3 Reasons We Leave the Church in Search of God

If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.
–2 Chronicles 7:13-14

Depending on your history with her, Sunday morningsin church pews (folding chairs or cushiony movie seats) elicit a variety of emotions. Church buildings are a source of great joy to a multitude of people. Unfortunately, those walls also hold the memories of hurtful experiences for so many of us, which we are either able to move past, forgive, and forget. Or it lingers in our soul, festering and causing more damage.

The majority of my memories in the church are happy ones, like the time in high school someone complimented my outfit. I soared off the joyful fuel provided by one small statement. But even I can still pick out a few hurtful, or simply bad, experiences.

The church is filled with broken but redeemed people who, no matter how perfect they may appear, still battle against their old selves, their old sins. Being hurt by the church as a whole or by an individual within it in some way is almost unavoidable. We’re only human, after all. But is this the only reason many people find themselves searching for God outside the walls of the local church?

Some of the hurts experienced and wounds inflicted are deeper, more lasting, more devastating than others. For the people who are able, the issue is resolved. We move on. But for others moving on is simply not possible. Though we may find it in us to forgive, we may never forget the grievance, which proves awkward at social functions and church gatherings.

Going through painful or hurtful experiences in our church might push us to seek God elsewhere. In nature on our morning walk, in fellowship with our friends, in intentional solitude and silence. There are many reasons someone might look for alternative avenues to find God, rather than attending a Sunday morning service, but I’ve narrowed it down to three.

1. The Church Fails Us

As we bear witness to the many ways the church can help people, especially fellow members, during those harsh unforgiving seasons of life we remember those responses. We hold them close, knowing someday it’ll be our turn to need help. But sometimes the people we count on the most fall short, they fail us when we need them most.

If we’ve suddenly lost a job with no way to provide for our family. If our private family drama becomes humiliating public knowledge. If there is a death in the family or a birth of new life. If a small disagreement balloons into a divisive schism in the church. When we need help, wise counsel, encouragement, or a hot homecooked meal we first think of our church as a means to provide it. The meals we received for months after the birth of our son were lifesaving to us as we adjusted to having a newborn in the house. I don’t know how we would have managed if the hot meals never came. The homemade shepherd’s pie was Christ delivered straight to our doorstep.

In the seasons and situations, we most need compassion from the people around us, but when the church fails to acknowledge us or our hardship it can feel much more like turned up noses and judgement.

2. Hypocrisy of Church Leadership

I probably don’t have to list any examples for one or two to come to mind. This may not have hurt you personally, but hypocrisy among leadership can cause division in the church body. Division among the body leads to wounded people.

The big examples of hypocrisy are the most damaging to our relationship with the global church. Abuse of people and power creates the deepest wounds and the hardest scars. When these incidents are seemingly swept under the rug and left unacknowledged it can feel like rubbing salt into an already festering wound.

There are smaller scale examples of hypocrisy, which cause their own kind of damage. When a pastor exhorts his congregation to live simple, modest lives, while he himself lives in a million-dollar mansion. The humble and kind pastor you voted to lead the church becomes egotistical, listening only to himself. The governing body of church elders vote measures into existence which only benefit themselves or exclude specific groups of people from involvement in the church.

Many people experience hypocrisy among church leaders (not just from the pastor), leaving a bitter taste in their mouths and making them rethink their association to the church altogether.

3. Feeling Like an Outsider

No one wants to walk into a building and feel like they’re not wanted or welcome there, least of all in a church. This is the place where the weary are supposed to come to find rest, sanctuary and refuge in the storm of life; however, many only find the apathetic faces of people too busy in their own lives to notice the needs, literally, right in front of them. It’s hard to admit when your church is the one people avoid because it doesn’t feel welcoming.

After our interstate move from West Tennessee to Southwest Virginia, my husband and I began searching for a church home. Our main criterion for the search was how welcome we felt upon walking through the doors. Did people notice we were new? Did anyone say hello or ask us how we’d found out about them? Did anyone express any interest in us at all?

The best way to confirm the suspicions of curious, undecided onlookers of the gospel that the church is not what it claims to be—all joy and happy handshakes—is letting them slip in and out unnoticed on a Sunday morning. We don’t return to places which leave us feeling like outsiders.

Where is God?

If you’re reading this and you’ve experienced one or all of these hurtful experiences with a church, let me just say right here, I’m so sorry. I know it is never an easy decision to leave a church, even if you plan to find a new one.

Experiencing hurtful things at the hands of the church might lead you to search for a new one, but it might also lead someone to question if they need people, like the ones who hurt them in the church, in their life at all. If this is where you are today, I pray God will lead you somewhere where love is the guiding force behind each and every church leader.

Still for some it might be less a concern about leaving the church altogether and more about finding a clearer connection to God outside the church walls. A few months into the lockdown of 2020 Sunday no longer felt like the holy day it once was. The day I expected to encounter God, He became suddenly silent. I couldn’t go to church with our newborn, prompted me to begin searching for God in my everyday life.

As it is promised in His word, God did not disappoint the weary seeker. If you’ve found yourself in a season where God feels more distant than He’s ever been, remember His promise from above. If we will simply turn from the things which push us farther from God and seek Him, He will hear us. He will forgive us. He will save us.