"In the past six years we’ve lived in four different cities and served at three different churches in various roles.... I can’t speak to the challenges of staying in a single place for a long period of time. I can, however, offer four lessons I’ve learned about staying from our going." - TGC
"Most pastors will not be pastoring growing churches. Admit it. We think success is a growing church and failure is a shrinking church. Sometimes those are true. More often not, I believe." - Thornton
"As we walked through the doors of various new churches, struck up conversations with believers, and sat under preaching from different teachers, we wrestled with the line between preference and belief, between well-meaning mediocrity and maturing faithfulness to the Word of God. No church is perfect, so we began to ask the question: What exactly should we be looking for?" - 9 Marks
"The household of faith that Paul talks about is the place where you are voluntarily around people that you don’t like or have let you down." - F&T
Looking for a new church can be an exciting process, but it can also be discouraging and even frustrating. Here are 10 questions that may help you work through that process—5 you should ask before you leave your current fellowship, and 5 you should ask before you arrive at the new one.
The grass is always greener on the other side. We can always find somewhere else we think we might rather be. But before we leave a fellowship, we need to prayerfully consider our true motivation. If we are motivated simply by self-interest, that is a good indicator that we may be missing the point entirely. If our priorities aren’t right (biblical), then no matter what church we are part of, we will be dissatisfied and maybe even frustrated. Often times fixing relationships is about fixing me, not the other person. If we simply consider how we can encourage one another to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24), and if we focus on being who we need to be in Christ, then perhaps God can use us to make a difference in the overall health of the local fellowship.
