Kicked Out of Church
Have you ever gotten your feelings hurt at church? I know that we are the church and that church is not some place we go, but for the purpose of this discussion I am asking the question. I’m going to go ahead and answer the question for you because we both know the answer is yes. The only possibility for you to say no would be if you were so infrequent to the assemblies that church really has become for you a place you go and not who you are. If that is the case you really don’t have a relationship with other Christians in the family of God, and it would be somewhat unjustified for you to have hurt feelings.
When I first thought about this article I wanted to entitle it, “The Blessings of Losing Your Church Pew.” I was going to share something that happened recently to me on a Sunday morning. We have families visiting with us and the church is in constant growth when it comes to new people. A few Sundays ago, the place where my family usually sits was occupied by one of these new families. As creatures of habit, if someone was to take the place that we usually sat we could be very quick to think that somehow we had been “kicked out” of our place. I have been on a soapbox for years about how there is no assigned seating in the church building and that the members should give up their seats for visitors and new members with gladness. The very idea of someone getting upset about their seat being taken makes me want to scream! And yet, for a brief second, and thankfully I can say it was very brief, I thought to myself, “Well, our seat is taken, we are going to have to find someplace else to go.”
This whole scenario (which is really a nonevent) led me to thinking about when people no longer feel a part of the church. What if there was a genuine reason for someone to be hurt? Or what if someone who was once a part of the church no longer felt loved, important, or useful? Being the preacher I can never say I have had this experience. But it is different for me. I am employed by the church. I am always up front. In fact, if anything preachers feel the opposite. They get worn out with mattering too much and would like to let somebody else take the lead for a while.
Over the years I have visited with or talked to people who were no longer coming to services to find that they stopped coming because someone offended them or because they felt that they didn’t belong or that nobody cared. Sometimes knowing the individual cases I would chalk up these feelings to that person being very quiet and disengaged, like someone who typically was the last to arrive and the first to leave and who didn’t ever talk to anyone. Maybe they never got involved in the work of the church. Perhaps they only came just for the worship and nothing else.
But there have been other times where I knew that the person who felt kicked out had really been mistreated. Perhaps someone had said something carelessly. Or maybe they had been disciplined for doing something that was merely just a matter of opinion. Another possibility might be that they didn’t like me as the preacher and they wanted to listen to somebody else. Maybe they didn’t like the eldership or the way things were being done. And it is even possible that a member or the eldership had come to this person and told them they were committing a sin and needed to repent and this offended them. Whatever the reason, there are going to be times where people truly do feel as if they have been kicked out, and whether or not their feelings are justified I have learned that these feelings are real for whoever the person is who has been offended.
There are two things I want you to get from this article:
1. The church has open seating. Don’t ever marry a pew. Make your union be with Jesus and the people of his church! Rejoice when “your pew” is full and you have to sit someplace else. Give glory to God for such an occasion.
2. No other human being can kick you out of the church! God added you when you obeyed the gospel (Acts 2:47). The only person who can kick you out of church is you. So if you are feeling hurt, left out, unimportant, or if you are caught up in some sin that has caused you to lose your place, pray to God about it.
Search your heart and work out all conflicts with God and man. If you do, you will happily find your place in a pew on Sunday, no matter which pew that is.
“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” – Psalm 122:1
