It’s not surprising that some Christians become disillusioned and disappointed with a church, with its leaders and with the Christian friends who comprise it. Christian education and evangelism are not the only services a church should prioritize. When a person, or couple or family experiences a crisis, the church should respond. Rapid Christian response should be the ready position. Christian friends should jump to assist. Even when the presenting issue is awkward, distressing, immoral, angry, or hopeless, it is a God-assigned responsibility to love and to listen and to counsel and to shelter and to give aid. That’s not a too-tall expectation.
When those expectations are disappointed, it is reasonable for some people to lose confidence in church and friends. The church should never provide the reason that it becomes easier for a person in trouble to speak with non-church and non-Christian friends about the issue that is ripping up a life or relationship or family. That being stated, it must be re-emphasized that no local church is a perfect organism, not yet. A church begins with damaged people who experience forgiveness from God through faith in Christ. They aspire to holy living and to inspiring one another to faithfulness to God. This transformation is ongoing, sometimes inconsistent, occasionally interrupted, and then restarted. Give the church and its leadership a break. That’s the other reality. We live such private lives, a hurting person may hesitate to make a clear appeal. Does the church even know the desperation of a hurting person? Generally, church leaders will be open to hearing how and when a person feels the church missed the ball. They desire to fulfill the mission of Christ.
One more observation. When people, disappointed with church, begin to make choices that remove them from Christian friendships and gatherings, or when they go so far as to abandon faith, the church is not the reason. The church is not blameworthy for such choices. They are personal choices. That responsibility cannot be offloaded. And in all likelihood, there are other possible motivating causalities for this inclination to leave a church, or even to leave Christian influence behind. Perhaps employment pressures, health issues, anger issues, marital conflict, indebtedness have overwhelmed clear thinking. Perhaps healing a relational breach feels like an unscalable mountain for which no more energy remains. Perhaps surrender to a temptation has scarred the mind so it refuses to entertain an honest, non-secular, Christian response to a predicament. It is not what the bothered person wants to hear. Yet, it is precisely the time that the wounded should be surrounded by those who love with Christ’s love. The wounded need to know they are loved.
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