How to Leave a Church Well

This page is for a member thinking of leaving their congregation. Whether a church is a true church at all is answered in How to Tell a True Church From a False One. If a church has wounded you, go to When a Church Has Hurt You.

If someone in your church is abusing you or your children, or you are in danger, you need no waiting and no one’s permission to leave. Get safe first, and read If You Are Not Safe. Abuse and other crimes belong with the police, whoever has done them, and harm to a child must be reported to the police or child protective services. No elder, no church process, and no membership vow can require you to stay in danger.

Membership Is a Covenant

When you joined a church, you made promises before God and his people, among them to submit in the Lord to its elders. The elders in turn took on the charge of your soul.

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

Hebrews 13:17 (KJV)

God tells his people to consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrews 10:24-25). That is a body, not a club. Leaving is not a sin in itself, and sometimes it is a duty. But it is serious, and it should be done slowly and in the open.

Good and Bad Reasons to Leave

Reasons That Are Not Enough

1. Preferences and programs. The length of the sermon, the size of the church, the manner of the pastor, a busier calendar somewhere else. They are not reasons to break a covenant. Your soul is fed by the Word, the sacraments, and prayer, under elders who know you.
2. An offense you have not taken to the person. Go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone (Matthew 18:15). Leaving without a word is not peace. It is avoidance.
3. Avoiding discipline. Leaving does not end the matter. See If You Are Under Discipline.
4. Church-hopping. Paul warns of those who heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3). A believer who keeps moving is never known, corrected, or shepherded.

Reasons That Can Be Enough

1. The church has abandoned the gospel. Then you must leave. See What Makes a Church False.
2. Serious error the elders will not correct. False teaching on a weighty matter, worship God has not commanded, or open sin left undisciplined for years. Raise it first, as below. If nothing changes, you may go.
3. You cannot worship there in good conscience. God alone is Lord of the conscience (WCF 20.2), and whatsoever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14:23). If the church requires what you believe Scripture forbids, and patient talks with the elders have not settled it, you may go. Be sure it is conscience and not a preference dressed up as one.
4. A move or a providential call. A new job, a marriage, the care of a parent, or a call to help plant a church. Seek your elders’ counsel, and go with their blessing.

How to Leave Well

1. Pray, and do not hurry. Search me, O God, and know my heart (Psalm 139:23).
2. Talk with the elders first. They should hear it from you, not from others. Tell them plainly what troubles you, and give them time to answer.
3. Use the proper courts where it is safe. If someone has sinned against you, follow Christ’s order, alone, then with one or two witnesses, then to the church (Matthew 18:15-17). If the elders will not hear a serious matter, a Presbyterian church lets you bring it to the presbytery, as What to Do explains.
4. Ask for a letter of transfer. When Apollos went to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him (Acts 18:27). A letter keeps you under care and helps your new elders know you.
5. Guard your mouth on the way out. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth (Ephesians 4:29). The Larger Catechism counts backbiting and tale bearing as sins against the ninth commandment, but it also forbids undue silence in a just cause (Q&A 145). Real abuse should be told plainly to those who must know.
6. Keep the friendships you can. Do not make anyone choose sides. Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you (Ephesians 4:32).
7. Join a faithful church soon. Do not drift. A few weeks of rest can become years at home. See How to Find a Faithful Church.

If You Are Under Discipline

If your elders have admonished you or kept you from the Lord’s Table, leaving will not take you out from under it. Church censures are for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren (WCF 30.3). They are Christ’s medicine for your good. A faithful church will not receive you while the matter stands. The way out is repentance, not a new address. Go back, confess what is true, and let them restore you in the spirit of meekness (Galatians 6:1).

If you believe the discipline is unjust, appeal to the presbytery rather than walking away. And if you are being disciplined for reporting abuse or for fleeing danger, that is not Christ’s discipline. Get safe, and tell the presbytery or another faithful pastor.

When a Church Has Hurt You

Some of the deepest wounds come from God’s own people. David wrote, It was not an enemy that reproached me, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company (Psalm 55:12-14). Your grief is real, and you may pour it out to God as David did.

The temptation then is to give up on the church altogether. Please do not. God is against shepherds who harm his flock, and he says of his sheep, I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken (Ezekiel 34:16). He does that through faithful shepherds in faithful churches.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Ephesians 5:25-27 (KJV)

Paul pictures a bride washed and made ready, and what the picture shows is real. Christ loves his church, he died for her, and he is cleansing her by his Word. He will remove every spot you have seen. He has not given up on his church, or on you. If you are not sure you are his, start with the gospel. Then find a faithful church, and let its elders earn your trust over time.

This Week

1. If you are in danger, get safe today and call the police. Read If You Are Not Safe.
2. Write down why you want to leave. Hold each reason up to Scripture, and cross out the preferences.
3. Ask to meet with your pastor or an elder, and go privately to anyone who has sinned against you, if it is safe.
4. If you go, ask for a letter of transfer, and thank the elders for what was good.
5. Be in worship this Lord’s Day, in your own church or a faithful one you are visiting.
6. Pray by name for the church you are leaving.