Chapter Six — Reasons That Call for a Conversation (3 of 3)

A high grip means a church expects a great deal from its members. A low grip means it expects little, or has written little.

Neither one is the gospel. A strict church can hold a wrong reading firmly. A loose church can leave a wrong idea uncorrected for years.

The same guide asks two questions about you, and sets your answers beside how each church holds its people.

If your church's teaching and your own reading of Scripture disagreed on something that matters, would you follow the church's teaching, keep your view quietly, say so openly and stay if the church allowed it, or follow your own reading even if it meant leaving?

And if your leaders, after a fair process, told you to stop something they judged to be sin and you were not convinced, would you submit, submit only if shown from Scripture, listen but keep the final judgment between you and God, or leave?

There is no score on those answers. They are a mirror. They show how tightly you want to be held, and they let you ask why.

Is it that you want to be free from control? Or free from correction?

Those are not the same freedom.

How far does "setting yourself free" tend to go?

Most who leave the church they were raised in do not land in a looser church. Many land in no church at all.

Nothing counted here shows that strictness itself decides how children turn out. What shows, again and again, is the home: whether the faith was practiced there, and whether it was handed on with warmth. (The figures are at the back.)

The conviction of this book: the structure of a church is part of how Christ shepherds His flock.

"He himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry ... So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching" (Ephesians 4:11–12, 14, NET).

Paul told the elders at Ephesus to "shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son" (Acts 20:28, NET).

A church that teaches, corrects and guards is doing what the Gardener does: "He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit" (John 15:2, NET).

And the winds blow hard now. Every phone carries a thousand teachers.

The conviction of this book: churches have often been slow to answer those winds.

That is not a call for any church to change what it believes. It is a call not to treat its habits as if they were its doctrine.

Jesus said that "every expert in the law who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and old" (Matthew 13:52, NET).

The treasure does not change. The way it is brought out can.

How to have the conversation. Jesus gave a pattern for when a brother sins:

"If your brother sins, go and show him his fault when the two of you are alone. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others with you, so that at the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be established. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church."

— Matthew 18:15–17 (NET)

Not every reason for leaving is a sin someone committed. But the shape of this pattern serves most hard conversations in a church.

It does not serve abuse. If someone has abused you or a child, do not go to him alone, and do not go first. Chapter Two says what to do.

For everything else, go first to the person, alone. Go to regain your brother, not to win. If that fails, bring someone wise with you. Only then take it wider.

And notice the goal: "you have regained your brother." The point of the conversation is the brother.

Staying and speaking. Scripture records a hard conversation held in the open.

When Peter drew back from eating with Gentile believers at Antioch, Paul did not leave the church. He spoke: "I opposed him to his face, because he had clearly done wrong" (Galatians 2:11, NET).

He did it because the truth of the gospel was at stake. He did it in front of everyone because the wrong had been done in front of everyone.

Paul elsewhere names two women at Philippi, Euodia and Syntyche, who had fallen out, and asks a friend in the church to help them "agree in the Lord" (Philippians 4:2, NET). He did not tell one of them to find another church.

The conversation is not a step to get through on the way to leaving. It is often the answer.

You may find the difference is smaller than you feared. You may find you are welcome to hold it. You may find the church is willing to change. The one who leaves without speaking never finds out.

And a person leaving harm does not owe anyone this conversation.