“Stealing sheep” or “sheep stealing” refers to the practice of a leader and or congregation taking away the members of another congregation. This is a distasteful practice that leaders and congregations should discourage.
Sheep stealing is not the same thing as a common change of membership. It usually has a dark side. Whenever there is a steady flow or trickle of members leaving a congregation to join another, usually newer church in the neighborhood there is something or someone behind it.
Taking away the members of another congregation can be ‘cultish’, counterproductive, and dreadfully misleading. Encouragement of ‘cultish’ behaviour is to be avoided.. In this case, members leave on congregation to attend another pulled by the personality of the new congregation or the old congregation with a new leader. Pastors should discourage this. It takes humility and maturity to tell someone to move in response to God’s action, not because of a personality.
It is counterproductive when churches are distracted by rivalry, while millions of persons miss hearing the Gospel. The body of Christ is not built up when Christians are playing “musical chairs” with church membership.
The practice of stealing members from one congregation to increase the numbers in another is misleading as it relates to statistical claims on global church growth. Except in countries where the church is growing as a result of persons leaving from one religion to Christianity, figures in Global Christianity are not altogether accurate.
Although not in all instances, I am aware of some statistics that gives the impression that Christianity is booming in some countries when it is in fact not so. The real situation reflects that Christians are merely switching membership. So one church grows at the expense of another church.
Take the sweep of “charismatic” churches as an example. While churches so labeled are bursting at the seams in some countries, their increase in membership is in line with a similar decrease in the “mainline” or older congregations. The growth of one is at the expense of another, while the un-churched remain untouched by the message. The exception as I said earlier, is in those countries where there is a switch from another religion to become Christian.
Church leaders and their congregations need to stop this practice of taking away the members of one congregation to fill their pews. It is laziness of the worst sort. There are many persons who need to hear the word. They are far from impressed by our rivalry and the spreading of conflicting messages.
Churches and leaders that are engaged in this practice of stealing members might see numerical growth, but not growth in God’s grace.
Do you know what fuels the numerical growth or loss in the membership of your church? Please share your experience with us by leaving a comment below.
Peace,
Marvia
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Thank you for your interesting article on the issue of sheep stealing. I was wondering how this fits into the megachurch phenomenon here in the United States. They claim to be “reaching the unchurched” but seem to be doing nothing more than gathering the lost or wandering sheep of other churches.
Phillip,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
I’ve observed the same ‘re-cycling’ of members in mega-churches in the US as well. You are right, the so-called un-churched are really ‘lost and wandering’ sheep. While the numbers of un-churched grows unchallenged.
Peace
What about situations, where people need to leave bad churches? Sometimes that’s the case. Churches who do not meet needs will always have that issue. If a church is meeting the needs of its congregants, you will still have some leave. Churches that seek to steal members from other places, will in turn have them stolen back. I just find that most churches who complain about these things, will “take” members in from other places, when in fact the person involved needs to grow themselves. Going out of the way to attract folks from other churches is wrong. I just want to point out that there are other dynamics in involved.
grace + peace
Hi Steve,
Yes you are quite right that sometimes people need to leave a congregation for conscience sake when they are not comfortable with its teachings and practices. However, I always advocate that one should try to seek a way to reslove this before we just up and leave. Sometimes, too if we are honest as you point out we (the ones looking to leave) are the ones in the wrong and whatever bad attitudes we have in the congregation we are leaving, we’ll take it elsewhere.
Personally, I’m not happy about receiving other people’s members especially those who are leaving their congregation because they are disgruntled about something. I usually do my own checks to see what I’m getting into, even though I don’t prevent anyone from attending our church. And I also appreciate it when a colleague calls and asks what went down with this person, they gave me a story but I want to hear from you. If more of us were doing that, instead of playing against each other we would, I believe, keep ourselves accountable as leaders and challenge members who are playing musical chairs looking for the ‘perfect’ church to be more honest.
So thanks for your input and the other dimensions you ahve pointed out.
Marvia
I certainly agree, no one should ever just get up and leave, they should always seek to resolve. I guess I have known many people who just were in really bad churches (Financial mismanagment, adultry, etc.). Not making the case that excuses all the leaving. I’m making the point, that someone who goes to another church may not have been “stolen”. The stealing is when a Church on purpose goes to places and seeks out people because “its better over here”. No justification for that at all. I have just seen cases where Churches were accused of stealing, when in fact, the sheep were driven away because of all the drama at the Church. Our policy at our church is dont go and get anyone from another ministry, but don’t turn them away from attending. You don’t always know what you could be sending them back into?