Your question this week:
After four years of pastorate at the same church... some people are starting to leave.... I am amazed by this... the services are intense... nothing has really changed... is this common for people to just move on after a period of time? Having a hard time letting them go..
| Bryan: |
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I have been working on a seminar that is still incomplete called, “Ingress and Egress.” It deals with why and how people exit churches. Here is the basic formula. If they leave in the first three months, they simply didn’t fit in to that church. They liked some things, but over all, it just wasn’t for them. If they leave between six months to one year, they usually liked the church but did not make a friend. Church is not just a spiritual network, it is a social network for people’s lives. If they leave within one year to three years, it is because they usually didn’t get involved in a ministry or just never felt ownership in the church. They have to go from, “I attend this church” to “this is MY church.” If they stay with you for over three years, they usually leave for one of the following reasons:
1. They have experienced conflict
2. The church is not promoting a vision of any kind.
3. 3. They have become influenced by a group in another church and their ties are not stronger enough to keep them.
4. The church is in a maintenance mode and they have become bored.
There are some churches that experience denominational turn over. The people are somewhat hooked into many churches within the same denomination by virtue of friends and family and they simply shift churches from time to time for a change of pace.
I would not focus so much on the fact that people are leaving, but rather on the issues concerning why people are coming. Sometimes we get focused on church growth when we should take a good look at our church health. People leave “every church in the world.” Great churches and incredible pastors still lose people. There are no formulas for keeping everyone. However, a healthy church can replace loses and continue to be a strong community of faith. |
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