This was a bad move...

We all know them, don’t we? Those friends with whom we used to go to church. They talked about Jesus, led Bible studies and were present at every meeting. And now they’re nowhere.

They may call themselves Christians but the label is all they’ve held on to. Or they may even admit they were never really Christians at all. And my guess is that, for most of these people, their drift away from Jesus coincided with a change in their life circumstances and most probably, a new place to live.

As we said in the last two issues, the Bible calls us to keep church number one priority if we are thinking about moving house. To make it first priority to find a church where the Bible is taught faithfully and where people can encourage each other and use their gifts. In the first article of this series, we examined the positive reasons the Bible gives us for moving wisely. This month we look at the subject from a negative standpoint: what Christians can lose if they don’t do this and what the person who realises they have made the wrong move can do about it.

The book of Hebrews is a must-read for Christians on the move. It warns us that cutting yourself off from God’s Word and God’s people is highly risky.

Cutting yourself off from the Word

Hebrews 2.1-3 tells us of our need to ‘pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it’. As Christians, we need constant teaching, constant reminding. We need not only to keep hearing God’s Word, we also need to mull it over and apply it to our lives. While it is true that God keeps those who are his and we can have confidence in our salvation, it is also true that it is our responsibility to be on our guard against becoming hardhearted and falling away. For if this happens we will merely prove we were not really Christians in the first place and that our professions of faith were fake. If we are to keep watch over ourselves like this, it follows that moving somewhere where there isn’t a good church is foolish, presumptuous and potentially deadly. It is, as Hebrews 2.3 puts it, neglecting our salvation, which deserves God’s judgement. I can think of a friend of mine, at university an apparently keen Christian. Having graduated, she got a job in a town in England, found a flat but failed to find a good church. Work got busier, life and relationships got more complicated. Today she and Jesus are very far apart in-deed. In cutting herself off from the Word she committed spiritual suicide.

Cutting yourself off from other Christians

‘But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end’ (Hebrews 3.13,14).

These verses spell out for us just how vital it is for us to live in a context of ongoing Christian encouragement. We might think a weekly Sunday service is enough to keep our spiritual engines ticking over but the writer says we need daily encouragement if we are not to put our Christian lives at risk. And it is in the context of a Bible-teaching church where people are learning the same truths and can discuss it together that the most effective encouragement can take place. Again, to cut oneself off from this in moving somewhere where daily encouragement is unavailable is both disobedient and highly dangerous.

But that’s what I’ve done….

What then, about the person who has moved somewhere they now realise is a bad place to be, church-wise? Well, the obvious answer is to say sorry to God, knowing he is gracious and able to help and keep his children, and to move somewhere else! In the meantime, or if this is not possible, it is vital to seek out some other source of Word input: tapes, books, conferences or camps. As one couple put it:

‘It is very easy to not realise that you’re back-sliding or at best standing still until you get yourself in a position where you are confronted with sound teaching and are given a much-needed reality check.’

However, it is not only sound teaching that the person without a church will be missing. The couple mentioned above admitted:

‘The issue is our own spiritual growth, being encouraged, being held accountable and such like.’

They have wisely reacted to their situation by actively seeking out other sources of Christian encouragement. And, thankfully, in this age of communication, whether it be by phone, email, old-fashioned post or face-to-face visiting, it is possible to be in contact with other Christians regularly. It is not as useful as being part of a church family. But it will help.

Better, though, to have avoided this and to have made the right move. Making a bad one and not having a good church is at best hugely frustrating. At worst, it could cost you eternal life.

Christians moving house, part 3

Cutting yourself off from the Word

Cutting yourself off from other Christians

But that’s what I’ve done….

Elisa Beynon

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