Church

I had a whole post on me going to seminary school but I want to discuss about Churches and people moving from one to another. This topic has been on my mind for quite some time.

This topic is highly sensitive. As such, I do not want to upset others about this. This post is not a ranting post. Everyone's different and their believe of church is different. As such, I am not here enforcing my point of view on others. AKA read it at your own disgression and this is how I view church as it should be.

I was speaking with a brother and he mentioned me how a sister from his church is looking for another church.

At my church, I have experience people leaving my church for one reason or another. They might find our church don't serve their needs. There might be conflict. Others might be physical location that hinder them from coming.

This post is not to discuss the loop-hole on legit reason to move to another church. God knows our heart and knows our intent.

This is what I wrote back to my friend:

"The latter one puzzles me more. I jsut feel sometimes ppl jump churches like it is a club. Oh I don't like this club so I move on to the next. Diff ppl have diff point of view on this. But i feel that if my church is my community. And this is where God calls me to be. I will stick with it even if it is 'painful' at times. This is just how i see it.

What if the church doesn't serve my needs?

This is a key question...one that i have no answer...i am leaning towards that the church is my family.

Say your family have conflicts, do you simply pack up and move out? If I don't do that for my family, I shouldn't be doing that to my church (my Christian family). Maybe our life and culture makes it easy to call it quits. [added: I wonder back in the old days when a community is really a community (a town etc.). What Christians do when there is an disagreement? Do they pack their bag, strap it on their wagon and move to the next town?]

My fear is that some day I will get bitter about my church I just move to another church. This type of 'leaving' is diff than say God call me to serve another church or I don't agree with certain theology the church is teaching."

Perhaps I am still envisioning that a church is a community where people live lifes with each other (Acts 2). I see kids growing up with each other. Family encouraging each other. The elders teaching the young people about God and life. It is very difficult to do that when people are moving from one church to another within a few years (if they stay that long). Relationships take time to build. After all, it took God 25 years to bring me back to the flock. Do I expect I to know everything about brothers or sisters in a few years?

Interesting, when I think about a 'community' and how it should be, I start thinking what I can do to contribute to the church. Not what I should expect out of it.