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Last month, I had a person leave our church to go to another church. This person wasn't faithful in their support or attendance, they would attend for a month or two then disappear for several months and then out of the blue show up for another month or two and again disappear. I would try to contact them, but never got a reply back from them, so I wasn't surprised when I found out they were attending another church.What gets me is when a person leaves a church for whatever reason, why do they feel the need to try and draw others away with them?I had a lady this past Sunday stand before the church and say that she has been contacted and being encouraged to leave our church to go to this other church. I spoke with her after service and she said that before she came to our church that she attended other churches, but never felt she was accepted at any of them. When she came to our church, she said she felt welcomed and nobody looked down on her. She is a very poor lady and has never asked the church for anything, but we have given her food and money. She told me she would never leave our church and I assured her she is a vital part of our congregation.

I'll tell you what a wise man once told me : If people are persuaded by others to leave you, then they were never with you to begin with. When you pastor a small(er) church, you definitely feel the sting with every loss. I try hard to see the best in everyone, but I know there are ministers who prey on the members of other churches. Sometimes the best thing that can ever happen to your church is addition by subtraction. This has been a long time ago, but my first pastorate was a small church that nobody wanted. During the span of a few years, I had one family leave our church and come back three times. Each time they would leave for greener pastures and tell everyone how great their new church was. I reconnected with them on social media a while back and we had a good time reminiscing about the old days. They even laughed about how embarrassing it was for them to leave and come back.

This lady was so sporadic in her attending our church, that now she has found her church, it just gets under my skin in that she is trying to pull our people out of our church. I know if people are persuaded to leave, they never were with me or our church. I told her that I hope she is faithful to her church and she replied that my heart had turned hard toward her and she had nothing more to say to me. If she wanted to come back to our church, I would welcome her back with open arms and open eyes, as well as open ears.

This lady was so sporadic in her attending our church, that now she has found her church, it just gets under my skin in that she is trying to pull our people out of our church. I know if people are persuaded to leave, they never were with me or our church. I told her that I hope she is faithful to her church and she replied that my heart had turned hard toward her and she had nothing more to say to me. If she wanted to come back to our church, I would welcome her back with open arms and open eyes, as well as open ears. You can't stop it but you can expose it. If I have someone like this, I speak to their new pastor and if it's someone in my denomination, I let our leaders know what's going on. I have learned what was already said, if they leave that easy then you really didn't have them and in the long run you will be better off without them.

The church she is attending is a biker church and from what I have seen from their facebook page, is that the majority of the people that are attending call themselves prophets and their big pull is welcoming those who don't fit in regular church. From what I understand is that the pastor is encouraging people to invite their friends to their church. He made this lady the children's pastor and when she told my son that, I almost puked. Their latest community event was a poker run advertise with hard rock as their worship music and you can drink as much free beer as you like. This church started back in the spring, because the pastor was attending another biker church in another community and it was part of a larger organization headquarter somewhere in Michigan. They were sending a portion of their tithes to their headquarters and this guy didn't agree with that, so he started his own church where all monies would stay in his church. This is what he stated in our local newspaper. This church is already experiencing problems and people are leaving hurt, confused, and of course mad at God.

The church she is attending is a biker church and from what I have seen from their facebook page, is that the majority of the people that are attending call themselves prophets and their big pull is welcoming those who don't fit in regular church. From what I understand is that the pastor is encouraging people to invite their friends to their church. He made this lady the children's pastor and when she told my son that, I almost puked. Their latest community event was a poker run advertise with hard rock as their worship music and you can drink as much free beer as you like. This church started back in the spring, because the pastor was attending another biker church in another community and it was part of a larger organization headquarter somewhere in Michigan. They were sending a portion of their tithes to their headquarters and this guy didn't agree with that, so he started his own church where all monies would stay in his church. This is what he stated in our local newspaper. This church is already experiencing problems and people are leaving hurt, confused, and of course mad at God. I don't speak against any church or pastor, but I have no desire to contact this pastor and I am praying that this church soon closes and the people who are attending will seek a church were the Bible is taught and preached, instead of waiting for a prophet to speak a word.

The sheep belong to Jesus. If this person is in fellowship and walking with the Lord, pray for him or her, bless him or her, and let him or her go. If the other lady goes, treat it the same way. If some kind of weird cult were recruiting them, that's an area for concern. If they go out into the world, that's an area for concern