To Leave or not to leave

Some thoughts on whether to leave the church I've been at for 9 years

1. Up until recently the state of most of my relationships within the church could be described at best as zero

2. To keep my sanity I'm going to need some relationships.

This leaves 2 options

1 Leave the church, find a new church and start new relationships

Pros

Easier
Probably quicker

Cons

Purely taking me into account - none

2 Stay in the church and rebuild relationships that have crumbled

Pros

Physically speaking - none

Cons

Hard

Slow

Involves a lot of effort and awkward conversations

Now looking at this list you'd think that churches in my area would be either a) flinging the doors open and begging for me to come to their church or b) barring the doors and beseeching God that i walk past, but you'd be wrong. Perhaps its because I'm stubborn but I refuse to take what seems to be the easy path and i will endeavour to rebuild relationships that have failed.

So what problems am i going to come across

1. no matter how much i try relationships can not be rebuilt from one side, the people involved are going to have to put effort in too.

2. some may not want to and I'll need to learn to accept that, forgive them and move on.

3. It's possible that in the time the relationship has been down that we've grown apart and will never be able to recover to the level it once was.

4. ?? feel free to prepare me for others via the comments below.

So what other than that I'm stubborn can anyone reading this learn.

If you ever think about leaving the church you're in talk to people about it.

If that doesn't work talk to the leaders/elders about your issues and make sure there isn't an easy fix/misunderstanding colouring your view of the church

and most importantly

If any of your relationships are currently strained or slowly slipping into the mists of time, why not give that person a ring and arrange for a drink and take a little wine (or beer) for thy friendships sake

Posted via email from Chris's posterous

To Leave or not to leave