Bishop Ochei Innocent

Forty Reasons Why People Leave Your Ministry Bishop Ochei Innocent

WHY THIS RESEARCH?Our aim is to find out why we have high membership turn-over in most churches. In simple English, why do those who had settled down in a church congregation, suddenly get up and depart to another one or simply backslide and sit at home watching television or doing any other thing the devil finds for them to do while they ought to be in the assembly of the brethren. Did the Bible not command us to forsake not the assembly of the brethren?We wish we had the resources to visit and interview all pastors in the world but wishes are not horses so beggars do not ride. We have had to limit our study to Lagos, Nigeria where we asked a hundred randomly selected pastors what the case is in their ministries. In the course of running one week schools of ministry in over ten nations and a hundred cities, we put the questions to ministers present. Due to the fact that all ministries and congregation do not exist under the same environment, challenges, culture, provisions, etc, the answers were almost as many as there were respondents. However, we have in this report, carefully selected forty generic reasons and excuses given by people for divorcing one congregation for another or for backsliding completely. We hope that as you read this, you will find some points to consider and reconsider in the way you run your ministry. We do not pretend to have all the answers but we know that this report will come in handy someday, some hour in your ministry, either as you plan preventive measures or in response to unpalatable exit of members of the congregation you shepherd or fellowship with.