29/09/2025
Are you a minister of the Gospel, the following information might be helpful. please go through and share you experience or inputs. God bless you.
* WHEN SOMEONE LEAVES YOUR CHURCH
I think it is hard for all pastors when someone they care about leaves their church. Sometimes we are glad to see a person who causes problems or gossips and criticizes leave, but other than that it can be painful. God put the desire to shepherd these people into our heart and when they reject our shepherding it can be discouraging. Some leave for good reasons like moving locations or to have a new ministry in a different place, but when they leave because of dissatisfaction or dislike of something we are doing that can be very hard. I know. As a pastor you are very close to all your people and one leaving has a big impact on the whole group. Why are they going? What do they see wrong with our church or me? What should I have done to keep them here? Does this mean others will soon leave as well? Is there something that is wrong with our church? What will happen to our church? When someone leaves, for whatever reason, it can leave a hole in our heart and our church. Especially in a small church where everyone knows everyone else and every person is needed, it can be hard on everyone.
One of the most difficult adjustments for any pastor is when another, bigger, church recruited them and told them how much better things will be for them at their church. The grass always seems greener. Even if the other church hasn’t reached out and invited them, the excitement of being the new person at church whom everyone wants to meet can be very tempting. Switching churches can be much easier than working our relationships or problems in a current church.
Our church attracts people who were struggling with big problems or difficulties in their lives. They found love, acceptance and godly counsel among us (John 13:34). But often, as they grew through the difficult times, they want to leave the memory of the problems. I as their pastor, and sometimes other people in the church, know what they had been through. Perhaps because of embarrassment, or just wanting a clean start, they go to another church. After spending much time helping them heal as a shepherd, discipline and training them and incorporating them into the life and work of the church, it hurts to have them suddenly go serve in another place when they are still needed here.
Satan is sometimes behind these things, for many times the people who leave drop out of church entirely. Or later I you will hear they left their new church for yet another church – never satisfied and never putting down roots. It gets worse when the person leaving criticizes you as a pastor or the church to others, blaming others for their actions. some of these people contacts you sometimes later for counsel and help they have a need in their lives. You help them, but it’s never easy. Yet Jesus does it all the time with us!
As a pastor you have to learn how to not take someone leaving as personal rejection but instead realize their actions are between them and God. If God was leading them elsewhere, then He had a good reason, but if He wasn’t then they will suffer the consequences of their disobedience. It’s hard to find comfort in that, though, especially when we have come to love and care about the person. It’s in those ways and situations that God uses the ministry to stretch us and our faith, making us more like Jesus. Remember, God doesn’t need us to run His church. He uses the church to mature us as He uses us to mature the people in the church. The only one who’s opinion we are to care about is God’s. If everyone likes what we do but God, we ae a failure. If no one likes it but God, we are a success!
HOW TO HEAL FROM CHURCH HURT
1. You can’t heal if you suppress or hide your hurt. Share how you feel with your wife or another pastor – not someone in your church. Ask them to pray for you regularly.
2. Don’t be discouraged, that’s what Satan wants. Keep your eyes on Jesus, not people (2 Corinthians 4:1-6). Remember your ministry is not a performance, it is faithfully obeying God. It is His ministry, His church. He gets all the credit for whatever happens.
3. Remember the people who remain faithful, who still need and follow you.
4. Reach out to the one who has left to see what you can learn from them. Don’t be defensive or argumentative, just listen. Ask God to show you what you can learn from them. Part in peace, agreeing to disagree but as brothers and sisters in Jesus who will spend eternity together in heaven.
If we love like Jesus loved, it will always hurt to have someone leave our church. Imagine how it hurts God when people leave Him? Imagine His hurt? Yet follow His example in remaining faithful to the ones who stay, as God also does.
Act 20:28 “Be on guard for yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.”
1 Peter 5:2 “Shepherd God’s flock among you, not overseeing out of compulsion, but willingly as God would have you.”
# when someone leaves your church
