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Should We Pursue Church Members Who Are Leaving the Church?
An interesting question is posted to Brad Powell, Pastor of Northridge Church, in the latest Outreach Magazine: "Our church has been in transition for about 15 months, and we are still slowly losing people. The major problem and disappointment comes when the people who leave are dishonest with me and minimize the magnitude of their disagreement. Yet, they malign me to other members on their way out. Would you advise pursuing these members and lay leaders who are leaving our church or indicating they're about to leave?"
Here is part of Brad’s answer:
I can’t tell you how common this problem is and how often I’ve experienced it in my own leadership. To both react and lead properly in this challenge, I’ve chosen a foundational principle that I build my life and leadership on: “I have to love people without needing them.”
In the early days of my ministry, I loved growth—which I translated as “success"—so I did whatever it took to keep every single person in our church. To me, each person represented growth and size. Anyone leaving seemed to represent failure. But I soon learned that this attitude was both unhealthy and destructive. It caused me to fight to keep people in the church who were undercutting the vision, biblical values and enthusiasm we needed to reach new people and grow. They also were stifling the credibility and influence I was building as a leader.
Realize this: People who are talking about leaving your church for negative reasons will not be positive or supportive. As a result, they will make it their goal to influence other people to think and act negatively. So, I don’t advise pursuing them or attempting to get them to stay. It won’t be positive for your church or for them. Instead, as pastors we must love them enough to let them go and find a church that lives up to their expectations. We must love them without needing them. When we need them, we compromise the good of the church to keep them.
I don’t have to tell you that trying to keep these people isn’t healthy or God-honoring leadership. The good shepherd protects the sheep from exposure to harmful and destructive elements, and this is the role we have as pastors. Nothing is more destructive than a wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing. So you must protect your church from people like this.
You can read more about how Brad handled this type of thing in the NorthRidge transition here...
Any thoughts?
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This post has been viewed 633 times and was added on July 17, 2007 by Todd Rhoades. Filed under: Leadership Issues Leadership Development Share this post with a friend right now! View reactions to this post at other blogs... You can really help us out by subscribing to our free RSS feed with your favorite feed reader, or here at Bloglines. Also, you can add us to your favorites at Technorati.
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My name is Todd Rhoades, the 'behind the scenes' guy here at MMI. I'm also on the team at Leadership Network (although that doesn't mean that they endorse everything I write here). In my past life, I was the developer of a website called ChurchStaffing.com. I hope you'll enjoy your time here and tell all your colleagues about MMI! 
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Posted by
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 8:46 AM
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Posted by Leonard
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 9:28 AM
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Posted by
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 9:44 AM
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Posted by Brian
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 12:03 PM
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 1:43 PM
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Posted by Derek
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 8:20 PM
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Posted by Jan
Thursday, July 19, 2007 at 9:01 AM
Post Your Comments:I was soundly criticized by one of the deacons for failing to beg people to stay with our congregation rather than moving on to another congregation.
When people had the nerve (most just leave) to come and tell me they were leaving for another church, I would genuinely rejoice with them that they had discovered where the Lord had assigned them. I would be genuine in my joy, not because I wanted to be sarcastic, but because they could be better served and be able to serve in that situation.
Not many things are more disgusting to a person than being chased when you do not wish to be chased.
I love the line… Love people without needing them. That is golden.
Been through this once as a pastor and now we are going through it again on a lesser scale. I think it is important to maintain focus on those who do not have biblical fellowship. If people want to leave fellowship for usually “taste and preference issues” Love them and let them leave. keep your focus on reaching and baptizing the lost. Let them get their 31 flavors experience and they will find emptiness at the end. Not that we are happy about that but you can’t change people.
Remember, every ounce of energy you spend on trying to keep people you already have, realize you are losing people that you don’t have yet…
The only thing I do is to ask them if someone caused them to leave, or if I have done so, just so I can ask for forgiveness to prevent anything from being between us (Matthew 5). I never beg anyone to stay. In fact, in a letter to one couple asking them the above, I said something like, “I’m not very good at chasing people down, and since you’re grown-ups, I don’t need to beg you to stay. I just want to make sure that there is nothing between us.”
Can’t remember exactly what I said, but that was the gist of it!
Brian
I really like this post as well. It’s time for pastors to really begin to talk about what “true fellowship” and “authentic community” looks like. So often we boil it down to whether or not people show up for church on Sundays. I think that true fellowship and authentic community involves giving and taking. It’s usually messy too. Right now we have a family who we are on the verge of losing because of marriage problems and alcohol abuse. You would think that most people would turn to those whom they are closest to for help. We have had several members and even leaders reach out to them but they are avoiding communicating with anyone from the church. They have a few “small grievances” with the church that to me are more or less excuses for not being in fellowship. As a pastor my heart longs for their marriage to be restored, their kids to have healing and their family to be back in fellowship with us. But what I am realizing is that I can’t force that to happen. I can’t force them to even acknowledge that they need help. It’s frustrating because as the pastor concerned people from our church come to me wanting me to fix all the problems in this family, even though their own sin is causing it. Jesus never forced people to follow Him. It seems to me that over and over He gave them the option but if they didn’t want to He moved on. Is this to cold? Is there more I should be doing?
I think if we are GOOD SHEPHERDS then would should beg sheep to stay...even if they bite us and other sheep in the process! (Just kidding) Are these begging-the-sheep-to-stay pastors crazy?!? I had to let a bunch of leaders (and givers) walk out of our church about three years ago. It was hard. I felt like I was in a row boat franticly trying to plug 17 holes in the bottom of the boat simulateously. We lost income, staff, lay leadership, servants in the church, home group leaders, even some founding families of the church. It was really hard, but three years later we have replace all that has been lost in terms of money and leaders. Now thing are really good. We have a biblically balanced mission and a wonderful vibe in the church.
I say: “Hold people with open hands.” If they want to leave let them leave...don’t hold them too tightly.
Derek
I don’t think we’ve ever begged members to stay, but we have pursued them to resolve conflict.
Unfortunately, most people who have a conflict don’t want resolution! But a nasty email, does not mean a nasty responding email back. We get up out of the chair and go knock on their door immediately.
I see too many pastors who don’t know how to do this. And I think it’s imperitive that we in ministry learn to go to our brother and sisters and not respond in kind.
We’ve also, in our small community, gone to other ministry leaders and warned them.
We’ve had some very dysfunctional and destructive individuals and we’ve seen it as important that they don’t jump back into leadership or at least the other church allows it with eyes wide open.
If church truly is 24/7 and family, then we must begin behaving like it’s an important loss when we lose a member. Grieving’s okay. But some family you just can’t live with.
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