Skip to main content

It's Always Difficult

The privilege of planting and pastoring the same church for 11 years brings with it some hard good-byes. Literally, from the first month, January 2005, people have come, joined and left. This is just part of church life.

But, at the same time God has brought many new people in these 11 years, people committed to serve and worship at Grace Community Presbyterian Church, PCA. We always rejoice when we receive new members. This too, by God's grace, has been a wonderful part of church life.

We've lost valuable servants and members because their jobs have taken them out of Fort Worth. I don't like it, but am grateful that another church in another part of the country will be blessed with these former members.

But then there are the others who simply transfer their membership to another church in our area.

I've heard a whole host of reasons why these former members have decided to leave. Here are just a few:
1. The preaching is bad and getting worse.
2. The church doesn't have a paid youth pastor.
3. I need a church with people who are more my age.
4. The church didn't care for me or my family.
5. Too much "sin talk".
6. The church lacks community.
7. If someone I knew came to faith, I couldn't bring them to church because of their view of baptism.

When people leave our church for these reasons (and these are only 7 of the dozens of reasons I've heard in the last 11 years), it is always difficult. I think it hits my wife especially hard. But we, the leadership, need to be willing to hear these criticisms and address them if we believe them to be legitimate. Also, if possible, we take the opportunity to pastor the people who hold such views, if they don't leave first.

This blog post (not the one you're reading, but the one I'm linking to) has some helpful "decoding" advice for me, and all those who hear frustrated or disgruntled church members.  The decoding is overly general, but I hope you find it helpful when and if you hear such things about the church where you are a member. But most especially, if you are a disgruntled member thinking about leaving your church, does the "decoding" help you?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Getting the Most from Reading your Bible

 The start of the new year often means the start of a new Bible reading plan. For most of us, we start strong, fight through the "descendants" and difficult names. The familiarity of Exodus (thanks to  Cecil B. DeMille ) puts some winds in our reading sails.  Then we hit the rough waters of Leviticus. You get the idea... God reveals Himself to us in His Word. We want to see Him in His Triune glory there. Fighting against the difficulty of reading regularly, consistently, and prayerfully is one of the most important battles we face every day that God gives us.  Below, I am recommending three resources that may help you, not just stick with your Bible reading, but love God's Word more, even the difficult parts. My prayer is that one or two or all three of these resources will help you fight and win the battle so you can consistently read God's Word and God will consistently bless you through your personal Bible reading.  This is not a countdown, from best to least best.

A Wonderfully Diverse Uniformity

We ordained and installed 5 new officers at Grace Community Presbyterian Church on December 15, 2019. It has been my privilege to work with and walk alongside these 5 guys for almost a year, as our process in training and study is that long. We've done this five times now, in our relatively young and small church. Every time I am stunned by God's kindness in giving us men, gifted men, who are willing to shoulder the burden of ordained office. This time, something hit me for the first time. Among our officers, we have teachers, a school administrator, a pilot, a lawyer, a man involved in the insurance industry, a COO and CEO of a health provider in our area, a man who is supplier to car mechanics, an IT man for an oil company, an IT man for a multi-million dollar corporation, an artist and sign-maker, a man who does something with bonds, working with markets all over the world, a man who works in the construction industry, and a rules and regulations guy for BNSF Railr

David Powlison (1949-2019)

David Powlison died around 11am on Friday, June 7th, 2019. I wrote this about him a couple of years ago: He taught some of my counseling classes at WTS and is the Executive Director of CCEF. His ability to pastor the human heart and his relentless pursuit of the glory of Christ was on display in the classes he taught. We would often begin classes by singing a hymn together and Dr. Powlison would pull a nugget of truth from the hymn and riff for a few minutes. It was always encouraging to our faith. I will forever be grateful to Dr. Powlison and his wife Nan for how kind they were to me and my young family. He has left a treasure for us in what he has published. Without reservation, I recommend everything below: The Journal of Biblical Counseling . You can subscribe to the digital copy or a hard copy. He was the editor and past copies are available. Seeing with New Eyes . This is a "vision shaping book" that makes the case that the Bible is sufficient for all we e