There are times when circumstances dictate that we move—that we move from one town to another, one province or state to another, or even one country or continent to another. There are other times when it is desire more than circumstance that causes us to uproot ourselves from one location and re-root ourselves in another.
It has long concerned me how many people move to a new house without giving substantial attention to a new church. They carry out an extensive job search and move only after signing on with a new company. They put great effort into choosing a town and selecting a house within it. They may visit nearby schools to ensure their children will continue to receive a good education. But they simply assume they’ll be able to find a church.
I often find myself thinking about the insight I learned from a recent book: That one of the most dangerous things a Christian can do is move. Why is it so dangerous? Because a move necessarily uproots that person or their family from their local church. And while they may intend to find a new church in their new location, they often do not. Sometimes they simply cannot find a good one and other times they break the habit of attending and never quite recover it. The key insight is that many people are “accidental deconstructionists” who abandon the faith through sloppiness or poor planning rather than conviction or malice.
I have seen this play out many times, often with former members of our church. While they were with us they appeared to be thriving and growing, joyfully attending services and faithfully serving other people. Then they announced they were moving for work or school or perhaps just for a change of scenery. We did our best to say farewell to them, pray for them, and bless them on their way.
Sometimes in our first follow-ups after the move we learned they were struggling to find a new church and in our later follow-ups we learned they had not found one at all. Soon they would stop replying to us altogether, perhaps in shame that they had now abandoned the local church and maybe even the Christian faith.
In other cases, they did not abandon the faith or even waver in it but had been forced to settle into churches that failed to properly honor the gospel or that worship in ways they disagreed with—churches that were from an entirely different tradition. While they were grateful to be able to gather with believers, they struggled with a church that denied much of what they held dear and sometimes even lamented having moved altogether.
Of course, there are circumstances in which a move is necessary—perhaps when you are in the military and are reassigned or if you are in a country that is not your own and the terms of your visa change. There are times we are forced to move involuntarily by life circumstances or divine providence. Yet far more often than not, I have seen people move for other reasons.
Might it be better to stay put and take a pay cut than to move and take a “church cut?” Wouldn’t it be better to be underemployed in a sound church than prosperous in a bad one?Share
And so I have often wondered: Might it be better to stay put and take a pay cut than to move and take a “church cut?” Wouldn’t it be better to be underemployed in a sound church than prosperous in a bad one? Wouldn’t it be better to have your kids in a slightly worse school system but in a dramatically better church? Wouldn’t it be better to forgo a bit of property size in order to have a faith that can grow and remain secure?
And if you do choose to move, let me plead with you to put more attention into your church than your job, neighborhood, home, or school. Let me plead with you to ensure—to be absolutely certain—that wherever you go, you and your family will be able to be members of a church that honors the Word, preaches truth, and faithfully worships the King. For nothing less than spiritual life and death are at stake.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Westminster Books has deals on a collection of new and notable fall releases.
Today’s Kindle deals include a collection of books from Crossway.
(Yesterday on the blog: When Calvin and Wesley Shake Hands)
The Gospel is in the Detail
Rhys Laverty uses the occasion of Reformation Day to say “it’s vital to remember that an insistence on detail is, in many ways, at the root of Protestantism. And the boldness to point out such details is vital.”
Don’t Just Read Your Bible: 12 Ways to Go Deeper
“When we talk about spending time in God’s Word, we usually say ‘read your Bible!’ But that doesn’t mean you always just pick up the Bible and read a chapter – here are a few other creative ways to soak in Scripture.”
A Strange and Holy Calm
David Mathis: “In a day when outbursts of emotion are not only accepted, but respected, and encouraged, it can be more difficult to raise men who learn to righteously ‘hold their peace.’ It’s a curious phrase at key junctures in the history of God’s people. Some outburst of rage, or rash expression of anger or retaliation, is expected, yet a man of God, we’re told, ‘held his peace.’”
Is This the Right Way?
I enjoyed this article about going the right way.
Memories: A Tribute to My Mentor
It’s always a joy to read tributes to ordinary people who have been faithful.
Staying Power
“It’s one of those myths that just won’t die. For decades, we’ve heard the factoid that half of all marriages in America end in divorce. We’ve heard it so long, it must be true. Right?”
The Cautionary Tale of Francis Collins
“On June 8, 2019, Francis Collins finger-picked his guitar and sang Andy Grammer’s song ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’ at the memorial service for a young man who had died after a four-year battle with a rare kidney cancer. The man had enjoyed the song, and Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, cared dearly for him. He concluded his performance with an emotional benediction, promising that he would see the young man again and that he and his staff would not give up searching for a cure. This is the kind of man Francis Collins is. One month earlier, Collins’s NIH had approved a research grant requested by University of Pittsburgh scientists who desired to graft the scalps of aborted fetuses onto rats and mice.” This is also the kind of man he is…
Flashback: 6 Marks of a Faithful Ministry
The pastor is to serve humbly, to serve just like Jesus served. An arrogant ministry is the most destructive kind of ministry.

Broken health is naturally discouraging, but if God is in it, we need not be disheartened: he is able to make more of us with our shattered health than we could have made of ourselves with athletic robustness. —J.R. Miller

Abortion has always been an important cause to me. When I was very young my parents—and my mother in particular—were heavily involved in pro-life work in Toronto, so much so that the history of one of its pregnancy care centres (which, for a time, I had the joy of serving on the board of directors) reads like a history of my childhood. The names and the locations are still familiar after all these years.

Because abortion has been an important cause to me, I have read quite a number of books on the subject. Almost invariably, those books focus on the harm abortion does to an unborn child. And for good reason—abortion is the unjust and immoral killing of a human being. While society around us attempts to disguise abortion through a host of denials or euphemisms, the reality is plain to those with eyes to see.
But while the unborn child suffers the greatest harm, this is not the only harm that comes with abortion, and this is especially so when it is accepted and even celebrated across society. In their new book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis focus on the many and often less obvious ways that abortion brings harm. “While it’s essential to focus on the unborn child—whose death is the gravest harm of abortion—there’s much more that needs to be said, because abortion harms far more than the child in the womb. The case against abortion is far more comprehensive.”
Thus, in each of the book’s seven chapters, the authors highlight a different way in which abortion is harmful. In chapter one they make the familiar case that the foremost harm comes to the unborn child whose life is terminated. In chapter two they show that, contrary to the way abortion tends to be presented, it is not a boon to women that allows them to participate in society and the economy on par with men. It has not caused increased education or workplace success, and has not allowed women to thrive as women. To the contrary, it has compelled women to have to act more like men to increase their likelihood of success.
Chapter 3 makes the argument that abortion has “exacerbated inequality, perpetuating racial division and social stratification.” Anderson and DeSanctis expose the eugenic roots of the abortion-rights movement and show how abortion disproportionately affects non-white Americans and disproportionately takes the lives of girls and those with disabilities. Chapter 4 shows that the entire field of medicine has been harmed as doctors have used their technology and expertise to kill rather than to heal.
Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the rule of law and politics to show how both the legal process and the political process have been taken captive by the issue of abortion. Here they look at a number of Supreme Court rulings, the increasingly tumultuous vetting of Supreme Court Justices, and the Democratic Party’s increased insistence that there is no place within the party for those who are not pro-choice.
The final chapter turns to media to show how popular culture is increasingly showing abortions in a positive light and even how the abortion industry has consultants in Hollywood who attempt to work positive representations of abortion into movies and television. It also shows how the corporate world is taking clear sides on abortion and using their influence to promote the pro-choice cause while blocking anything that would promote the opposite. A brief conclusion calls each person to action—action that will help make abortion as unthinkable as it ought to be. Though none of us can do everything, certainly each of us can do something.
The authors of Tearing Us Apart make a fascinating, compelling, and heartbreaking case. While we all know that abortion brings ultimate harm to the unborn child, I’d suggest that few of us have thought as clearly about the many other forms of harm. But when we begin to understand this, it opens our eyes to see just how deeply and terribly society has been impacted by the presence, the acceptance, the celebration, and the near-sacramental obsession with abortion. “We all have a responsibility to ameliorate the harms of abortion—a task that starts by remembering the profound and inherent goodness of life, even in the face of suffering. It is our hope that this book will show those who haven’t made up their minds on this issue how abortion has hurt our country, and that it will equip pro-life readers with the truth so they can offer it courageously to others.” This is very much my hope as well.

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