Chapter One — The Answer Before the Question (2 of 2)

This book is written to slow you down.

It asks you to name your reason. Then it sets that reason beside what Scripture says about the church, and about the kind of reason it is.

Part Three sorts reasons by weight: the ones that are not yet reasons, the ones that call for a conversation, the ones that may justify leaving, and the ones that require it. Those names weigh kinds of reasons. They are not a verdict on yours.

Reasons for staying are tested too. A reason to stay can be borrowed as easily as a reason to go.

This book does not tell you what God wants for you. It sets before you what Scripture and the church's long wisdom say, and then it sends the question where it belongs: to prayer, to the Scriptures, and to the people who know you.

And it will not shame you, whichever way you are leaning.

A person who stays is not stuck. A person who goes is not a consumer. Both can be faithful, and both can be wrong. The difference is rarely in the decision itself. It is in how, and why, it is made.

There is a deeper staying than staying in a congregation, and it governs this one.

In John 6 a crowd of disciples heard a hard teaching and walked away. Jesus turned to the twelve:

"So Jesus said to the twelve, 'You don't want to go away too, do you?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.'"

— John 6:67–68 (NET)

Peter did not answer with an argument. He answered with a Person.

That is where this book stands. It is where you can stand, before you weigh anything at all. Whatever you decide about a church, do not decide anything about Him.

Remain in Him. That is the one staying no one can take from you.

Here is the outcome most to be feared at this door. It is not the wrong congregation. It is a slow drift, from church and then from prayer, until the question has been answered without ever being asked.

If that has already happened to you, you have not gone too far. The door is still open, and Chapter Ten has a word for you.

And if you stepped away from a church because it harmed you, that is not drifting from God. Chapter Eleven is for you.

Lord, to whom would we go? Let that be the floor under your feet.