Why Preachers Leave The Restoration Movement? 

GEORGE L. FAULL

Dear Brother Faull,

I am seeing a rash of preachers who used to be a part of the Restoration Movement who have left preaching for the Churches of Christ and Christian Churches, who either have started preaching in denominational Churches, or are working for Para-Church organizations that are interdenominational, or quit the ministry all together and put their membership in Baptist or Community Churches which historically teach the absolute opposite of what the churches where they used to preach.

My mind staggers at this and has caused me such anguish of heart that I feel like I need to find a Juniper tree like Elijah but I know that the Lord would rebuke me and ask me what I was doing there.  He would remind me there are 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Billy.

How does a man who stood for years in the pulpit preaching the Old Jerusalem doctrine, end up with those who oppose it in so many ways?

ANSWER:

1.                          They get hurt at one of our churches and blame all Restoration churches for their pain.

2.                          They got fired and were treated bad for preaching truth and have compromised due to family obligations.

3.                          They met a friendly unique denominational preacher they liked and followed him.

4.                          They felt excitement at the music when they attended some function and stayed (bound by the sound).

5.                          Their kids got involved in a growing and going youth group.

6.                          They attended Promise Keepers and Max Lucado got them to repent of saying anything bad about another’s Church.

7.                          They read Calvinistic books and never read any of the books of the great Restorationists who refuted their false teaching.

8.                          They became Pharisees themselves when they saw hypocritical Pharisees among us.

9.                          Their colleges never taught them the difference and Restoration history was scoffed at by their professors.

10.                   They attended inter-faith preachers’ meetings and found a bunch of nice guys who couldn’t possibly be lost because they were “so spiritual”.

11.                   They totally lack discernment.

12.                   They followed fads.

13.                   Church growth became their idol instead of converting people.

14.                   Lack of commitment to objective truth.

15.                   Led by wives to compromise.

16.                   Their associate ministers and youth ministers, who had little or no Biblical knowledge, sucked their whole Church into the denominational vacuum.

17.                   Upon leaving their Church, they did not want to leave their community and sell their house so they sought out another Church in the area.

18.                   They married denominational women.

19.                   They went to denominational colleges that call us a cult.

20.       They could not handle being called “legalistic”, “self-righteous”, “fault-finder”, “radical”, “separatists”, unchristian”, “unlike Jesus”, “sectarian”, “judgmental”, Pharisaical”, “bigot”, “troublemaker”, “intolerant”, “old-fashioned”, “narrow-minded”, “unloving”.