Why Abandoned Church?

At first glance, the name Abandoned Church may have caught you off guard; it caught us off guard as well. However, as God began to show us the deeper meaning of the term Abandoned Church we understood why God gave us this name.

Abandoned Church has a two part meaning. First, we believe that many of us have felt abandoned at some point in our lives by friends, family, significant others, or by wandering away from our Creator. If you resonate with this, there is a powerful truth that Jesus wants you to know: in the moments that you felt abandoned, Jesus was relentlessly pursuing you!

How do we know that? You are the one that Jesus left the 99 to find. He talks about you in Matthew 18:12-13 when He says, "If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off." You believed that you were abandoned, but you were the one that Christ left the 99 to find. Notice how abandoned has the word one within it. The name Abandoned Church serves as a constant reminder of this biblical truth.

The second part of the meaning behind Abandoned Church is our response to the realization that God left the 99 to pursue us. After we are found, we are called to abandon our previous self and become abandoned for Jesus. As Christians we should abandon our previous life of sin and live a life that is abandoned for Christ where we love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37-38). Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

So, "Why Abandoned Church?" We believe God wants every person who feels abandoned to know they are the one He is pursuing and to be abandoned to Him after they are found.

Hear the full story from Pastor Josh and Victoria below.