After pastoring 22 years in the same church, I've seen some trends. One trend is almost every fall people feel led by God to leave the church. I've had more "led by God to leave" discussions in the fall than any other season. 1/11

Now maybe God just really likes to lead people to leave churches in the fall, but I have often suspected something else is happening. Sometimes, but not always, people seem to feel led to leave in the fall when they have been pretty disconnected from the church all summer. 2/11

Disconnection in the Summer leads to more disconnection and distance. The result is "I feel led by God to leave." Now there are a lot of reasons to leave churches, including the one I serve, but I do think there are other relational considerations going on in some decisions. 3/11

The best any church can do is provide an authentic space for people to connect with God and with each other. The more someone sees a congregation as a community full of people to love, serve and care about, the more they will form stronger bonds. 4/11

If they view church primarily as something they attend to experience a good service, they will grow tired of their worship experience. Ultimately, preaching & music become less important when we invest in loving people entrusted to our care. This requires an otherly focus. 5/11

I'm noticing people feeling called by the Lord to attend another church during this pandemic. Certainly God could be calling all these people to move on. However, there are probably other issues to consider as well. 6/11

This pandemic has revealed how much we understand church to be relationships and how much we expect it to be rituals. Rituals of how we gather, when we gather, where we gather and for what purpose; all these expectations are being challenged. 7/11

This pandemic is allowing values to rise to the surface. If someone values church more for the rituals, they are going to have a tough time with churches who have changed their rituals for Covid-19 considerations. 8/11

They are going to feel disconnected from the body if the rituals and their enjoyment of the rituals are the primary way they find meaning in church. Consequently, they will start looking elsewhere, to places that are doing the rituals they long for. 9/11

Compound this reality with political ideologies judging and accepting certain church expressions as righteous and we are ripe for a season of people feeling "led by God" to leave their church. 10/11

Anyway, let's be gracious to leaders facing the exodus of people while they themselves are struggling in their calling & let us be slow to attribute all our spiritual activity to the leading of God. Yes God leads people to leave churches, but so do other considerations. 11/11