertheless Paul cannot give up the vision the gospel places before him: “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26-28, NRSV).
However, in the last 20 years a new solution to this old problem has come up in popular literature and in seminars. I call it annihilation. The method is simple: When a church isn’t assimilating new people, figure out who the barriers are and get rid of them.
Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but plenty of times I have listened to church-growth guns brag how after ten years of exponential growth in their church, virtually none of the original members were left. The clear implication is that those who want our churches to grow need to recognize that to make an omelet you’ve got to break a few eggs. I know this is true: Sometimes old-timers (they come in all ages) who can’t handle change leave a church as it grows.
I don’t think, however, that to make an omelet, first you put a full carton of eggs in a trash compactor.
The saddest thing I see are pastors—often young—serving tough little churches. They have stars in their eyes and annihilation in their plans. They usually fail to see that a 100-year-old church is much tougher than they are, that God may not choose to bless their plans for cleaning the church pantry. Instead, such pastors get their clocks cleaned, until they settle down and pastor their church towards real growth.
That sort of pastoring requires tireless evangelism and shrewd, prayer-bathed efforts at assimilation.
Ornery churches
While I can’t give up on Paul’s vision or Jesus’ prayer, I’m not an idealist. I’ve seen real assimilation occur in established churches. When that happens, the church recognizes the process as a genuine work of the Holy Spirit. They can’t believe God did it, despite their orneriness. (These churches all know, deep down, that they are ornery. They just don’t know what to do about it.)
When real assimilation happens, I see it as a miracle of the Spirit too, with a little difference. When the Spirit wants to begin this work, the Spirit starts by hammering on me. The first challenge of assimilating new members into the life of an established church is for the Spirit to assimilate the pastor into the life of the congregation. Often the pastor is one of the church’s newest members.
Unless I am assimilated into the life of a congregation, I can do little to mediate the process between new and old members. This is a painful process; it means I need to give up some of my idiosyncrasies while simultaneously asking the group to accept some of my quirks.
Assimilating new Christians into the church is much more difficult than evangelism.
This give-and-take process takes time, but it helps me recognize the new members’ side of the bargain—they too have to work to become assimilated. Some people cannot be assimilated into a church because they refuse to accept the legitimate traditions and values of that church.
Assimilation failure is not always the church’s fault.
Lone Ranger evangelist
I’m aware that during growth some of the old guard will leave. Some of them end up in other churches and are much happier there.
The real problem with “omelet thinking” is the way it requires us to objectivize, categorize, and label the people we believe are barriers to growth. We simply accept the fact that most of them are expendable.
This only exemplifies our failure to redeem the church we serve. If the only way to pastor a church is to annihilate it, we should leave and find a church we can pastor the way we want to—or start a new one—in our own image.
But another problem is when we divorce evangelism from assimilation. I’m not ready to tell people “The Church loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,” but the concept that evangelization is separate from assimilation separates the process of birth from the process of life.
This assumes we enter the kingdom of God as individuals, and that as individuals our goal is to find a place to learn, worship, and serve for our own therapeutic reasons.
Rather, we are evangelized by the body of Christ into the body of Christ.
That doesn’t mean living together will be easy. But it means that from the start, evangelism and assimilation are parts of one act of God. That has implications for preaching: the idea that the goal of preaching is either the evangelism of nonbelievers or the edification of the saints may be frustrating our efforts to evangelize the whole congregation.
The gospel makes Christians and assimilates Christians—and makes Christians more amenable to accepting new Christians into the body of believers.
If I refuse to play the role of Lone Ranger evangelist, who ropes in new folks and blows away old folks to make room in the corral for the new ones, my church may not grow as fast as I want it to. Sometimes, when I complain that Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so are quenching the Spirit, what may really be happening is that they are quenching my ego.
By complaining, I am quenching the Spirit and may be standing in the way of the Spirit’s work of assimilating me into the life of his church.
Maybe the toughest member to assimilate is me.
David Hansen is pastor of Belgrade Community Church in Belgrade, Montana.
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