The Fear of People Leaving - Perry Noble

Perry Noble has started a series of blog posts this week that deal with his 7 fears as a pastor.

Number one for him was the fear of people leaving.

It is a very insightful post. You can check it out here.... or I have cut n paste the text below.

Fear #1 - People Leaving
Dear pastor/ministry leader…if you don’t read anything else I read, please at least read the following…
People are GOING to LEAVE your CHURCH…and there isn’t a thing you can do about it!

I used to actually think it was my job to keep everyone who came to NewSpring…and so when someone was upset about something I had said…or something our church had done…I would literally call them and BEG them to stay! Pastors…if you have to beg someone to stay…they are already gone! (I just started singing the Eagles song…)

I heard someone say once, “If people aren’t leaving then you are not leading.” SO TRUE! When you press into Christ & beg for His direction…He will take you in a direction that CANNOT please everyone in your church. The fact is that there are some people in your church that do not want to go in the direction that Christ wants to go. AND…many times they are the most vocal. Letting them dominate your decisions is simply not good leadership.

Our responsibility as leaders is to seek God with our whole hearts, to lead with pure motives…and to not allow people with no vision to steal ours!People will leave. It will hurt. You will always take in personally when someone leaves. But…keeping disgruntled church people happy should NEVER become your passion, because in doing so you prostitute the Gospel and dishonour the calling that Christ placed on your life.

Thanks for your honesty (again!) Perry!