–the pastor twisted scriptures so that it fit the point he was trying to make?
–several minutes of the worship service was used for movie clips?
–the pastor took down all the props and decorations (after you and others worked for hours) for the Christmas drama because he thought they didn’t look professional enough?
–your Sunday School teacher used the latest christian best-seller rather than the Bible as the basis for the lessons?
–at every small group get-together the women talked about sex?
–when the children’s leader resigned, the pastor thought it was a bad idea for the parents to have a meeting to discuss the direction of the children’s ministry because “that would show a lack of leadership, and I’m the leader”?
–the pastor did not approve of having children in the worship services?
–when you discussed these important issues with the pastor he effectively told you, “You’re free to leave”?
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Leslie Wiggins 
6 responses to “Would you leave your church if…”
Yes.
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Seriously, other than the Christmas drama thing, I think the cumulative effect of all those issues rather than the individual problems themselves was what led us to our decision. I could see almost every one of the points from both sides, but the Christmas thing really dumbfounded me. It does to this day. When you get right down to it though, I’ll bet that most of the other individual occurrences are generally pretty common in churches.
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big fat YES
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Yikes, most definitely. We had to leave a church about three years ago, due to a manipulative and spiritually abusive pastor. We’re at a church now after moving and then being without one for almost a year, but aren’t really happy there either…
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I am sorry to hear that you aren’t happy where you are now. That is one thing I get concerned about from time to time. I am afraid of making a decision about a place and then learning some important info after it’s too late. Our story is kind of long, but the short version is that we were working with a small group to plant a church. After two years, we decided we couldn’t do it. We visited a couple of places and decided on one. We were too hasty. We did our best to make a difference, but realized, in the end, that we just had to get out–and fast!We’ve been searching for one year. What helped you get through the time it took to find the right place?
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Well, it was just really, really hard. We hate “church shopping” 🙂 Eventually we met a pastor we liked and had him over one evening for a good talk. We shopped a little more and then decided we would rather go somewhere than nowhere. We were getting pretty desperate for some Christian friends.It’s a nice church, but we don’t really feel like we’re “connecting” with anyone – haven’t really made any real friends so far. It’s also difficult because I would say our pastor is Armenian, and Hubby and I are Calvinists. So, sometimes things come out in his teaching that we strongly disagree with.I did a post a couple weeks ago called “Thoughts and Convictions” that explains more of our history and struggle right now. You might find it interesting 🙂
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