Church member, when someone resigns their membership and leaves your church, do you take the time to reach out to them?

If someone leaves your church due to a life transition, such as moving away for work or school, I hope you connect with them, say goodbye, and pray for them as they go. But I also have in view those who leave for other, often unannounced, reasons. What about those who leave? Do you also reach out to them to care for them as they go?

What if you made it a point to never let a fellow member leave without reaching out to them?

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If we take church membership seriously—as a covenant to the church and to one another—then our commitment to fellow members certainly includes caring for and looking out for each other while we are members of the same church. Being a part of a church involves promises and obligations to every member.

But it would also seem that part of honoring that covenant means caring about members as they leave and caring enough about the circumstances that led to their exit. Or do you simply cut ties, as if their departure doesn’t matter?

Consider what it communicates when someone leaves a church only to have zero—or very few—show even the most minimal amount of care so as to reach out. Departing from a church is often a difficult decision, at times occurring under already painful circumstances. For no one to reach out likely adds to that pain, making such people feel forgotten, neglected, like they apparently must not have mattered much to those who were once their fellow members, of no consequence to the very church they once called “family.”

Perhaps you’re thinking, “But that’s uncomfortable.” When, though, was church membership ever about your own personal comfort? Christlike community (see Phil 2:4b) involves caring enough about others to endure any personal discomfort for the good and care of others. It requires de-centering ourselves: our comfort and interests are not the priority (Phil 2:4a).

^2:4a Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ^2:4b Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.—Philippians 2:4