But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (1 Corinthians 12.18-21)

Should the believer move?

In the light of the special status and significance of a local church, the permanent move of a believer from one church to another should only take place as the result of the clear overruling guidance of God. Later in this article we shall consider when loyalty is wrong, but in normal circumstances the believer’s first thought must always be, ‘God has called me to be loyal to my present community. Can I therefore be sure that it is his will that I should move? Am I really being called somewhere else? Is there clear evidence of his leading, supported by circumstantial guidance and having taken account of the counsel of my brothers and sisters in the Lord?’

Often Christian people are closely attached to their church, making a valuable contribution, but then a practical problem arises which appears to make moving necessary. It may be that their firm is moving to another town, or that employment prospects are much better somewhere else, or that their present area is prohibitively expensive for housing, and prices are much lower in another region of the country. None of these problems should immediately lead us to feel that moving is the only solution. One of the great assurances of the Christian life is that although we are frequently tried and tested by problems, often seemingly insurmountable ones, when we turn to God in prayer, he intervenes and helps us. The history of grace is a story of wonderful, often astounding, provisions from the Lord. However, some believers, the moment a problem arises of the kind mentioned, assume that it can be resolved only by uprooting and moving. They panic, and see only radical solutions, and they do not seriously ask the Lord to provide for them so that they can remain loyal to their church work. All this is very sad, with churches receiving heavy blows because members do not attempt to prove their Lord.

Some pastors have felt this very keenly, especially those ministering in new towns or inner-city areas into which Christian people hardly ever seem to move, but out of which they move very readily. Many churches in these areas ‘generate’ converted souls for the churches of other places, while they themselves remain as struggling causes. Did the Lord design it that way? Did he intend that his people should be totally dominated by practical problems?

Obviously, we must not expound loyalty in such a way as to obstruct the ways of God. We recognise that the sovereign Lord may move his people from one church to another. He is our heavenly General who knows the whole battlefield and all his various outposts or churches along the front line. He may call people who are settled in one church to uproot and transfer to another, just as in the New Testament we see the Lord moving his servants from one place to another, sometimes by sweeping large numbers out of communities by persecution, and sometimes by other means.

As a general rule, when circumstances arise which could remove us from our church, our first hope should be that the Lord intends us to prove him where we are. It is only after we have sincerely sought a solution, and exhausted all reasonable possibilities, that we should become open to moving away. How can we expect to be led in the ‘right way’, if we have no respect for the Lord’s revealed priorities? The seeking of guidance must be rooted in a biblical value system, and this includes the duty of loyalty and commitment to the congregation in which God has set us. If a church is going seriously wrong in honouring biblical essentials, believers may be compelled to leave (as we show).