SaggyWoman
Active Member
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Have you ever been involved in a church that split?
- Thread starter SaggyWoman
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SaggyWoman
Active Member
Actually as I think about this, I have been in several that split.
When I was a teenager, the church I was in split, and shortly after, I left for college.
Another church I attended in my mid 20's had issues with their paster (for good reason) and terminated him, and several left.
In a third church, I still don't know what happened. I think leadership was trying to turn the ship around and people dived off the boat.
When I was a teenager, the church I was in split, and shortly after, I left for college.
Another church I attended in my mid 20's had issues with their paster (for good reason) and terminated him, and several left.
In a third church, I still don't know what happened. I think leadership was trying to turn the ship around and people dived off the boat.
PastorSBC1303
Active Member
I have never been at a church when it split.
The first church I pastored had a group split off of it in the 1980s.
My current church split off a church in the 1970s.
The first church I pastored had a group split off of it in the 1980s.
My current church split off a church in the 1970s.
Gold Dragon
Well-Known Member
Do you wish to include splits for growth or church plants? Almost all churches were church plants from another church at one point in their history.
Carolina Baptist
Active Member
Is it a split if there was no organized group leaving?
I was at a church where a large portion of the members left and went to other churches. I was one that left. It was an issue with the pastor. There was no big fight, just a lot of peopole who "just couldn't stay after...".
I was at a church where a large portion of the members left and went to other churches. I was one that left. It was an issue with the pastor. There was no big fight, just a lot of peopole who "just couldn't stay after...".
SaggyWoman
Active Member
No. I really don't consider those "splits", though they are. That is just positive growth.
SaggyWoman
Active Member
If people leave in mass exodus, even when not forming a group, I am at this place considering it a split.
One of my earliest memories as a child was when I was 5 yrs old...
The church my parents attended had a major split.
The church had not grown under a certain pastor... so he resigned, but stayed on as a member. They called another pastor... the church doubled in size in a couple yrs.
The former pastor decided he wanted it back..
So one Sunday morning, the former pastor and his henchmen deacons got up when the pastor got up to preach... went up front, and told him they were taking the church over... and he would not be preaching that day...
The pastor stood his ground... but the former pastor and his henchmen picked him up under his armpits, and threw him into the choirloft....
The Pastor got up, started singing onward Christian soldiers while walking out of the church... the congregation followed him to his house, and we held church in his front yard that morning...
About 8 people were left at the church, and the church closed down later....
Why didn't the pastor fight back? I have often wondered that.. but he said God didn't lead him too...
Many ministries have started out of that fallen church... and sometimes I wonder if God split that church to disperse many talented people into other churches...
Man, what I life I have had!
The church my parents attended had a major split.
The church had not grown under a certain pastor... so he resigned, but stayed on as a member. They called another pastor... the church doubled in size in a couple yrs.
The former pastor decided he wanted it back..
So one Sunday morning, the former pastor and his henchmen deacons got up when the pastor got up to preach... went up front, and told him they were taking the church over... and he would not be preaching that day...
The pastor stood his ground... but the former pastor and his henchmen picked him up under his armpits, and threw him into the choirloft....
The Pastor got up, started singing onward Christian soldiers while walking out of the church... the congregation followed him to his house, and we held church in his front yard that morning...
About 8 people were left at the church, and the church closed down later....
Why didn't the pastor fight back? I have often wondered that.. but he said God didn't lead him too...
Many ministries have started out of that fallen church... and sometimes I wonder if God split that church to disperse many talented people into other churches...
Man, what I life I have had!
SaggyWoman
Active Member
The one thing I will say is that church splits do the vacuum thing.
i was the first pastor at my last church after a split...and apparently the unresoved issues were VERY unresolved. There wasn't necessarily a split when i left, but the vast majority of the congregation did move on to other places and left that building to those who brought about the previous 2 splits.
This describes the church I currently pastor. There wasn't really an organized split, but we did loose about half our regular attenders a couple of years before I came. It takes YEARS to get over something like that.Carolina Baptist said:
I went to an excellent fundamental baptist church, no KJVOnly garbage, no extra-biblical teaching, great uplifting traditional American Baptist music, mission support, great chior, about 300 members. I got great discipleship, and learned an awful lot at the bible studies. (It took 6 meetings of Bible study just to get thru Jonah). I loved that church & everyone in it.
Then we found out our pastor was taking personal loans on the property, ran into default trouble, & began dipping into the missions funds to pay off his paved driveway, & big 4X4 truck. A lot of people wanted him out, a lot of others wanted to forgive him. But it was settled when a radio station in another state bought the foreclosed property. It was a huge shock.
The chuch didn't so much split, as it disintegrated, and folks scurried off to other churches, but one of my dear friends from there now pastors another fundy Baptist church.
But now I live in Montana, and bounce from parish to parish looking for someone who still preaches what I believe to be sound doctrine. hard to find.
Then we found out our pastor was taking personal loans on the property, ran into default trouble, & began dipping into the missions funds to pay off his paved driveway, & big 4X4 truck. A lot of people wanted him out, a lot of others wanted to forgive him. But it was settled when a radio station in another state bought the foreclosed property. It was a huge shock.
The chuch didn't so much split, as it disintegrated, and folks scurried off to other churches, but one of my dear friends from there now pastors another fundy Baptist church.
But now I live in Montana, and bounce from parish to parish looking for someone who still preaches what I believe to be sound doctrine. hard to find.
mcdirector
Active Member
how terribly heartbreaking!
Trotter
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Been through two splits at one church, and a minor "leaving" at another. i was never a part of those who left either congregation, though.
The first church had a scandal involving the pastor and an under-aged girl, and many left to follow him. Later on, the deacons didn't support the pastor in a decision so he resigned, and many left to follow him (the pastor was right on this one).
The other church was in transition... the pastor of 23 years had moved on to another church, and the church was in the middle of the second interim (they had three over three years). many were tired of waiting and left. that church now has a great pastor who ahs been there for six years and it is steadily growing.
I am now back at the first church. Our pastor has been here for over 16 years now, so I think we are on solid footing.
The first church had a scandal involving the pastor and an under-aged girl, and many left to follow him. Later on, the deacons didn't support the pastor in a decision so he resigned, and many left to follow him (the pastor was right on this one).
The other church was in transition... the pastor of 23 years had moved on to another church, and the church was in the middle of the second interim (they had three over three years). many were tired of waiting and left. that church now has a great pastor who ahs been there for six years and it is steadily growing.
I am now back at the first church. Our pastor has been here for over 16 years now, so I think we are on solid footing.
I was in a church from which many members left around the same time because of a couple of interrelated issues. some of them ended up starting another church, some went to churches in the area. It was not a church split, it was more of a mass expulsion or exodus, or some of both.
SaggyWoman
Active Member
Vacuums suck.