Losing a church member to another church

debodun

debodun

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Location
way upstate in New York, USA
The pastor is really uptight about this. This woman got engaged and her fiancé wants her to start attending his church. She was the kid's Sunday school teacher. Our service this Sunday is going to be a tribute to this person. I don't know if the pastor thinks this will change her mind and I can't see dedicating a whole service to one person - seems kind of patronizing to me. I think people can choose what they want to do, but with such a small congregation, I can understand pastor's concern, also. When this church started we were getting almost 100 people out for a service, now if 20 show up, that a good turnout.
 
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Rosemarie said:
To have one person leave might be excusable...to have a large number leave suggests a problem with the pastor.
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the church I attend is small. A number of people have left over the years because of a perceived problem with the pastor. The joke is on them, if the new church has people they will run into the same problems eventually. Leaving a church solves nothing and should be a last resort.
 
If someone feels uncomfortable in a particular church, they are perfectly at liberty to try a different one. What would concern me in the case mentioned, is why the man wanted his girlfriend to change to his church. I hope she is not going to allow herself to be dictated to by him.
 
Rosemarie said:
If someone feels uncomfortable in a particular church, they are perfectly at liberty to try a different one. What would concern me in the case mentioned, is why the man wanted his girlfriend to change to his church. I hope she is not going to allow herself to be dictated to by him.
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Yup, she is 🤣
 
I can't post what I just wrote.

I am sorry that your church has such a poor turnout. This is the way life is today.
 
In reality, how many engaged couples, and that's what they are, go to different churches?

In my, almost 20 year marriage, I do what my wife requests and visa-versa. If the guy asks her to go to his church, there shouldn't be any kind of problem with that. If she says "no way", should they even be engaged, let alone planning on marriage.

Marriage takes both! Each asking/telling the other what to do and what not to do.
 
I don't see anything wrong with showing appreciation and giving thanks for the service that the woman has given to the church as a Sunday school teacher.

It's also a chance for the paster to stress the need for all members of the church to do more than fidget in their seats and check their phones for an hour every Sunday.
 
debodun said:
I think maybe COVID has a lot to do with the poor attendance lately. We didn't even have services from March until July - maybe some people got "out of the habit" of attending. We just started having the weekday Bible study again.
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In this area churches can have live, in-person services as long as the chairs are "socially distanced", which limits the number in attendance. Some people have come to prefer staying at home, and catching the church's online service.
 
debodun said:
I think maybe COVID has a lot to do with the poor attendance lately. We didn't even have services from March until July - maybe some people got "out of the habit" of attending. We just started having the weekday Bible study again.
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I'm sure Covid has much to do with it. I'm not a regular churchgoer, but recently felt an urge to go to the church of my youth just for peace and quiet and a moment of prayer but we can no longer do that here. In my state you can't just pop into a church and say a prayer anymore. As for Sunday services, if the lack of cars parked outside the church is any indication, I'd say very few people are attending. I'm sure its because of the virus and the tight restrictions in place in an effort to control it.
 
As a Christian I go where God leads me. At times I've felt directed to move to another church (or job, or location) when I really, really didn't want to make the change, but God is the master planner and my role is to prayerfully, obediently go where I'm sent.

Our church currently holds both in-person and on-line services. Since March, both attendance and membership have increased significantly.
 
At one time I attended church regularly.

Now I don't go at all. Friends ask me why I left. I don't have an answer. I really don't know why.

I do think it was because they made too many changes to the ritual I was used to.

I always looked forward to a good sermon otherwise I was bored to death.
 
Even before the Covid most of the mainstream denominations were dwindling in numbers. My local Lutheran church was down to about thirty people per week so we sold our church and joined with the local Episcopalian church which was in the same boat. We share a pastor now. It's sad how this is happening.

Camper6 said:
I do think it was because they made too many changes to the ritual I was used to.
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I'm with you on that. Some years ago I changed from UMC to Lutheran because my Methodist church had given up ever having communion and most services were all about the praise band, it was more like going to a concert than worship.
 
Butterfly said:
Maybe the couple just wanted to go to the same church, as most married churchgoers do, and they decided they liked his better.
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My wife and I did exactly that. When we became engaged we started attending her church, and were married there, We later switched to another church that had a very active Sunday School for our 4 kids. Looking back, I still see no problem. Wherever you attend or if one doesn't attend at all, is a choice usually made by a husband and wife together.
 
Maybe the tribute is because she was the kids' Sunday School teacher. The pastor wanted to express appreciation for all the work she had put in?

If not for that, I'd say this sounds a bit odd. Having a tribute for somebody who was very active in the church and then has to drop out because they are moving to another location - well, that sounds like a nice thing to do. But because she is switching to another church? Kind of in bad taste to make a public event out of it, IMO.
 
Camper6 said:
At one time I attended church regularly.

Now I don't go at all. Friends ask me why I left. I don't have an answer. I really don't know why.

I do think it was because they made too many changes to the ritual I was used to.

I always looked forward to a good sermon otherwise I was bored to death.
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Our previous Pastor was good at story telling. Occasionally, he would take a story out of the Bible and then compare it to a story in real life. He was really good at doing that and it made the story in the Bible more understandable.
 
debodun said:
I believe that is the burden of the pastor's concern.
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I think it is inappropriate to make assumptions that the man is forcing her to change churches, and I think it belittles the lady to make such an assumptions. The lady presumably has free will and has the right to exercise it in such a way as she sees fit.

I think it more likely that the pastor is upset because when she leaves he will have to find someone else to do the Sunday school and other stuff she does. Perhaps the whole "tribute" hullabaloo is an attempt to guilt her into staying.
 
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