Christians often get burned out or burned or hurt at churches. I myself have left three churches in my lifetime (one as a child of my parents, though not any less painful than the two I left as an adult). There are three paths that a burned, burned out or hurt Christian can choose to take:
- Give up
- Try again
- Learn & Grow
I think it is important to note that I have met people whom I believe have taken these paths or have taken them myself. I have actually, at one stage or another done all three, but when I say ‘give up I’m referring to a ‘final call’ type of give up, not just a ‘give up for a while’ type. Let me clarify the scenarios so as to not leave any confusion.
Give Up
The Give Up is when someone has gone to one or more churches, seen that others are unable to live what they’re being taught (or bring into the church – this can be dangerous, frankly), get burned out or hurt and then give up on Church all together. Often this is accompanied with a proclamation that Christianity is a farse or that a person can’t ‘do’ Christianity. However, that last statement is a generalization and should not be applied to all ‘give up’ people. In short instead of continuing on in pursuit of a better or healthy church or digging deeper into God’s word to find out what it says a better or healthy church is the person quits while they’re ahead because they can only see failure in the churches in their town, county, state, country and world. Granted there is a limitation to the number of miles you can walk, drive or fly to go to church and participate in the body of Christ. When we gave up going to church for a while in Texas we had driven 45 miles to try to find a church and come up short. Going to any of the churches’ meetings that far away outside of Sunday morning was nearly impossible due to traffic.
The problem often in many cases is that the burned out believer has not gone to God’s word. God’s word is not the final authority in their life and so they may have wrong expectations, not be able to discern what a strong (mature) believer looks like, or be able to see that we are not to abandon the fellowship of the believers. God’s word teaches us about grace, which is a significant element in what we look for in the church – sanctification by its very definition means that no church has arrived! We look for signs of health and pray for opportunities to help edify the body where the Lord opens doors.
Try Again
The Try Again person is one who says, “I’ve been burned or hurt, but there’s got to be a better church out there.” This person goes to another church hoping that it is better. This approach may lead people on a ‘steeple chase’ (reference: Steve Taylor song) where they skip from church to church hoping to find one ‘just right.’ This may also be the ‘Goldilocks’ approach where we find ones that make us too uncomfortable with either legalism or liberalism, music preferences, emotional feelings and general ‘felt needs’ problems. This approach, too, is not biblically based in many cases. The problem is that the person may not have gone to God’s word for deeper understanding of what the church is about, what a believer’s life is to be like, and what is important in a church for (growing) believers. It is possible for a person to be blessed to find a church where there is growth, but it is the exception and not the rule.
Learn & Grow
The learn and grow person gets hurt or burned and then goes to God’s word, boldly approaching the throne of God seeking God’s wisdom (James 1:5), prayerfully going to new churches after checking doctrinal statements ahead of time when possible [if your church does not have a clear and relatively broad doctrinal statement covering a wide variety of doctrines, ask those in charge for an update that clarifies your church’s positions, it may make or break the visitor’s search]. Understand that all sorts of things will come into your life for you to grow from. You are being conformed to the image of Christ and that’s a significant place to be. No church will be perfect, but you look for the strongest possible body and then get involved.
Conclusion
I did not understand any of these principles and I did not see their greater implication in my life. This doesn’t just fit into looking for a church, it applies to a broad array of areas: 1) diagnose the real problem 2) figure out how you should really respond 3) learn and grow. If you quit or repeat your folly you’ll just get frustrated.