The Prodigal Son Did Not Stay - 24

When it is proper to leave and when it's not.

Is there ever a time to leave the community into which God placed you? This question could be asked for both your genealogical family and your church family.

In regard to the Church, Seymour was a man who did not like a particular teaching he heard from the pulpit. The teaching did not fall outside the boundaries of orthodoxy. It was something most would consider a much lesser matter. But Seymour could not get past how “wrong the teaching was.” He and his wife talked about it frequently. He tried to convince his elders to think they way he did about it. They wouldn’t. He found their position both untenable and unbearable. He decided to uproot his family and leave. He would not remain in a church that “did not respect the Word of God.”

This is the wrong way to leave a church. It is an unloving way to leave. You don’t get to simply discard the covenant community that God put you in.

And so the church elders told Seymour that he was not permitted to leave under these conditions. He didn’t like that, and he reassured them that it wasn’t their call to make. He refused their eldership informing them that he brought his family into the church by his own choice and therefore he could lead them out by his own choice. Bad form.

Even the prodigal son asked permission to do something stupid.

But does someone have to forever remain a member of the first church they join? Not necessarily. I do think there are situations where God wants us to leave: both a church and perhaps one’s family. However, to leave either, one should leave honorably. Lovingly. And it is ultimately best if a person’s leaving is attended by the blessing of those being left. In other words, the leaving is done on good terms.

I did a four-part sermon series called, How to Love the Church.¹ The first sermon was, How to Love the Church When You First Come In To Her, the second was How To Love The Church As An Existing Member, and sermons three and four were both called: How To Love The Church When You Need To Depart From Her.

In sermons three and four I listed situations when leaving was appropriate and inappropriate. Here is the good reasons for leaving.

The first good reason for leaving the church is because you have just married and started a family with a spouse from another congregation. You and your spouse should have discussed church membership. Where should we go to church once we are married? Will we go to the Church you were raised in, or should we go to the Church I was raised in? Unless the newly married couple came from the same church this is a decision that will have to be made. Never should a couple go separate ways to church.

A second legitimate reason to leave your local church is when God’s calling on your life – His design for the things He made you to accomplish – when His calling requires you to move to another geographical location.

In other words, if God’s design of you was that you were to become a U.S. Senator, it means you are going to have to live much of the year in the Washington D.C. area. If God calls you to be a Medical research scientist then perhaps you will need to live nearby a major research hospital or university. You get the idea.

A third way in which members leave the church is by death. This was the case for Tabitha in our Acts 9 passage. She died and was departed from her local church. It was temporarily, as you would see if you read the rest of that Chapter, but she had departed nonetheless. I such situations God is taking you and we will look forward to worshipping with you some time again in the near future.

Fourthly: It could be you feel the need to leave the church because the office-bearers are unbiblical in their teaching and tyrannical in their ruling. For instance, perhaps the elders are demanding behavior from the church members that is outside the scope of their God-given authority. They are being abusive by teaching as God’s Word those things not in His Word.

The Roman Catholic Church began to operate in such a manner on a broad scale. The Pope’s divine decrees, combined with a system of indulgences and the paying of penance led to great oppression for the church. Those priests and congregants, who rose up against the tyranny of these manmade rules, were ostracized and even excommunicated. Luther, like many of the early Reformers, he did not want to leave the Church. He was forced out.

And so I think there is a time when love demands you take your family to a safer flock. When there is no system of appeals to a higher court – as some independent churches lack – or when the buck always stops at the place where the tyranny is rooted, then your only alternative is to extract yourself as painlessly and graciously as you can. You cannot allow the church leadership to take away from you the freedom that Christ has purchased for you.²

A fifth reason to leave a church is when your theology has changed significantly from the theology being taught and preached by the Church elders and denomination. For instance, when you are a member of a Reformed Church and yet you have become convinced to think in terms of Arminianism, then perhaps you should seek graciously to be released from your membership.

I would hope that you remain true to your membership. I would hope that your love would still be sincere for the members and leadership of the church. I would hope also that you were communicating your theological questions and discoveries as your thoughts and convictions were beginning to change.

So those are five good reasons why someone might not stay but leave. What are bad reasons to leave?

The first bad reason people depart from the church is because it takes too much effort to get yourself and your family to worship on Sunday mornings. It is pathetic. People don’t go to church because it is not important enough or exciting enough to get them out of bed, dressed and on the road. They do not feel the magnetic pull of Christ and His Bride. The grace to be found in the Lord’s Day Worship service is not near as seductive as their pillow and pajamas – or the late night of fun they had put in previously.

The second bad reason to leave the Church is because your spouse and/or children do not want to go. So you thought you would do whatever they wanted to do.

Excuse me? Just because your husband or wife is not interested in Christ or His Bride, it does not mean you should encourage that rebellion. Maybe your wife is not a Christian. The same goes for your children. However, if you are a man, you must lead your wife and children to church. If your wife refuses you, then correct her and take your children. The same goes for the wife pursuing church without her negligent husband.

You have been united to Christ. (Philippians 2:1) He has loved you himself. The Holy Spirit has chosen to fellowship with you. You are part of His Church now. You must become like-minded with the rest of us. You must have the same love and spirit and purpose. This is why we were joined together in the first place. God wants us to be devoted to one another. Never let your spouse prevent that.

The third bad reason for leaving the church is because you don’t want to be in the same church as your parents. I find it sad that something was neglected or else became unbearable in your upbringing that you would think church would be better if your parents were not in it. Church with your parents and grandparents is the ideal. It represents the coming together of your life and your religion. It should make perfect sense to worship alongside your parents if they raised you worshipping correctly. I would want my children to wonder, “Where else could I possibly go where my soul would be more nourished and my faith better instructed.”

The fourth bad reason to leave the church, and now we are getting a little more serious, is because you no longer like the people there. You have started to like other people more. You don’t feel you have any friends in the church.

How green the grass looks on the other side of the fence. And I tell you, once you start climbing the fence in order to get over to that grass you begin to dislike your own side so much more.

Yet, every one of us is un-likeable. It is the reason why Paul says we cannot go slack when it comes to zeal and fervor. (Romans 12:11) We have to keep energized in our devotion to the others in our church (Romans 12:10). You just have to commit to being a friend and liking the un-likeables.

The fifth bad reason to leave the church is because you want a church that offers more. You want a church that has extra stuff. The things that Christ wants to perform in His church, the true marks of a Christian church focus primarily on the following. She has been assigned to preach God’s Word, administer the Sacraments and govern to make men holy. Any other activities that detract from these specified tasks do not necessarily make for a good church.

The sixth bad reason for leaving the church is because you have now decided that a Christian does not really need to become a member of a specific church at all. This is a return to “the invisible church is the only church I need to worry about argument.” The person who believes that only the invisible church matters and therefore gives no heed to joining with any local church is a bit presumptuous.

Anyone who thinks they can determine who is a member of the invisible church, made up of God’s elect, must believe they have some radar capability that the rest of us do not.

The seventh bad reason to leave the church is because you want to be in a Church with less sinful people. You know the old saying, “Once you find the perfect Church, don’t go to it because you will ruin it by your imperfection.” Well I tell you I’ve heard of the beginnings of more than one perfect church that never got off the ground. There were too many disagreements between the three to four families that were its founders. And they couldn’t stand to be together any more.

The eighth bad reason to leave the church is because you believe there exists some doctrinal error in the Church. This was Seymour’s reason. And as I noted, there is a difference between minor and major error. All error is bad, but not all error separates you from Christ. Also, you cannot separate yourself from a church because they do not agree or abide with everything you have come to believe is true. You might be wrong?! Can you believe that?

These leavers think they will taint themselves, or be held guilty before God as compromisers, if they stay. They become regular leavers looking for the perfect church, one made in their image.

1. You can listen to the sermon series here: https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/altocrc/sermons/series/64095/

2. Again, many of those initial reformers were shoved out. They did not want to leave. And it wasn’t over a minor point of disagreement here and there. It was over how one became justified before God. It was over the mediatorial arrangement between God and men. It was over the ability of a person to be brought into God’s presence after death. There were other important issues as well. So orthodoxy became the question. Secondly, I would suggest a denomination’s internal Confessions might become a secondary layer of concern for whether a person feels they can or cannot stay in a church. Beyond these two considerations, however, it is important that people do not up-and-leave over unmet minor scruples. To do so is incredibly self-righteous. It makes the leaver the final authority of what the church should believe. Humility, in a church member, would recognize the possibility that he or she might be wrong on some things that even the Church has not put into black and white by creeds and confessions.