Biblical reasons to leave a church

So, you’ve thought about leaving your church, haven’t you?

As the Barna group has chronicled, as many as 42% of pastors have given real, serious consideration to leaving full-time ministry in the past year.

And while the stress of the job during COVID may have been part of that, it’s certainly not enough to explain the percentage of pastors that are considering leaving.

Thinking of leaving your current job is a fairly normal phenomenon.

And yet, leaving ministry has more serious implications than leaving a regular job.

Here’s the dilemma.

Leave too early, and you’ll never effect change. Stay too long, though, and similarly, the change the congregation needs to thrive won’t happen.

While statistics vary, most pastors stay 3 to 7 years in one place before moving on.

Scripture on leaving a church

In my view, that’s barely enough time to effect any change. And when pastors leave the church too quickly, they never bring about transformation.

I am biased toward staying in the same church for a long time. I served in the same community with the same group of people for 20 years.

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