Great point, Daniel!  I would be curious to know if those who conducted the study included a category for “disagreed with the vision of the church”, because that seems to me to be a dominant reason for people leaving, especially in growing churches.

This is a really important article and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Boy do I agree with you Daniel.  When a completely unchurched person shows up to church, they don’t come trying to get saved from hell after they die.  They came because of some felt need, one that they thought (hoped) going to church might address.  Then if what they find out is that all they need to do is “get saved,” why should they keep coming?

A few years back, just before Easter, we decided to do a telephone blitz and attempt to call all who had visited our church in the past 6 months.  At the time we had no formal system for follow-up with visitors.  Over the course of one week we contacted about 250 people.  About 30% were attending elsewhere and about 10% had become nominally connected to our church (only attending services).  About 10% said they weren’t interested.  What was shocking to us was that about 45% (sorry, lost 5% due to old age memory loss) said things like:
- oh yea, I liked your church but the kids started playing soccer on Sundays
- my job schedule changed
- my mom got sick

When life gets in the way, (as Daniel and Dave said) church is optional, something to do if there is time, certainly not something that an unchurched person has the habit of doing every week.  I tire of the very engaged church folks saying things like; “there are plenty of ways to connect if people only wanted to” or “we can’t make people connect.”

Granted, the authors are right when they say: [While some may use disenchantment issues as a smokescreen to hide behind, the large percent of the formerly churched who struggle with disenchantment deserve some honest attention].

To me, the comments I mentioned above betray an attitude of inward focus and unwillingness to wear the lenses of those who don’t know anything about how to “do church.” In fact, the stat I often quote (and for which I have no idea of the source but believe it to be true) is that only 7% of people will self engage.  Yet we fill our bulletins and lobbies and websites with “information” telling these 7% how to connect and ignore the 93% who need someone to help them.  This stat affirms the author’s comment:

[Yet the study suggested for more discipleship and commitment from church attendants ALONG WITH A GREATER SHOW OF CARE (emphasis added). The study found that 16 percent of those who left the church said nobody contacted them after they left and another 16 percent said nobody seemed to care that they left.]

It is the “connected” who need to take responsibility for helping the unconnected find their way into kingdom community which is really where the transformation happens, but people don’t know that when they first show up. 

[In the end, it’s important for church leaders to not only assume responsibility for those who seek to join their churches, but also for those who attempt to leave,” said Waggoner. “Be vigilant at both the front door and the back door of the church.]

I would add, responsibility at the front door is much more than one phone call or visit offering a list of options from which people can choose.  It is relational and it continues until the person really connects to the community or decides not to.

Wendi

“only 7% of people will self engage.”

Thanks Wendi. I think this is the crux of the matter. Look at the people described at the end of Acts 2. They were engaged. Of course they didn’t go to church they WERE the church. It’s harder not to come if you’re involved! And it’s easier to WANT to come if you’re involved. We need to find better ways of getting the 93% involved!

I serve in an area where there is a high turnover - a military base nearby.  So we see people come and go.  We also have a lot of folks who are used to change.  They change jobs, locations, and even spouses.  Getting busy with life is a major reason why people locally stop attending church.  The chuch I serve has an active deacon ministry that follows up after Sunday when folks are absent.  We occasionaly have those who become dissatisfied with the church or pastor or some other group within.  Human nature being what it is, this happens.  Reconciliation may or may not bring them back depending upon the level of discontent.  I’ve also noted that some people just want to quit.  Usually this is a response to having served long and hard in a church and then...stepping away.  Maybe it is rooted in “easy believism” or maybe the person is not truthful to those in the church contacting them. 

I like the comments about vision.  Vision seems to drive the leadership more than the members.  Many members just want to be ministered to, to be prayed for, to come for worship, to have fellowship.

Rick, I guess I should have qualified my answer to specify those people in the leadership who leave.  I have personally seen the transition from an inward-focused medium-sized church, to an outward-focused large church, and the resulting shake-up in the mind sets of the leadership.  Even those who say that they are all about reaching the lost suddenly get uncomfortable when their church transforms from one where “everybody knows your name” to one of hundreds of “strangers”.  (I know, because I’ve been there).  This can result in a “big leader” becoming a “small leader,” and as one’s identify shifts, so does one’s connection to the church.  But Rick and Dan, I absolutely agree that most of the membership does not experience this, though it saddens me that so many do not take ownership of the vision, no matter how many ways it is communicated and experienced.

Bernie writes

““Church” needs to transistion from being a performance to a shared experience with the congregation, like the early church in Acts.  And yes, it will be impossible for mega-churches, who revolve around the performance aspect and “star power.””

YES, it needs to be a shared LIFE, even more than an experience, which is I’m sure what you meant by experience. I agree. It will NOT, I think, be impossible for churches over 2000. Impossible for churches that revolve around “star power”? Yes, but that is NOT all big churches by any stretch. Check out the article in REV magazine this month about Menlo Park. They shut down their church for a weekend and went into the community. They didn’t GO to church… They ARE the church…

In short, don’t forget that not all “mega-churches” are star-driven…

Regarding the vision thing as it relates to the general population in the church . . .

I agree with Rick and Nora, that it is primarily leaders who think about this and want to be able to get on board with a vision that makes sense to them.  Agreed, it is leadership types are the ones who ask vision questions.  However, I do think that an absence of vision plays into why people stay and also why they go.

If vision works like it should, it is larger than life, it grabs people, it lights a fire in them, moves them out of their inward focus and joins them to kingdom purposes.  Without it, people often remain stuck in consumer mode; “how is this church helping me, meeting my needs.” People with this mindset find it easy to move out the back door to find a place that they like better. 

On the other hand, people who are caught up in the vision (even if they don’t realize it), believe they are needed, that their participation is making a difference in the lives of others.  The idea of moving on to greener pastures doesn’t occur to them, because their reason for being at the church has nothing to do with the greenness of the pasture.

When I suggested that we do a better job of helping the 93% who don’t self-engage, my intent is that we help them engage in what matters - - - and that is all about vision.  If all we do to help people engage is get them into a small group or SS class, it is good, but it is still inward focused.  The sooner we can help people become part of making a difference with their lives, even before the fully understand what faith in Jesus is all about, the more captivating the connection. 

Wendi

Let’s get off the mega-church thing.  We all already know your feelings, Bernie.

Thanks,

Todd

I’m thinking that the Apostle Peter could be viewed as a “star performer,” when he preached that compelling post-Pentecost sermon which launched the first mega-church.  Or how about Stephen, who had such star power that it cost him his life?

If a guy is a great communicator he’ll draw a crowd.  That’s not his fault.  In fact, if it’s his gift and he doesn’t use it to communicate a kingdom message . . . well that is another problem.  Using his gift doesn’t mean that the church revolves around him.

There are numerous things that cause people to leave a church, and we’ve discussed several here.  I can’t see how having a pastor who is a great communicator or a great worship team is one of those.

Wendi

John,

You’re new, I’m guessing. WELCOME!

However… a megachurch, by the definition that I’ve heard most often, is any church over 2000 in average weekly attendance. Well… the church grew to 3000 in Jerusalem in one day in Acts 2. I suspect you mean a “star-driven” mega-church specifically. I think less of them are star-driven than many think.

Also, the idea of not attending a church based on its programs is good, but many people came to Jesus and to the early church based on “what was in it for them"… that being eternal life. I think ministering to people’s “felt needs” is biblical. Whether that’s hunger or whatever… Jesus fed the 4000 and the 5000 and ministered to felt needs, but not only to felt needs.

“What if God told a pastor that a member needed to be assigned to serve in the food pantry for a year- and then that person left the church?” I don’t know that I find scriptural justification for a pastor telling someone where they can and will serve. Dorcas serves in her area of gifting, so does Paul, and even Stephen. He’s ordained a deacon, which is NOT necessarily a job to “evangelize”, but because that’s his gifting, that’s what he does. It costs him his life, but he still follows his gifting and his passion.

Hey John . . . I echo Peter’s welcome. 

You said: [Those in the pews are the resources that leaders need to get the job done.  Jesus developed his disciples to get a job done.  He held them greatly accountable.]

I think I disagree with this premise (if I’m understanding you correctly).  When leaders view people as resources, they tend to use people rather than equip them.  Jesus certainly did develop He disciples, but if He picked out particular jobs for them it was probably because He knew them well enough to understand how they’d been hard wired for ministry.  This didn’t in any way take away from the mission, but rather enabled them to accomplish it.

You use the example of Moses and his whiney and sometimes disobedient people. But when he called those very same people to build the tabernacle, only those who were willing contributed to the project, and each of them according to their gifts (Ex 35-36).  In fact, in these passages, five times the scripture says “those who were willing” and five times “according to their abilities.” The passages elaborates on the unique gifts of Bezalel and Oholiab.  Of course, Moses gave them their assignment, but he did so according to unique gifts God had given them.  That doesn’t mean that people didn’t serve out of obedience, they did.  Nor does it mean Moses didn’t hold them accountable, he did.  But it does mean that he didn’t constrain them, nor do I read any sense that he saw the people as resources to get the tabernacle built.  And in the end, Moses had to turn people away.  When people are willing (because they have been rightly challenged), and enabled to serve doing things that they love doing and are good at, there is more than enough resource.

And BTW . . . I think this is the kind of environment which keeps the back door from swinging freely.

What do you think?

Wendi

John said:
“What if God told a pastor that a member needed to be assigned to serve in the food pantry for a year- and then that person left the church?  The pastor would have to disregard God because of an AWOL person. “
John this is a very dangerous assumption to make with regard to the nature of God’s leading a pastor, and I would suggest that it is absolutely presumptuous and a very likely source of confusion for the pastor, any pastor, to suggest that God would “tell them” any such thing. God has spoken and all He had to say is complete and finished and held within the whole of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. When anyone from a pastor to a congregant has the boldness to say that “God told me”......anything - they have added to the revelation of God. How many times have you had someone say to you something God told them only to see it not fulfilled or not come to fruition? Is God the author of confusion? Are His thoughts our thoughts or His ways our ways? No is the answer to all three of the previous questions.Here is something to consider in line with the topic of this thread - why do people leave your church? When they realize that the pastor is not speaking the truth which can be revealed to them through unfulfilled “prophesy”, unrealized expectations, unmet promises, etc… What will keep someone coming to your church and growing in the faith?
As I beheld at Grace Community Church (John MacArthur’s church) last week at their 50th Anniversary Celebration service - it comes from preaching the word of God as it was written to convey God as He truly is that one might be of a contrite spirit and tremble at His word. Isaiah 66:1-2. All the buildings, the campuses, the stuff that man builds up to “glorify God” - are meaningless to the Creator of the heavens and the earth - but when one beholds the wonderful news conveyed in a comprehensive and accurately presented gospel message it truly is the power of God to salvation. When a heart is truly converted in an encounter with the Creator, Almighty God, and beholds His presence weekly through the preaching of His word and the genuine worship of Him - then what desire arises to steer them away from the fellowship of believers?I would suggest that there would be no desire to leave if that were truly the case.
Jesus said in Matt 15:8, 9, “These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”
May His words be examined and understood by the hearts of all men and women that they may glorify God through humility, a contrite heart and tremble at His word.