Meet the Pastor Who Wants You to ‘Quit Church’
Pastor Chris Sonksen is on a mission to encourage Christians to “quit church” —but his quest isn’t quite what you’d think. Sonksen, author of the new book, Quit Church: Because Your Life Would Be Better If You Did, recently told “The Billy Hallowell Podcast” that he’s concerned over the “common threads of weakening spiritual behaviors in people’s lives.”
The preacher, who is committed to offering solutions, doesn’t want people to literally quit worshipping at church as much as he wants believers to rethink their approach to living their faith out.
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“The idea of Quit Church isn’t to quit church,” he said. “It’s to quit our approach that we currently have towards church and the things of God.”
Complacency and half-heartedness, he argued, have led many Christians to rob “themselves so much of all that God has for their life.” These people are essentially saying, “I want all of God’s blessings, but I’m only going in ankle deep.”
Sonksen said that this is simply not good enough and encouraged believers to form a deeper connection to God and their faith. He also detailed some of the ways he believes modern churches have gone wrong, accusing some of being “non-relatable” to outside communities.
“We go to a third-world country and we adjust to their culture, then we go to our own backyard and we don’t adjust to that culture,” Sonksen said, encouraging Christians to work more diligently to connect with people outside the faith.
Sonksen went on to encourage Christians and churches not to take their infighting public, warning that a message of disunity can be a major turn-off to the outside world. In this same vein, he also addressed some believers’ decisions to leave churches over benign issues.
“I think what happens is we find any one wrong thing … and we leave right away,” he said, citing example of dislike for something a pastor said or complaints over parishioners not coming to visit someone in the hospital.
Rather than quickly exiting a church or hopping around, Sonksen encouraged people to speak more openly with pastors and church leaders about what’s bothering them.
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“The church is a family, and we’re all messed up … because [we’re] people,” he said. “We all make mistakes.”
If people feel, though, that it is prudent to leave, Sonksen encouraged them to rely on prayer in making that decision and to exit quietly rather than gossiping.
He’s hoping that Quit Church helps readers better discover God’s promises.
“There are over 3,000 promises in the Bible,” Sonksen said. “And God wants to do incredible things in your life.”
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