The Most Dangerous Thing a Christian Can Do

So why do people leave? “Are you ready for the number one reason people stopped attending church? They moved.” The study found that around three out of every four people who left the church “did so casually, for pedestrian reasons including moving, the inconvenience of attending, kids’ sports activities, or family changes like marriage, divorce, or having a new child.” In other words, it was not their convictions that led the way, but their circumstances. They didn’t mean to leave the church, but inadvertently allowed their lives and lifestyles to hinder their attendance. Church got displaced by other priorities until it became little more than an afterthought. They became unintentional deconstructionists.

And this was the “aha!” moment for me because it is so consistent with what I have observed. We have had people join our church after moving to Canada from another country. They arrive with glowing recommendations from their former church. They were active, they were involved, they served in many capacities. But they are not with us long before their attendance begins to decline and we begin to see them rarely if at all. We do our best to reach out to them, but find they have stopped attending not only our church but any church. What happened? They moved, and somehow their faith was not equal to that move.