All too often I see Christians hopping around from church to church. Most of the time, they give the usual reason of “God called me…” Who can argue with that? However, this muddled confusion of wandering sheep couldn’t be further from the heart of God. Instead, the underlying reason for most of this church shopping is that people were challenged with something they didn’t want to own up to at their old church, or they got in a fight with someone that they didn’t want to resolve. Because churches rely on your attendance for their dollars, they do everything they can to seduce individuals who are looking around for a new body. The effect on the way we do church is devastating. I would like to see Christians called back to committed relationships where life is given to the church rather than ‘me’ centered relationships where people suck life from the church.

The typical person leaving a church for the wrong reasons either has a problem with themselves or a problem with someone else. In the first case, they have been challenged or pressed on an issue in their life that they don’t want to give up or face; so they just leave. This is becoming increasingly rare as most churches in America are shying away from preaching any material that would actually confront an individual in an effort to make their congregation more comfortable.

Because of this lack of life altering, challenging message, the second case is becoming all too frequent. As church becomes another place for sinners to develop a social network, it is no surprise that deep and lasting conflicts are often developed between individuals within the church. Instead of working these relational difficulties out in a biblically sound way, people usually just give up. We need more churches who will refuse new members if they still have a conflict with someone at an old church.

If the problem of church shopping in America was limited to disgruntled individuals, I would not be writing this post. The fact is, however, that most Churches today actually cater to this kind of behavior. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult to actually bring new people to Christianity without the Spirit of God moving, most churches rely on grabbing members who are already ‘christians’ from other churches in order to keep up their farce of success. They depend upon numbers for dollars and will make you feel comfortable if you will sit in their pews.

If you have changed churches recently I’m not attacking you in this post. There are a ton of really good reasons to change churches. I myself went to a different church back in DC before I came to college and found a church in Lexington. I truly believe that God called me here and put me with the group of people I am with now. The thing I am trying to attack most in this post is the behavior of churches and church leadership that encourages non-committal church relationships.

America has lost sight of the fact that intimacy requires commitment. This is most obvious in the marriage realm. Somehow, the church thinks it is fine to marry an individual for the sixth time. Something is wrong with this picture. We teach our children that it is fine to go out and date around, testing the waters of the romance scene without really giving any commitment. This lack of understanding about commitment in relationships is also devastating in our understanding of church. We think that we can take one church out for a few dates, kiss them goodbye then pick the next church up at 8 o’clock the next night. What about the string of broken hearts and broken relationships left behind? Where is the commitment to be faithful to individuals for the long term? I feel like most people are simply ‘playing church’ like most kids ‘play house’. They like to act like they are married without really doing any of the work or knowing what it is about.

I would like to see more church leadership in this area. I would like to see more people step up and structure their churches in such a way that they hold people to a higher standard. I would like to see it clearly stated in church meetings and church literature that part of the vision of the church is to build lasting committed relationships that demonstrate the nature of the kingdom of God. For this to happen there must be a total shift in the way people view church. Most people that I see view church as a place where they can go and get their needs met. This is in total opposition to the life of Jesus Christ. The church is the place where one can go, die to themselves, and provide for others.