This is an excerpt, the entirety of chapter 5, from my book Belong: Loving Your Church by Reflecting Christ to One Another (2023, The Good Book Company).
I fell in love with the Calvin & Hobbes comic strips and books when I was a kid and my enjoyment of them has not abated at all over the past 30-plus years. In one strip, Calvin is very excited about building a model airplane. He imagines the majestic fighter jet and is lost in rapture at the beauty of it. He pictures the sleek design and intimidating array of weapons and can’t wait to see the final product. Of course, the actual building of the plane goes terribly awry (which is to be expected when a six-year-old tries to do detailed work or follow instructions), and what he ends up with is a sort of Frankenstein’s-monster-meets-Picasso-painting contraption dripping with excess glue. Needless to say, Calvin is not pleased.
Often, our experience with church resembles this. We picture something beautiful, sleek, and powerful. We have visions of how wonderful it is going to be, how easily we will fit in, how perfect a fit it will be for us. But then we find instead something unpleasant, ineffective, or otherwise less than we hoped for. The reality of churches often falls far short of our visions, which leaves us with the difficult and complicated question of what it means to belong to a church that fails in some way. In this chapter I will seek to answer this question by looking at three different categories of frustration you may encounter at church: feeling like you don’t belong, being disappointed by your church, and being hurt by your church. Most of us will experience the first two and, sadly, the third is fairly common as well, so feel free to jump to the category most pertinent to you.
1. What do I do when I don’t feel like I belong at my church?
Throughout this book I have tried to build an understanding of belonging in church that is rooted in biblical definitions and perspectives. What it means to “belong” to a church is much more significant and substantial than a mere feeling of comfort or similarity, so this question applies to the definition and understanding I have sought to establish. It assumes that you see the church as a place God intends for you to belong and that you understand you are part of the family, part of the body, part of the structure. So you must evaluate the church, and yourself, according to that deeper, more substantial standard.
Ask “Is there the aroma of Christ in this church?”
Over the years, I have attended and been a member of churches where I began to sense that maybe I did not belong there. It didn’t feel right. Something was off. Maybe you have had a similar experience. My instinct was to run through a checklist of things every good church should have: biblical preaching, a strong doctrinal statement, meaningful and biblical music, opportunities for community, and so on. In most cases the churches checked each box (otherwise I wouldn’t have joined them in the first place). Something else was amiss.
For many years I could not identify what it was. It was sort of the barometric pressure of church health—I could feel the ache a little bit and I knew it indicated something, but it was invisible to me. I’ve come to realize that it is the culture of the church, the aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15-16), that was missing. Did the people of the church, starting with the leaders, exude the welcome of Jesus? Was it marked by humility, by gentleness, by honesty and by honor? Did the preaching help us see and feel the love and forgiveness and very heart of Jesus, or did it burden us with law and guilt? Was it clear that the whole service centered on Jesus in worship and praise and reverence and joy? Sure the programs might be well run and the teaching content might be solid and trustworthy, but if a church does not exude the attitude and heart of Jesus then, yes, something is off.
In Revelation 2 we read the first of Jesus’s seven letters to churches, addressed to the church in Ephesus. He commends them for their good works, their faithfulness to truth, and their endurance. But then Jesus says, “you have abandoned the love you had at first” (2:4). This church checked the boxes of “a healthy church” in terms of their doctrine and effort, but they were in truth not healthy at all, for they lacked passion and life in Christ. Their good works and steadfastness to truth were missing something that Jesus deemed of utmost importance: a love for Jesus in response to his love for them. If you find yourself feeling like you don’t belong, like your seemingly healthy church is missing something, it might be the love and aroma of Christ.
Self evaluate and audit
So when you feel that you don’t belong at a church, it may be that your church is missing something vital. But it may also be that you are missing something, or missing an opportunity for something. Biblical belonging requires investment and commitment, as we’ve seen. So are you doing your part? Are you giving the church everything you can?
This will vary from person to person and situation to situation. We have people who come into our church exhausted, wounded, cynical, fearful, or simply just brand new to the Christian faith. What they are able to give the church (and what the church ought to ask of them) is massively different from someone who comes in healthy, vibrant, energized, and mature in faith. For the first group, all they can give might be their presence, their listening ear, their willingness to take a risk by being honest, and their questions. The second group can give their whole selves to the church with joyful abandon and energy. You may be more like the first group or the second group, or somewhere in the middle, but having worked that out, if you want to belong to the church then give all you can.
The “one another” commands in Scripture that we looked at in chapter three (love one another, build one another up, bear with one another, forgive one another, serve one another, be devoted to one another, pray for one another, instruct one another, live in harmony with one another, submit to one another) are two-way streets. You cannot truly belong to a body if you expect to receive these but are unwilling to give them, or keep score and then scale back when you feel you’re giving more than you’re getting. When you feel like you don’t belong in a church, it may be that you are holding back your heart in one or more of these commands and are creating distance where it need not exist.
One practical, but challenging, area to self-evaluate is that of time. Have you given your church enough time? Often our initial impressions are inaccurate, both of people and churches. We catch them on a down day or in an odd season. I spoke to a man recently who told me his initial impression of our church was that it was very focused on giving and money and he found this off putting. Well, he had visited for the first time during a brief capital campaign when we were, in fact, talking a lot about giving and money. It took him time (thankfully he was patient) to realize there was much more to the church than that. In the same way it takes time to get to know the true, good character of a person, it takes time to know the true, good culture and character of a church.
One final question to ask yourself is whether you are equating preferences with non-negotiables. It is easy to judge the “goodness” or “health” of a church by whether it fits our preferences. It is fine to have preferences about music, preaching style, small groups, Sunday school classes, kids programs, or whatever. It is problematic when we make our preferences the righteous standard for a church. Your preferences do not supersede or define the aroma of Christ in a church. So preferences will inevitably influence your decision about joining a church, but don’t let them move you toward judgment or disparagement, because that will keep you from finding belonging.
But how can we accurately and humbly weigh our preferences? Having preferences is inevitable; we all like some things more than others. But how do we make decisions based off these in church? When we’re ordering food at a restaurant we simply choose what we like; it’s the same when we decide what music to play in the car or what shoes to buy. But the church isn’t a provider of goods and services and we aren’t consumers, so we need a different value system for our preferences. In most cases it isn’t black and white, right and wrong. Here are a few questions to ask as you consider how to make decisions based off your preferences.
Does your preference reflect a biblical reality or a self-serving one? (Or both?)
We occasionally have people leave our church to join a church closer to where they live. This is more convenient to them, sure. But it’s also an effort to invest in biblical community where their life is centered. We also have people who drive 40+ minutes to be part of our church. We have people who leave because they desire a more (or less) liturgical service, and in both cases they are seeking a form of worship that allows them to express their heart before the Lord more fully. And we have people who stay despite their desire that we be more (or less) liturgical. In each case the preference, and the decision people make, reflects a biblical desire.
Is your preference an expression of fear, desire for control, or closed mindedness?
It is so easy to attach moral value to matters of preference (just ask my kids how strongly I feel about the “right” way to load the dishwasher). Often when we do this it reveals something in our hearts and lives that needs challenging: we are afraid of change, we want things our way, or we are simply unaware of new (and maybe better) ways of doing things. So we plant a moral flag on a matter of preference and begin advocating for it and maybe even waging war over it. If we feel strongly that our preference is “right” but are unable to both articulate why from a biblical perspective and listen humbly to alternative perspectives, we likely have made an idol out of a preference.
Can you set aside your preference for the sake of unity in the church?
Unity cannot happen if we all die on the hills of our preferences. So we must ask ourselves if we are able to lay ours down and “count others more significant” than ourselves (Philippians 2:4). If the answer is “no,” we need to revisit the two questions above. Is it a biblical, God-honoring preference? Or is my heart clinging to an idol? If the answers to these questions are yes and no, respectively, then that preference becomes the basis for deciding whether to leave a church. If, however, you can set it aside then you are contributing further to the unity of that body.
What if the church doesn’t have the aroma of Christ?
It is a difficult and often heartbreaking realization to see that your church lacks a Jesus-reflecting culture. What are you called to do then? Very simply, I would say be the culture you yearn to see. Be humble. Be honest. Be honoring. Be full of rejoicing. Jesus is magnetic and contagious. Others in the church are likely aching for the same thing, and when they find you, real Christian community will happen. Don’t just hope they will find you, though. Invite people into this culture with you. God uses vibrant, faithful Christians to breathe the life of Christ into stultified, stoic, cold churches.
Be gospel culture in your church until you cannot. Pray for perseverance. Pray for spiritual fruit and life. Pray for strength and joy in the Lord. And yet a time may come when moving on is necessary. This isn’t a sin or even a failure, even though you may well feel like it. If you leave a church, leave well. Leave with the same humility, honesty, and honor you poured into it. (Honesty, in this case, might mean having a conversation with a pastor as to your reasons for moving on, being forthright without being accusatory.) Leave with gratitude for what God did do through your time as part of that church, not just sadness or frustration at your departure. You gave yourself to it for a time in hopes that God would do great things through that body, and when you leave remember it is still Christ’s body, and continue yearning for the same works of God in and through it.
2. What do I do when the Church disappoints me?
Your church will disappoint you—no question. Every church you are ever part of or could ever be part of will disappoint you. The only way to avoid disappointment in a church is to expect nothing of it in the first place, in which case, why would you be part of a church at all?! Think of the imagery we looked at in chapter two that Scripture uses to describe the church: a family, a body, a building. Families have friction and conflict, even the relatively healthy ones. A healthy family is not one without conflict, but one that handles their inevitable conflicts well. Some families are downright dysfunctional or full of animosity. (If your church is like this, the next section on being hurt by the church is likely for you, and you would be wise to seek a healthy church family)
Bodies get sick. Joints ache or blow out. Muscles pull and tear. Bones break. Allergy season lays a body low. Even healthy people get random headaches and scratchy throats.
Buildings crumble and decay. The plumbing leaks. The mortar crumbles. Storms rip the shingles off. Dust gathers in every corner. Constant maintenance is required just to keep a building from falling apart.
The church is a coalition of sinners, a collection of failures, and a gathering of the dysfunctional. Including you and me. So of course we will disappoint one another. The question we face is what to do when that happens.
Our instinct is to think that something which disappoints us has failed us. A better instinct to develop would be to question our expectations. Every disappointment is an unmet expectation, so when the church disappoints us we need to be confident that our expectations are right and fair and biblical. You and I are part of that sinner/failure/dysfunctional group, so it stands to reason that our expectations might not be perfect.
Ask yourself the following three questions, taking some time to really consider them.
Can I specifically articulate my expectations for the church?
Frustrations and disappointments are easier to articulate than expectations or hopes, so it is often easier to complain about what you don’t like than to explain what you hope for. The downside to this is that often your complaints don’t touch on the heart of the issue. For example, you might say “I don’t like how we run small groups,” but your hope is “I want a few close friends in this church who I can be accountable to and who really build me up in my faith.” It is helpful to be able to clearly state what you expect and want the church to do or be, because until you can articulate the expectation behind the disappointment you won’t be able to resolve it.
Are my expectations driven more by preferences or biblical standards?
We touched on this earlier in the chapter. Once you have articulated your expectations you need to take them to the Bible and see what it has to say. Scripture will not always address particular preferences (music style, sermon length, program format, and so on). But it addresses the heart of the Christian, the shape of true worship, the centrality of the gospel, the foundational nature of the Bible, and so forth. Traditional hymns are not necessarily more or less biblical than more contemporary styles of music, but our willingness to worship with an open heart and our humility toward those who disagree is a deeply biblical issue. The Bible may not change our preferences but it will change our hearts—and that will change how much we cling to preferences.
Are my expectations self-serving or selfless?
The biggest change in heart we usually need when it comes to preferences and disappointment is a move from selfish to self-less. We instinctively put ourselves first: “I like,” “I prefer,” “____ would work best for me.” That is an enemy of unity, and a hindrance to your belonging and the belonging of those around you. Being part of a church means being willing to hold preferences loosely for the good of the body and lay them down completely if that is best for the unity of the body. As we’ve seen, Philippians 2:2-3 urges us to “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” If we are disappointed and frustrated in a church we need first to examine our own hearts. Are we willing to die to ourselves for the sake of the body, or would we rather die on the hill of our preferences?
You may well find yourself in a position where you can carefully, humbly articulate your expectations. They are biblical and you are, to the best of your ability, putting the needs and preferences of others first. You desire unity. Yet the church, be it your fellow members or the leadership, keeps letting you down in some manner—choosing to go in a direction that you disagree with, investing in aspects or areas of ministry you see as less important in the mission of the church, and so on. In this case it may be time to consider finding a new church home. I encourage you to revisit what I wrote on page ___ [under What if the church doesn’t have the aroma of Christ?]. Leaving a church because of perpetual disappointment and frustration is so exhausting and saddening, but in the end it is better than staying if staying means fighting and becoming embittered toward God’s people.
3. What do I do if the church hurts me?
Few situations are more painful than finding a home at a church, connecting with God’s people, putting your trust in them and in the leadership, and really belonging… only to be hurt or betrayed by those same people or leaders. This is distinct from disappointment. Disappointment wishes things were different and struggles to be satisfied, and we can be disappointed when people have done nothing wrong but simply gone in a direction we didn’t prefer. Being hurt by people in a church happens when we are the victim of wrongdoing of some kind. It is crucial that we discern the difference, especially because disappointment often feels like hurt. We live in a time when our feelings are easily confused for moral standards: if you make me feel badly then you have wronged me. This simply isn’t how the Bible defines wrongdoing, though, and it’s why it’s important that we run our feelings of hurt/disappointment through the filter questions in the previous section. Disappointment is real, hurt is real, and wrongdoing is real. If we are part of a church body and committed to unity in Christ, we need to respond well in each situation.
While we are all likely aware of explosive, divisive situations of abuse and wrongdoing in churches, hurt in the church is not generally headline-grabbing. Usually it is the result of pride, selfishness, gossip, or some other quiet sin. Usually it isn’t noticed by the whole congregation, let alone social media or journalists. And we all experience this. Since the church is a body of sinners, we will sin against one another and cause hurt, and we will be the recipient of wrongdoing and hurt by fellow Christians.
Again, a distinction must be made between being hurt in the church and being hurt by the church. To be hurt in the church simply requires one person sinning against you, and when it happens we are called to pursue reconciliation in the Lord (Matthew 18:15, 21-22). This means bringing honesty to bear by going to them to address the hurt that was caused in the hope that they will receive your words humbly, apologize, repent (change their ways to walk in a manner reflective of Jesus), and take the necessary steps to make things right. Then you forgive and can be restored in your relationship. The aim is not accusation, escalation, recompense, someone “getting their due,” or public shaming, but reconciliation between family members—that is, unity in Christ.
Being hurt by the church is a different, more grievous (and thankfully, more rare) situation. To be hurt by the church requires a systemic and cultural breakdown in the church. It means that gospel culture is not pervading from the top down, and the leaders are either guilty by passivity or participation (Acts 20:28-31). This can lead to harshness, defensiveness, mockery, animosity, or even abuses of power and cover-ups of wrongdoing. In many cases this is a low-grade issue rather than the kind of crisis or controversy that becomes public. Members are quietly hurt, there doesn’t seem to be a path to reconciliation and righting wrongs, and often they (you) quietly depart saying nothing and carrying wounds.
What can you do when you are hurt by a church to which you belong? Here are some practical principles.
Speak the truth in love, even to power
While Christ’s desire for his church is that it be a body marked by humility and serving others with leaders as the chief servants who set the pace for humility, often power dynamics are still at play. Church leaders are authority figures, called to lead the congregation. So confronting them on wrongdoing or even simply pointing out how they hurt you can be intimidating. It is difficult to look a spiritual authority figure in the face and say “When you did X it hurt me.” It can be terrifying to stand before a group of leaders and say “I believe the way you are leading this church is unbiblical.”
But our commitment to honesty before Christ compels us to do so when the need arises. And our commitment to honoring one another informs how we do it. Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak the truth in love—the truth as defined by God’s word and love as defined by the heart of Christ. This means speaking clearly and boldly about the wrongs done, and doing so in humility, respecting those to whom you speak, and with a deep desire for their best.
The heart behind a confrontation like this yearns for repentance and reconciliation. You want to see individual and corporate restoration and faithfulness to Jesus, and this requires humility and openness on both sides. We are all sinners, so be willing to acknowledge the possibility of our own ignorance of a situation or that you may have contributed to the hurt. Sometimes, though, people stand firm in their sins, and confronting them may cost you—reputation, relationships, a church home. But standing firm in the truths of the Bible and lovingly presenting them to those who are in the wrong on behalf of is always right, and God smiles on you for it.
Don’t give up on the church because you’ve been hurt by a church.
If you have faithfully, lovingly confronted the wrongdoing of a church and its leaders and if repentance and reconciliation are not the response, then it will likely be necessary to leave that church. Leaving a church you love is always difficult. Leaving a church you loved and that seemingly turned on you is brutal. And the last place you’ll likely be inclined to turn is to another church. Entrusting yourself to another group of leaders, another congregation could easily feel like an impossible risk because of the pain and the anger at the betrayal.
Yet the church is the only place we can heal from the hurt we’ve encountered in church. It sounds counterintuitive, and that’s because it is. In a fallen world we can easily be hurt in the church, but the answer is not to abandon it, because in that fallen world we desperately need the body of Christ. We need a local body, a gathering body, not just a generalized global aggregate of Christians. Nowhere else in the world will you ever encounter the wound-healing, grace-giving, come-as-you-are, we’re-with-you, day-by-day love of Jesus. So take the risk, but feel free to take it slowly. Seek out other churches. Sniff the air for the aroma of Christ. Test the waters for honesty and honor and safety. Don’t feel the need to rush, but don’t drift away either. One church’s failure is not the failure of Christ’s gospel or his plan, nor does it reflect Christ’s heart for you. He has a place for you among his people where you can belong.
Belong explores how you can help to create a church where everybody feels at home: a place where fellow believers build genuine, honest, meaningful Christian relationships and enjoy deep fellowship as a community of believers. Whatever your experience of church has been, this book will help you to see that belonging to a church is a good gift from God, the outworking of our identity as brothers and sisters in Christ, and worth your time, love, and commitment.
You can find a FREE small group kit (study guide and video teaching) here along with bulk discounts for your group or church.
