Episode 200: On Loving People as They Leave
How should pastors respond when members of their congregation leave their church for another local church? Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman talk about the different ways and reasons people can leave a church and whether pastors should ask for resignation letters from members who are leaving. They flesh out different reasons for a pastor and church elders to deny a member’s resignation and how this can be a biblical, loving response. This conversation explores how pastors can respond healthily when a member is leaving their church to attend a different gospel-centered church and finishes by calling pastors to be open-handed when it comes to people coming and leaving.
- What Are the Different Ways to Leave a Church?
- Should Pastors Ask for Resignations?
- Reasons Not to Accept Resignations
- How Pastors Can Love People When They Leave?
- How to be Open-Handed as a Pastor
Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Jonathan Leeman:
Hi, this is Jonathan Leeman
Mark Dever:
And, it really is, I’ve seen him before and this is that man
Jonathan Leeman
Still me and with me
Mark Dever:
And it’s time for church talk
Jonathan Leeman:
Pastors talk.
When we pastors talk, when we think about what we do as pastors in churches,
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, right, Reverend Dever, I’d like to talk to you today about
Mark Dever:
Seriousness,
Jonathan Leeman:
What folks do when they’re leaving a church and what a church is doing when they leave a church and think through a few case studies for how you handle that. If somebody is going here for this reason, there for that reason, what do we say? What do we do? We’re about as nuts and bolts as we can be in,
Mark Dever:
We had a members meeting seven, no nine days ago in which we had eight members leave our congregation for other local churches
Jonathan Leeman:
In town. Not local churches as a category, but local-local.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. I mean maybe across the river, but yeah, in DC
What Are the Different Ways to Leave a Church?
Jonathan Leeman:
So what we’re getting at is a larger principle of membership, but also the question of what it is that you’re doing when you’re leaving and what is the church doing when it’s saying, I say in response to that decision to leave. That’s what I want to think about. What are the different ways to leave a church? Let’s just lay those out. Big picture, you can leave by…
Mark Dever:
Death, right? Excommunication?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yep.
Mark Dever:
Transfer it to a church far away because you’ve moved far away going to another Christian, but different denomination, which means you have changed some of your theology or you could just transfer it to a church of like-faith and order, whether in this area or another.
How Does the Congregation Participate in the Church Leaving Process?
Jonathan Leeman:
Why is the congregation called to participate in that departure and to vote yay or nay on the departure? Let’s leave out death. Let’s not talk about excommunication
Mark Dever:
Or apostasy
Jonathan Leeman:
Or apostasy. Thank you. We’re in that other category.
Mark Dever:
The normal category. The normal category.
Jonathan Leeman:
The vast majority.
Mark Dever:
Yeah.
Jonathan Leeman:
What is the congregation doing by voting?
Mark Dever:
Well, in the same way that the congregation welcomes someone in by agreeing that they come in and covenanting with them, so when they leave that covenant, the congregation needs to agree, that Tom is going out. We are no longer being covenanted with Tom.
So it’s like when you and I begin a handshake, we both grasp, but to end that handshake, we both have to let go. You know how sometimes you just hang on for kind of the humor of it?
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah.
Mark Dever:
That’s like
Jonathan Leeman:
Some people do,
Mark Dever:
So we both need to let go and that’s the congregation as well as the person leaving.
Jonathan Leeman:
I was in a group of pastors or seminary students recently and they asked me, is that a must, should biblical principle? You’re sinning if you don’t as a church or it’s wise. And I said, I think it’s not absolutely required to do that, but it’s probably wise,
Mark Dever:
The form of it has to be wisdom.
Jonathan Leeman:
But the church voting
Mark Dever:
Well, yes, or assenting in some fashion, but that the church has that authority. I think that’s clearly implied in everything. We talk about membership from Matthew 18 to 1 Corinthians 5.
Jonathan Leeman:
The ascent, the biblical ascent is A,
Mark Dever:
By that, you don’t mean the going up. Do you mean the agreement?
Jonathan Leeman:
The agreement, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is basically the church saying, we’re not going to excommunicate you.
Mark Dever:
Right? No, no. Far from that. We’re rejoicing with you in this response to what you think is best in your life to move to Kansas or to transfer out to Emmanuel Bible Church, and you’re living out there and we want to encourage you in that.
Jonathan Leeman:
How many folks would you say leave your church in a given year? Pre covid, COVID is throwing things off. I get it.
Mark Dever:
Yeah. 150.
Jonathan Leeman:
What’s the most common reason
Mark Dever:
They’ve moved?
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, so let’s just walk us through. That’s the easiest one of all.
Mark Dever:
Most common.
Jonathan Leeman:
Most common.
Mark Dever:
Face it all the time.
Jonathan Leeman:
Walk me through step by step. What happens? How does that work?
Mark Dever:
Oh, Darren and Amy decide to move to Kentucky for various reasons, and they talked to friends, including elders about it, we all understand and we have mixed feelings, but there’s certainly nothing inherently sinful in what they’re choosing to do and we can see reasons to do it, and so we try to help them with it and do anything we can to encourage them and help them land in a good church home.
And normally we would know where they’re going to go to church. They would know where they’re going to go to church even before they decide where exactly they would live.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, that’s certainly the teaching and encouragement here in this at Capitol Hill, they’re asked to write it down. Yeah, send it. Designing our membership, correct?
Mark Dever:
Well, yes, and we are joining. We have joined or we’re intending to join Inger Lane Baptist Church in Louisville Castle View Baptist Church in Indianapolis or the Village and Flower Mountain.
Jonathan Leeman:
Do you typically ask them, or lemme start that one over,
Mark Dever:
Or St. Bob’s pre-Presbyterian church In Toronto,
Jonathan Leeman:
The elders make a recommendation to the church. The church then votes on it is the basic process.
Should Pastors Ask for Resignations?
Mark Dever:
Correct. So the elders will discuss it first, it will come, and a letter will be sent to the church office. Usually some member of the church staff or one of the elders. They’ll circulate it around to the rest of the elders.
The elders then at an elders meeting will discuss that resignation and we will talk about how the person’s doing, talk about how they’re doing in their move, talk about anything they need, and then if there’s no questions about it, somebody would move on the eldership to recommend this to the congregation.
It would be seconded. There’d be a discussion about the motion itself to recommend it to the congregation. Then the eldership would vote and presume it’s a positive vote.
Then at the members’ meeting whenever that is, several days, or several weeks later, I’m usually the one who handles the resignations. So I will come up and bring this as a motion from the elders to the congregation to accept the resignation of Tom and Betty as they move back to Amarillo, Texas.
Who Should Handle the Resignations?
Jonathan Leeman:
I’ve noticed that you don’t handle all the admissions, but you do continue over the years. You’ve always done all the resignations. Why have you chosen to do that?
Mark Dever:
Well, we don’t do exit interviews. If we did exit interviews, which I kind of would like to do, I’m sure some of you folks listening do exit interviews at your churches and God bless you for it. I think if we had fewer people leaving us all the time, we might do more of them, but we have to do entrance interviews and since the elders some years ago told me to stop doing all those, I’ve done fairly few of them, but that means
Jonathan Leeman:
Whoever an elder is required to do them, but it just doesn’t have to be you.
Mark Dever:
But whoever is doing the elder interview is going to be the same one who brings it forward to the congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
But why did you stick with wanting to do the resignations?
Mark Dever:
Well, because as I say, we don’t have an exit interview, so all we have is a simple statement or letter from somebody, and because sometimes it requires some pastoral delicacy in how you represent it in a way that that couple would be happy with, and yet it’s also true and you as pastors are happy with and will edify the congregation and because I might be the most likely one to know the widest number of churches that they’re going to from Singapore to Seattle, I’m probably a good one to do it.
Jonathan Leeman:
See, I’d romanticized it. My mind is your sense of deep responsibility for each sheep going out from us.
Mark Dever:
That’s what I’ve just described in practical terms.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, so they’ve decided to join a church, they’ve told you the church, they’re on their way to joining it.
Mark Dever:
Well, it depends, honestly. It depends on who they are.
Jonathan Leeman:
I’m going to back it up with even less
Mark Dever:
Appreciate that. I appreciate it depends on who they are. Just start there. If they are very actively involved here and we know that’s a high priority and we have no doubt to believe they’ll be very actively involved where they’re going, then yes, that’s enough.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. Same person, highly involved. They’re saying, Hey, we’ve narrowed it down to three churches. We’re still visiting each other. Will you accept their resignation?
Mark Dever:
We will. 19th-century friends would tell us we’re accepting their resignation into the world. We don’t see it like that. We understand that they’re going to land in one of those churches
Jonathan Leeman:
Because you trust them as individuals.
Mark Dever:
We do. And rather than burn up the staff time and make our covenant more attenuated and things more difficult as far as following up on people when they’re no longer gathering with us here regularly, we’re happy for them to understand that, acknowledge that case and acknowledge that responsibility that Thai is no longer there.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now let me change the novel. Turn one knob, which is their maturity level. It’s not somebody you trust, it’s somebody who’s fairly immature or young in the faith or just not known that well and they’re telling you, I’m looking at three different churches, four different churches
Mark Dever:
Figure we’re more likely going to hold on their membership until they join. Just as a little continued time with them to be able to talk to ’em about that in their life.
Jonathan Leeman:
Got it. Okay. In another case study, someone’s staying in the same town and they’re moving to another healthy church.
Mark Dever:
As I say, that happens all the time here.
Jonathan Leeman:
Same process, not a problem.
Mark Dever:
Yes, we might have that happen on the average of once a week here at most.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, lemme change the knob here a little bit. Again. They’re moving to an unhealthy, locally unhealthy, but gospel-preaching church and let’s say they’re doing it for immature reasons. They work on the security team and they have an argument about security.
They think it needs to be done a different way. Something just like really is this central to our church, but they’re convinced they want to go to this other unhealthy but gospel preaching church?
Mark Dever:
Well, the bottom line is we’d handle it the same way. It would be discussed by the elders. It comes as a motion to the church. The congregation would almost certainly vote for it. The pastoral conversation that’s been going on by the elder or the person, the elders know who are talking to that person who are close to them will undoubtedly have covered that and they will have done the best they can do in trying to give them good counsel.
Counsel Them Through Their Resignation
Jonathan Leeman:
Walk me through what that council might sound like. I mean, I guess what I’m getting, let me give you the backdrop to this question. In my experience, sometimes pastors who get ahold of Nine Mark’s principles apply a little too much pressure to stay, at least in my sense, but maybe I don’t apply enough pressure.
How much pressure? I guess the question is then would you apply in one of those conversations to stay or to go or to feel free to go or just give me the texture of that?
Mark Dever:
I think you have to be very careful before you apply pressure to stay. People are going to misunderstand that so quickly and potentially deeply. Now, you might spin me a situation in which I would say, oh yeah, you need to encourage that man, that woman to stay. But nine times out of Mark Dever:0, if somebody’s wanting to go, I’m going to be very reluctant to pressure them to stay ’em to stay.
Somebody can’t really stay in a commitment like a church because of external pressure. There are just too many difficulties about being a part of a church. Now, if they’re a close friend and they’re going through an unusual rocky time and they’re kind of leaning into me for strength to encourage ’em to stay, that’s fine.
Jonathan Leeman:
What should I do?
Mark Dever:
They know I love them. It’s not dependent on their being a member of this church. That’s fine. But if it’s average congregant, I mean we have like seven, 800 members. If somebody that I don’t know that well at the door, but who’s been listening to me preach for nine years and has respect for me if they are doing to them is maybe a scary thing and telling me that they’re going to start going to this local Presbyterian church or local Methodist church or local Anglican church or there’s a Bible church out there or some non-denominational church and they’re wondering, am I going to be okay with that or are they disappointing me?
But it’s the kind of fiery gaze they have to undergo on the way, scooting out of the cave and making their dash to freedom. Well, I want to be kind to that person if I don’t know of a kind of sin they’re trying to protect, if I have every reason to believe that they’re sincerely perhaps immaturely, but sincerely trying to grow spiritually, they can’t see their way to do that here from everything they’re saying.
I need to as their cheerleader in Jesus, encourage them and let them know we love them, thankful for them. They’re always welcome back to visit or if they want to come back sometime please let us know how you’re doing.
Jonathan Leeman:
But if it’s what you perceive to be a foolish, bad, misplaced reason, you will or won’t work to,
Mark Dever:
Depends on the relationship with them. Hopefully, if someone in the church is close enough to them to know that and has a relationship with them, they’ve said that to them. I as the pastor may well not know that about each individual sheep.
Jonathan Leeman:
Sure. My experience with you is in those kinds of conversations, you’re kind of cards to the chest guy. You don’t say everything. You’re thinking,
Mark Dever:
Oh, that’s almost certainly true.
Jonathan Leeman:
You hold a lot back.
Mark Dever:
That’s really been a key to the success of our relationship, Jonathan.
Jonathan Leeman:
I know it has. I appreciate that button. It’s a tough button to work, isn’t it?
Mark Dever:
The organ. It’s complicated these days. Fewer and fewer organists around.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’d be another conversation sometime maybe we can
Mark Dever:
Go back. They’ve all gone to other churches.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, they have. I remember one time you and I were standing in the little kitchen at thing over in the building and close friends of ours had left for another local church, and I remember you saying to me, you were obviously, my impression of you is that you were kind of upset they left because you said to me, I thought they knew what we were about, but the fact that they left the way they did just tells me they never really understood what we’re about here.
But I’m guessing in the conversation, and you may not remember who I’m talking about. Yeah. I’m guessing even in those situations, you’re probably not leaning into them saying, do you even know what we’re about?
Mark Dever:
No. Because if they understood they wouldn’t be in that situation and it’s not going to help them to feel manipulated or pressured. So I don’t want to do that.
Jonathan Leeman:
Yeah, of course. Okay. What about now?
Mark Dever:
Just to be clear, if somebody’s moving out for sin, then yeah, I’m going to confront ’em about that. Oh, of course.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s different.
Mark Dever:
Yeah,
Reasons Not to Accept Resignations
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s different. That takes you in a Matthew 18 direction or at least you need to be reconciled, gifted the altar direction. Matthew five. Okay. They’re going to, before I said an unhealthy but gospel preaching church. What if it’s a video venue? Church? Have you ever had that? An online-only church? You probably haven’t had that.
Mark Dever:
We haven’t. Not that I know of.
Jonathan Leeman:
Would you accept that?
Mark Dever:
No. That would be just not attending church. So we would excommunicate them for non-attendance.
Jonathan Leeman:
If they said we’re going to live church TV, it’s only online,
Mark Dever:
We would tell them about the gathering. We’d go to Hebrews.
Jonathan Leeman:
You’d say by virtue of disobeying Hebrews 10 or 11, we have to move down this path 12 10, 10, 10 25. I do know my Bible. I promise. Okay. They’re going to a prosperity gospel church, one whose statement of faith online formally affirms the same gospel yours does as does say Joel or Dean’s church.
Mark Dever:
Yeah,
Jonathan Leeman:
But we all know it’s a gospel prosperity gospel church. Would you accept that resignation?
Mark Dever:
We would probably accept it if the statement of faith is good and if we have testimony the guy preaches the gospel with all the concerns we would have. Yeah, I think we’d have to accept it. Now, if it’s prosperity gospel in the sense that they deny the substitutionary atonement, their statements are off and the guy does not preach the gospel, then I think we would have footing to take it to the congregation and then for the congregation to understand, this is not a true church, but if the true gospel is preached with whatever distortions are along with it, then as unhealthy as it may be, as long as we define it as a true church, I think our elders would have to accept such resignation and encourage the congregation to do the same.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay, let me,
Mark Dever:
It’s more likely that we would have no votes in the congregation in such a situation. So we have one of the times when we get no votes is when we have people who go to churches that people in the congregation don’t approve of. This does not usually happen, but I would say it must happen at least once a year. Every other year there’ll be some votes like that. There’ll not be close votes, but it’s literally a vote or two or three.
Jonathan Leeman:
Do you have a conversation with that vote or two or three persons?
Mark Dever:
We don’t know ahead of time if it’s going to happen, but it’s a difficult decision pastorally and some of the people just don’t quite get to where the pastors are on it.
Jonathan Leeman:
Hey Mark, I see on the agenda for this member’s meeting that Tom is going to go over to the Apostolic Church of the Gospel. Man, they’re a terrible church. They barely preach the gospel. If they do it all, I’m not voting for it. Are you going to tell me to go ahead and vote for it?
Mark Dever:
I would encourage you either to persuade the brothers and sisters to stay here or failing that if they tell you they’re going to do that, we could entertain a motion to excommunicate them. But the elders have looked into it. We don’t think that’s appropriate. So I think our only option is to accept the resignation, however, sadly we may do it.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. LGBT-affirming church, their statement of faith is Orthodox United Methodist Church. I look online it affirms the gospel. Yet they’re also very vocal in being an affirming church.
Mark Dever:
Then I think that’s going to evacuate their claims to believe the things they say they believe. So we’d have to have a longer conversation, but I can’t imagine that our eldership would recommend to the congregation to accept that resignation. So I don’t think we’d see that as a true church
Jonathan Leeman:
Because
Mark Dever:
I think we would see that error as
Jonathan Leeman:
Denying repentance.
Mark Dever:
Exactly. So you’re denying something that’s essential for salvation, both though they’re not intending to and that not intending to is significant. So that’s why there will be a little bit of a conversation.
That’s why it’s different than the church just says like We’re opposed to repentance. And the more society changes on this, just the more complicated those conversations are going to get because we’re not only going to have to think as elders, but we’re going to think how do we communicate this to a young congregation, many of whom have not been here for long, and help them to understand what is a true and a true church and what is not a true church.
Jonathan Leeman:
My understanding is that the CHBC elders would ordinarily recommend ex-communication to somebody joining an LGBT-affirming church officially, formally, and publicly after all the conversations, is that a fair understanding?
Mark Dever:
Yeah. In the same way, would somebody joining a Roman Catholic church, if they’re joining church that has a fundamentally different idea of what the good news of Jesus is, we feel we’re left without an alternative?
It’s not that we don’t love that person or feel charity toward that person. It’s just that this is what we feel is the most important thing in our lives. Who is Jesus?
What does it mean to repent of your sins and trust in him? And if that church is doing something in an organized and established fashion to disagree with that core of the gospel, then it feels we feel like they’re leaving us with no option.
Jonathan Leeman:
Okay. Back into the world of gospel preaching ordinary churches without these different weird things thrown in fair to say that in general, you are going to treat the healthy person you trust differently than the person who is a young, fledgling Christian on the periphery.
Don’t know. Well in your general pastoral care for these types of people moving out of the church, and if so, can you sum up those differences between the first and the second category?
Mark Dever:
Yes, it is fair to say it’d be different, but no, the summing up wouldn’t be easy. It just so depends on what the relationships are like. The closer the relationships are, the more kind of guidance we can give.
We have people, our church is large enough, the way people join the church and never really get to know people very well. There are just attenuated relationships. They’re in contact with one staff person. And that was a year ago. So it hugely depends on what the relationships are like.
Jonathan Leeman:
So much in pastoring depends on how much trust slash space people give you to pastor them. Right?
Mark Dever:
That’s right. I remember Jeremy McLean one time saying that when somebody was observing what good elders CH HBC ad, he said, it’s true. He said, we also have sheep who want to be shepherded.
Jonathan Leeman:
That’s huge.
Mark Dever:
And if your sheep don’t want to be shepherded,
Jonathan Leeman:
There’s not much you can do.
Mark Dever:
Not a lot. I mean, you can do public teaching, you can pray for them, you can love, but there’s all the good fruit that comes out of the mutuality given take of trust that’s gone. So without that, it’s very hard.
Jonathan Leeman:
Now there’s something of a criticism of nine marks views of church covenants out there that it’s a bit like Hotel California.
Mark Dever:
You can check in but you can’t check out.
Jonathan Leeman:
You can never leave. And when I hear that critique, I always think to myself, that just doesn’t look like any of the churches I’ve been a part of and known and seeing what these exits look like. What would a wrong approach to these matters look like?
What would lead to those criticisms being legitimate criticisms? Like guys, you’re hanging on a little too tightly, guys. You are being a little oppressive in the way you’re going about exiting from one church, your church to another church.
Mark Dever:
Well, I think there’s an infinite variety of ways you could do that badly. You could just be very difficult interpersonally and take it personally. If somebody says they’re going to go to another church, you could be all rum as the pastor about that.
Jonathan Leeman:
And you’re sending all kinds of signals like that to them interpersonally.
Mark Dever:
You start running down the preacher at the other church or the pastor at the other church or I was in a conversation recently with a friend who said they told their pastor they were going to go to this other church and he said, well, basically it’s what because they’ve got that new building. That’s a sad thing to say. I mean, it doesn’t speak well of the person who’s leaving to go to this other church that you think they’re just going for the building.
So I think there are all kinds of ways you can charitably, interact with somebody who is making a difficult decision to go to another church. So when I have somebody who’s telling me they’re going someplace else, well, okay, I was in the reverse.
I had a situation this past Sunday night. A brother comes to me who’s been coming to our church some, and he was coming from another local church of a different denomination, but an Evangelical sound church, we lose members to them regularly.
How to be Open-Handed as a Pastor
Mark Dever:
They lose members to us. There’s a little trickle of traffic there between the two sister congregations, which is very normal. And they wanted to come to us for a couple of particular strengths they perceived in us. Well, I tried to just speak charitably of the other church they were coming from.
I said, well, you’ll know it better than me. You’re a member there, but my understanding is your theology will be the same as ours. You won’t get any different theology here. So I gently tried to dissuade them from moving. They weren’t moving where they lived.
They still lived several blocks from here, but they lived close to their own congregation. And I felt that was the right thing for me to do. So I think as long as you have a kind of open-handed attitude, you’re communicating what’s good and I think the wrong, which what you’re asking about is just any of the ways you’re going to communicate territorials, competitiveness where, oh no, you’re taking one off, my team. That’s just bad.
Jonathan Leeman:
Well, no, I would think not just that, but a kind of putting on people, a sense of moral obligation to fulfill their covenant means staying here.
Mark Dever:
And I don’t think that’s true at all. So let me give you an example and I’ll use first names. My dear friends know I’ve encouraged what they did. I think they did a good thing. So Dean and Margaret years ago went to their kids, were going to the youth group at an Anglican church, and Dean and Margaret are two of the best people on the planet.
They love me and my wife dearly and have for years. And we have been careful to help them understand that we want ’em to grow in Christ. And so when they were telling us about their kids doing well, this other youth group, I just said, listen, why don’t you guys just go join that church?
It’s a gospel-preaching church. Your kids are prospering. At the time, we really didn’t have much of a youth group. Now praise God, we do. It’d be good for their kids now. But I said, listen, I would encourage you to, you’re only going to have these teenagers once try to work for their prosperity and know that we love you and you love us and you’re always willing to come back sometime.
And so we at Capital Baptist Church are trying to think of prosperity in that family, including their kids and their teenage kids. We want ’em to prosper.
Jonathan Leeman:
A second ago you said, we need to be open-handed. I was saying to Alex Duke before this conversation, that my sense of Capitol Hill and the way Mark has led the church to be in my own church does as well, is there’s a very careful set of principles, but there’s a very loose, open-handed practice in seeing people come and go.
And I think behind that is that joining a church we would say is a moral requirement for a Christian. You are morally bound to join a church. The question of which church you join is utterly and completely a matter of Christian freedom.
Mark Dever:
Yeah, that’s right.
Jonathan Leeman:
And so we need to apply that, especially in the question of people leaving our church to remind ourselves as pastors, this is a matter of Christian freedom.
Mark Dever:
That doesn’t mean there’s no folly. So let’s say I’ve got a guy who lives here on Capitol Hill and he joins the church in Baltimore, which is like 45 minutes from here. Well, if it’s an orthodox church that’s not, I mean a doctrinally correct church, they preach the gospel.
That’s not a wrong decision in the sense that it’s a morally iniquitous decision, but the distance makes the difficulty of being vitally involved in that church so hard that yeah, it’s at least prudence. So in that sense is a wrong decision. So what do I do with a brother who makes such a decision?
Well, I labor with them, but then at the end of the day, I can’t live their life for them. And if they’re determined to assemble with that group of Christians there, even though they’re living here, well that’s going to be on them. My role is to love them and teach them the truth as best I can, but I can’t make them live it out.
Jonathan Leeman:
So again, joining a church moral principle, which church to join Christian freedom, and then you’re applying that. Any last words brother? When somebody’s leaving a church, you’re simultaneously trying to shepherd the individual going out, but you’re also trying to shepherd your whole congregation,
Mark Dever:
This is why I do the resignations at members’ meeting
Jonathan Leeman:
Any last principles that inform your shepherding of the person going out as well as principles informing your shepherding of the whole church as they go out. Kind of summary thoughts.
Mark Dever:
Here we are with the person going out. You want to be as loving as you can toward them. It’s a hard thing to make a transition. You want to be empathetic. You want to try to understand why they’re making this switch and you want to put every good piece of information that they will receive from you about it, including encouragement of how they could be involved in their new church
Mark Dever:
For the congregation. Well, it depends very much on what kind of leaving new churches they’re going to as to how happy you can be about it and how you can even use it as a teaching point to them about how we as a church are rejoicing in all of the fruit of Christ’s death, including those most of the fruit of Christ’s death, which are in other churches. So never mistake rejoicing at our own church as apparent prosperity for our rejoicing in the church of Jesus, Christ’s prosperity, which is not finally and ultimately measured by the prosperity of our local congregation.
Jonathan Leeman:
Any final words?
Mark Dever:
If you’re praying for revival, like Andy always says, and it breaks out in the other man’s church, you better be happy. Amen. If you’re not, you realize you weren’t really praying for revival. You’re just praying for your own name.
Jonathan Leeman:
Good word. Good warning. Thanks, brother.
Mark Dever:
See you.
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