Church leaders are seeking fresh ways to prevent “backdoor exits” and adapt to shifting membership.
The membership packet for new congregants at Cross City Church in Columbus, Ohio, is pretty straightforward. There’s a section enumerating the church’s “essential doctrines,” including creedal beliefs like the Trinity and the saving work of Jesus on the cross. There’s a section about church leadership and discipline, explaining the church’s process when a member sins.
And there’s a curious section under membership, “How to Be Sent Out or Leave the Church”:
There are many ways in which God calls His children out of one spiritual family into another. Physical moving, leading to a new mission and disagreement are all ways in which He moves His children. All these may happen without sin and with a full and righteous leading of the Spirit. … We pray and ask the members of Cross City to be prayerful, honest and communicate concerns, offenses, hopes, ideas and convictions in an early fashion, rather than allowing them to fester in isolation and cause division, hurt, or other ungodly effects within God’s family.
Cross City is part of the Evangelical Free Church of America, but church leadership came up with the idea for this section themselves.
Despite having a written policy against ghosting, pastor Scott Burns said the majority of people who’ve left over the church’s 11-year history departed without notice. “They just get quiet,” he said. “And one week turns into four, which turns into six.”
Pandemic shifts, along with rising political and social divisions, have made ghosting a major problem for pastors across the country. Across demographics, US adults are less likely to attend church than they were two years ago, according to the …
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