{"id":1618,"date":"2012-01-17T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=1618"},"modified":"2012-04-19T11:22:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:22:34","slug":"ever_been_so_mad_you_felt_like_leaving_your_church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/17\/ever_been_so_mad_you_felt_like_leaving_your_church\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever Been So Mad You Felt Like Leaving Your Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past 24 months I\u2019ve switched my home cable provider three times.<\/p>\n

A grocery store opened closer to our house last year, so we\u2019ve switched to that store.<\/p>\n

I discovered that a different credit card would help me accumulate travel points quicker, so I switched to that card a few months ago.<\/p>\n

All of us are so accustomed to moving our business from one place to another that perhaps it\u2019s inevitable that we sometimes bring the same thinking to our local church.<\/p>\n

As a church elder, people will seek me out from time to time to have one of those \u201cI\u2019m thinking of leaving our church\u201d conversations. I had one this week.<\/p>\n

My response is always the same. I ask, \u201cAre you angry at the community<\/em> or the company<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"community\"The baffled look on their face prompts me to explain. \u201cLook, the church is really the community<\/em>; you know, it\u2019s you and me. It\u2019s all of us. It\u2019s all the \u2018one another\u2019 stuff in the New Testament.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe company<\/em> is different. That\u2019s my term for the staff, the budget, the facility, the utility bills, the governance structure; all the stuff the community<\/em> puts in place to help us along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I add, \u201cIt sounds to me like you\u2019re really mad at the company<\/em>, not the community.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

You see, almost always when someone is mad at \u201cthe church\u201d, they\u2019re really mad at the company<\/em>; that organized part that makes decisions, distributes resources, and so on.<\/p>\n

Once people see that distinction I ask, \u201cSo, if it\u2019s the company<\/em> you\u2019re mad at, why would you want to respond by punishing the community<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I take them right back to 1 Corinthians 12 and hit them with verse 18: \u201cGod has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it. Life in the local church can be a bumpy ride, and along the way you may indeed find yourself pretty upset at decisions, directions and policies.<\/p>\n

However you choose to respond, remember that when you\u2019re mad at the company, don\u2019t take it out on the community.<\/p>\n

Because \u201cGod has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

What do you do when you\u2019re mad at \u201cthe church\u201d? What is an appropriate way to respond when we\u2019re angry at church decisions?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the past 24 months I\u2019ve switched my home cable provider three times. A grocery store opened closer to our house last year, so we\u2019ve switched to that store. I discovered that a different credit card would help me accumulate travel points quicker, so I switched to that card a few months ago. All of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[19,983,35,776],"class_list":["post-1618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","tag-change","tag-community","tag-issues","tag-the-body"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1618"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1627,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions\/1627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}