Quitting Church: Taking a Year off From Church (I'm not the Only One)

Taking time off church

In Quitting Church, the author quotes John Eldredge, founder of Ransomed Heart ministries in Colorado Springs  and author of several bestsellers on Christian masculinity, and he shares about how he took a year off from church.

Great minds think alike.

I found his quote amazingly accurate and profound

I don't think we've come to appreciate how utterly numbing most church experience is. Most people's church experience amounts to about an hour a week. It's the Sunday service. They are passive participants for the most part. They listen to a message, they hear some songs, some music, all in an attempt to sort of inspire and encourage. It is mind-numbing, most of it.

So yes, I took a year off of church. Just because I was so sick of pretending. I was faking it; that was the problem. I was faking a holiness I didn't have; I was faking an enthusiasm that frankly wasn't there, and I said, “I can't do that. It's dishonest. It's good to take time off church to find the real thing.”

Oh my God! That sums up a lot of what I'm discovering. I have no desire or enthusiasm to push the church agenda of buildings, pointless activities, and some sort of forced family bonding that is fake. I'm tapped out on trying to force it. I just can't do it anymore.

According to Quitting Church It turns out that John Eldredge  left the institutional church and never went back.

Eldredge points out church meets the needs of newer Christians but are failing to bring parishioners into a, “Genuine Encounter with God” and that's the one thing that should be happening. That's what we all keep saying when we're saying that something is missing. It's the power and presence of God. He's left the building and frankly as Eldredge puts it “our tolerance level is diminished  to the point where we just can't bring ourselves to go through the motions anymore.”

I was talking to a Christian who left church because she kept raising questions about how to talk about the difficult stuff of theology but the church she was attending wasn't interested in that. They wanted to focus on feel good stuff. She longs for a congregation but says most drive her crazy so she's done.

As I have discovered in this book Quitting Church, in my journey, and talking with others: it's not the backsliders that are leaving

John Eldredge puts it plainly

It's mature Christians who have opted out of Church.

This was reflected in a study Julia Duin cites in Quitting Church. the people that were the most dissatisfied with church and made the least difference were people who had been Christians longer. Perhaps we grow more cynical the more we see what goes on.

As I mentioned, once I decided to leave legalism and go to a more charismatic Pentecostal type of church that the first year or two was amazing. I loved all the new experiences but then about 3 years in I started recognizing the same behaviors that made me uncomfortable with legalism. True enough there was a big transition and pastoral change but it didn't have the same impact as it did when I first started going.

My experience seems to reflect what some pastors have noticed. One pastor said people are satisfied about 5 years and plateau

I attended the Charismatic for about 5 years before I began visiting other places

The pastor said the dissatisfaction really bottoms out in the 7th year

This year marks 7 year since formally leaving legalism.

So I'm lockstep in line with the research

This pastor seemed to get it because he said the reason you lose your best people when you don't release them into ministry because if you don't they will leave anyway for an organization outside your church (174)

Boom. That's what happened to me.

I just believe that most pastors and churches want to keep the status quo. They want the yes people who will never challenge them and be loyal because this may be their one charge  to be in charge and have a position. I rarely see churches promoting better people if it means disposing of someone that's not so good. The not so good person will follow the program and not challenge or call our leadership because they want to be important. It's all about selfish ambition and as the bible says

Where there is selfish ambition there is evil doing of every kind

Church is immature - John Eldredge

I think that's why the church is so ineffective today. When you allow immature people to run the show and cater to other immature people, it's guaranteed to be a mess.