Changing Churches (Acts 2:42)

“And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching…” (Acts 2:42).

Your society has become increasingly transient.  Even within a given locale, there is movement concerning people’s professions, places of employment and even their church.  Years ago, children just joined their parents’ church and stayed there the remainder of their lives.  In present days, the Holy Spirit is moving in the hearts of His beloved to encourage them to become involved in those churches that will best facilitate their Christian maturity.  

One of the questions frequently asked by Christians desiring to grow in the Lord is: “How/When do I know the time has come for me to leave the church I am attending?”
Though the panoply of answers to this matter is varied, one of the telltale signs of needing to exodus the church you are attending is when you are placed in the position of “outsourcing” the biblical education you, your spouse or your children need.  When your church fails to provide the biblical diet appropriate to your advance in the Lord, you should have already left.

Leaving the church of your parents, your youth, your baptism, your marriage or of your friends is not an indictment of that church.  The Lord leads His people to go wherever He directs in order for them and their families to capture the fullness of His Spirit.  No existing visible church can minister to all people with the same efficacy.

When someone recognizes they are not receiving from their church the nourishment they need, why do they hesitate to leave?  The reasons are legion:

• I’m teaching Sunday school or youth at my church and must stay for them
• I sing in the choir
• I have talked with my children and they want to stay at the church
• I love my spouse and he/she is not where I am spiritually, so we need to stay
• I’m in a good Sunday school class where I know everyone
• I like the way it ministers to my felt needs
• I’m in a position of leadership; I’ve invested so much and the church needs me
• I’ve always gone to this church and my family and friends are here
• I love the architecture, church yard and grave yard (my family is buried here)
• I like the preacher and many others in leadership
• I appreciate the number of business associates and social friends at my church
• I like the missions emphasis, the music and the fellowship
• I get to evangelize lost people attending my church
• I can turn the church around so that it will offer more solid teaching
• I like the programs at my church

Do you notice the prominence of the perpendicular pronoun “I” in each response?  How would Christ respond to each of your feeble protests?  Are you going to church for you, your spouse and your children, or for Jesus?  Could your selfishness be imprisoning your entire family?

Perhaps you need to give up living in yesterday. Perhaps you need to surrender your opinions to the mind of Christ. Perhaps your worship of your church has supplanted your worship of Jesus to the extent that your church has become a stone of stumbling between you and Christ.  

You are charged with the responsibility to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Pe. 3:18).  Is your church aiding in that growth or is another church providing the more significant assist?  God says, “Lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).  Could your church be an encumbrance not because anything is wrong with your church, but because you need to be in another place at this season for you to capture all the Lord has for you?

Distinguish the riches of true Christianity from the container of your comfortable church.  If you are outsourcing your growth in Christ through His Word such that a marketplace Bible study, retreats, special services elsewhere, another preacher’s audios or another church through its teaching is providing your biblical meat, you need to change churches.  Now you must pray for the courage to do what you know you should have already done, “for whatever is not of faith is sin” (Ro. 14:23).