25% of people in churches will have switched in the last 5 years. Changing churches is hard, but it’s meant to be.

• When is a good time for people to move churches (geography, kids and families)?
• What are some of realities of people switching?
• How do pastors pastor people doing a switch (both leaving and gaining)?
• What about people moving to a church plant?

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How to Walk into Church

Unmissable Church

301 How do I Help People come to Church? (Part 1) about Unmissable Church

302 How do I Help People come to Church? (Part 2) about Unmissable Church

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Love Your Church 

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TRANSCRIPT:

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

We have a real clarity about what we’re wanting to see in the next 10 years.And that’s 200 new churches launched across Australia and loads and loads of churches and their leadership teams being equipped to be healthy, evangelistic and multiplying.

If you’re thinking about that as a church, if you’re you’re wanting help, reach out.Head to reach australia.com dot AU now.Today we’re gonna be talking about people transitioning from church to church.So the NCLS calls that a Switcher.

The reality is that there’s lots of transfer growth.If we kind of look across the, the global population of Protestant churches across Australia, 26% of people in our churches will have switched or transferred in the last one to five years, which means a significant population of people have have been moving and, and changing churches.

Now the reality is for many people that happens because of changes in life circumstances.People moving, moving in those key transitions in life as they, as they have kids, as they, as they move from university to, to work, as they retire as well across Australia generally, you know, people move between sort of 10 to, you know, 10 to 13 years in terms of buying a house and, and moving.

So there’s a reality that people are always kind of moving and, and, and transitioning, but in church life, it’s, it’s a definite reality.You know, 25% of people are switching and transferring from churches.Now that is, that is kind of a reason, but there are a whole bunch of other reasons why people transfer as well.

So we’re going to be looking at this topic today.And just as Derek and I kind of reflected, we kind of both feel this is a bit of a hard 1.So hopefully as we as we dig into this, we’re going to help you guys think about what this means as you pastor and lead churches and and how to how to talk about it.

But for now, you press play on another episode of The One Thing Helping People transition churches.Today’s podcast is brought to you by Compassion Australia.There are currently 283,000,000 global neighbours facing food risks partnering with children in need from around the world.

Compassion seeks to release children from poverty in Jesus name.Head to compassion.com dot AU to find out more about sponsorship or how your church can be involved.And now back to the podcast.So, Derek, I guess the, the big question in this whole episode is when is it a good time to leave church?

We know in scripture that we’re called to, to meet regularly.We know that it’s it’s important part of our spiritual growth, our our church family.We know that experientially, we know that from from scripture gathering and gathering with God’s people is is vital.

But when’s it a good time to leave a?Church, That’s a great question, Scott.Look, I think my initial reaction to that is whenever, whenever it is, it should be hard.It should be hard.So if you’re, if you’re leaving a church, it should feel a little bit painful that points, it should feel, there should be a, a sense of, you know, a lack or yeah, a desire for, for you to be able to stay and stay connected, partly because of the nature of church.

And I think if, if it’s easy to go, if it’s easy to move on, something probably has gone wrong either in our engagement with church or something is wrong with our theological understanding of what church is.It’s not like moving football clubs.

It’s not like, you know, moving house.Moving house can be an emotional experience.And I think moving church should be possibly even a more emotional experience than that.So when’s a good time to to leave church?I’m not sure.Like we can, we can flesh that out.But I think my initial reaction to that question is whenever it is it, it should be a it should be a hard thing at some level, a slightly painful thing because of the nature of church, as we understand I’m.

Going to RIP the band aid off.I’m going to RIP the band aid off for maybe, you know, share a bit about my experience of, of leaving churches and when I’ve left churches, the ones that I can can think of.We, we moved from WA to Sydney as a kid.So we left at, at Prezi church in Leederville to a Prezi church in Ashfield.

My next, my next movement transition point was when we, when we left working with WIC as a family, moved to moved to Mosman.And so we moved from Ashfield presidents and Clements.I stayed, stayed with that all through my university or through my high school and then university.And then it was only when I went to Bible college then I kind of made the transition to, you know, to, to leave and it, and it was a positive leaving in the sense that I was leaving to go and become a student minister in a church at, at Marylands.

Now, what was interesting in that kind of 12 year period when I was at St Clement’s, we did move house.So we moved, you know, sort of 2020 minutes away, 30 minutes away, but I still continue to, you know, keep moving to my church.I can remember my brother, my brother moved, my brother moved to, you know, to a church closer to home.

And, and I can remember his reasons, part of his reasons where he was a tradie and, and, and the church in Mosman, there weren’t a lot of young tradies, but moving down to a church in Manly, there were a whole bunch of young tradies.So that was really helpful for him and his kind of spiritual walk had the three years through college and then again had kind of a a reason to leave, moved to, to go and start a job as a chaplain on the on the North Shore.

And then confronted with Natalie, my wife, not growing up in that area, but but me growing up in that area.So one of the churches we could have chosen to go to was my old home church.Another one of the churches we could have chosen to was a church where, where there was a board member, you know, in the, in the school to employ me.

And then there was AI guess a, a new church plan or a new church planning in, in church by the bridge.And so we decided to go for the new thing, you know, where we both weren’t kind of known, but I, you know, I can remember.That was a hard decision.And next transition point was when we moved away from Kiribili and moved to, you know, moved out of the area and then we moved to a church close by.

And I can remember leaving that church positively to go and join a church plan and help them grow a morning service.We had four kids at the time.But also negatively, I left that church because I had some issues with the, with the leadership and the direction of the church.

And so there was, I was able to kind of positively coat it.But but really one of the reasons was that I was, I was frustrated with our, with our lack of evangelistic zeal and our, our desire to kind of, you know, reach out to the local population.That was a hard, that was a hard one to leave.

That was a grief.Yeah.Yeah, yeah.And in some ways I hearing you say that.And so I’m current, I’m currently Vaughan and, and can and have been at Vine now for I think 7, seven or eight years.And and part of me at at points in time has, has asked the question, you know, should should we have left?

Partly, partly because we’ve got a very small youth group.We’ve been involved in a number of kind of church plants.So my kids have always been the oldest.They haven’t had a peer group around them.You know, would it have been better to go to a, you know, a larger church, a church where they’ve got a cohort of kids around them encouraging them?

And that continues to to, you know, to be a real wrestle.Yeah.So, so you’ve mentioned a few things in there that’s worth kind of highlighting 1 is like there’s a geographic leaving and that that’s obviously like you’re moving out of there.It’s very hard to be involved in a community at church where you’re you’re living more than probably 45 minutes away.

That’s really hard to actually be actively involved within that.So that might be 1 second one and the.Reality.The reality is just a, The reality is most people come within 15 minutes drive of church.So, you know, so if you think about a church and a population, most of the people come in at kind of 15 minute drivetime radius.

Absolutely no.I was working with the church the other day that has someone coming from an hour away, and that’s because of the particular type of church they are.But the reality is as they acknowledge, that person can’t really be involved in the community during the week.They can come on Sunday, but that’s it.So geography is one reason.

I suppose the second reason is there’s, there is the kids factor within here for families sometimes as well.And I think you, I, I want to be really careful with this one because we don’t want to be consumerists, but we also don’t want to sacrifice our kids on the altar of, of ministry, our, our ministry and desire to do that.

So we’re part of revitalization where we took out three kids as well and they really loved being there, but there were no kids their age at all.And so we did have to make a decision at some point as that church got up.