Most (if not all) of us have left churches or relationships because they just got too annoying. There was something…some issue that caused us to get fed up and decide it just wasn’t worth it to us anymore.
So we moved on to what we were sure had to be greener pastures…considering the annoying circumstances from which we were coming from!
In those moments that cause people to leave, it feels like pretty much anywhere else, or any other friends will be better than what we’re leaving. We just need a breath of fresh air.
So we move on and the fresh air typically comes in the form of newness, because new relationships aren’t as annoying.
Now, where I’m going with this is not to say that moving on from one church to another or one relationship to another is never the healthy thing to do. It depends on the situation of course.
People are annoying
But, think for a moment about what Jerry Seinfeld points out about relationships in his Netflix special 23 Hours To Kill….
He starts the show talking about how the audience had to plan the evening just to get to the show. Here’s what he says…
What a moment, what a feeling, what an accomplishment this is on your part. What you just went through, going out, dealing with natural obstacles of life, difficult people, arranging, planning, annoying friends, many of whom you’re sitting with right now :).
I won’t take you through his whole bit about this. But, he goes on to talk about all of the annoying things that can happen just to plan and go on a night out with your friends.
He goes on to say…
Why are your friends so annoying? These are the people you have chosen to be with in life. It makes no sense. You’d get rid of all of them in a second if it wasn’t a bigger pain in the ass to find new people, learn about their annoying problems that they never do anything about.
You’d have to change the names and numbers in your phone, delete the old contacts…ahhh the hell with it, I’ll ride it out with these idiots!
It’s the same meals, holidays and movies anyway, what’s the difference who I’m with?
Everywhere you turn there are idiots
What a dilemma, right? We all know we need and were made for community. It’s why we get married, create families, join clubs and churches and everything else social that we do. And for the Christian, we can’t be a part of healthy church life and fulfill God’s purpose without it.
But the thing he points out here is this – when you leave a group of idiots to go join another group, you eventually find out that they’re idiots too. Actually, everywhere we turn there are idiots.
Even the people we like the best are idiots.
So the next time you think about leaving the idiots you’re with, just think about having to start the process all over again of getting to know new people and learning about all their annoying problems. Are you going to end up in the same place in 5 years that you are right now? When you do, are you just going to leave again? When will it stop?
Consider if it isn’t just your calling to ride it out with the idiots you’re with.
And as you fight through all of the annoying issues, you might just find out that they’re riding it out with an idiot as well!
Show me a group that’s all on the same page with this and that’s a group that has a chance for extreme agape love to burst forth in and through it in the long run to create powerful close-knit Kingdom community – a developed, established, mature church.
Michael Fleming
Mike Fleming is the creator of Finding Healthy Church. Over 20 years ago, he was sparked by the frustration of failing to experience what the biblical story claimed a healthy church was like. He caught a vision and passion for seeing local churches be what they were designed by God to be. He shares what he's learning along the way so the health of local churches around the world are improved. He’s currently working on an eye-opening book that will help better understand what it means for a church to be healthy.