It’s Okay to Leave a Pew Empty to find a Living Faith

I was talking with someone the other day when he said something that stopped me in my tracks. He said many people in the Church of Scotland go to church simply for the sake of going. Not because they are growing in faith, but just because that is what they have always done.

Then he gave an image I cannot shake.

He said it is like going to the same restaurant every week. The food is bland. Sometimes it is badly cooked. You leave hungry every time. But you keep going because your parents always went there, or you do not want to offend the owner, or it feels rude to walk out. So you sit, you eat, you pay, and you leave unchanged.

I surprised him with my response. I said, “If that is truly their experience, they should walk away.”

Not because church does not matter, but because faith was never meant to feel like that.

But it is true though, for some, Sunday worship feels like ticking a box. You arrive, you sit, you stand, you sing if you know the tune, you listen politely, and you leave. Then next week, you do it all again. When asked what you got out of worship, you struggle to answer.

The deeper issue is this. Many people do not actually know what it means to get something out of worship. They have never been taught what it might feel like when worship speaks to the soul. So, they assume church is meant to feel dry, dutiful, or distant. They assume faith is something you endure rather than something that gives life.

Think of a well. If you draw water week after week and the bucket comes up empty, you eventually stop expecting anything. You keep lowering the bucket out of habit, not hope. Over time, you convince yourself that this is just how wells are. Dry. Silent. Unresponsive.

Yet the problem may not be the act of drawing water. It may be the well itself.

Worship is meant to feed the soul. It is meant to remind you that you are known, loved, forgiven, and called. It is meant to leave you with something to carry into the week ahead. A question that lingers or a truth that steadies you. It does not always have to be dramatic or loud, but it should be alive. Worship should stretch you, comfort you, challenge you, unsettle you, and heal you. But it should not leave you feeling empty every single time.

In every other area of life, we understand this instinctively. People leave gyms when they stop growing stronger. They leave clubs when there is no longer any joy. They leave workplaces when the environment drains the life out of them. We do not call that betrayal. We call it honesty.

Yet when it comes to church, many people feel trapped. They stay because they fear being judged. They stay because they think leaving is a moral failure. They stay out of habit. Out of fear that leaving means they have failed God.

But it doesn’t, leaving a barren place is not a sin.

Sometimes stepping away from a barren place is the first step toward rediscovering a living faith. A faith that feels less like obligation and more like relationship.

Jesus never invited people into a lifeless routine. He invited them into life, and life in all its fullness. He spoke to fishermen, tax collectors, the weary and the overlooked, and something stirred in them. They learned. They changed. They followed.

I am not suggesting that church should always be comfortable. Growth often involves discomfort. But there is a difference between being stretched and being starved. There is a difference between a hard word that helps you grow and a silence that slowly empties you.

If week after week you leave worship feeling empty, untouched, and unmoved. If nothing speaks to your life. If nothing invites you to grow, to hope, to wrestle honestly with God. it is okay to ask hard questions. It is okay to admit that something is missing and ask whether this place is nourishing your soul.

For some, the answer may be finding a different congregation. For others, it may be exploring new ways of worship, prayer, or community. For some, it may even mean taking a break, not to abandon faith, but to listen for God again without the noise of expectation.

God is not limited to one building, one tradition, or one style of service. So, if you have been sitting in the pews feeling numb, please hear this. You are not weak. You are not faithless. You may simply be thirsty. Perhaps the deeper question is not “Should I stay or should I go?” but “Where is my faith being fed?” Where am I being invited to love God more deeply, to love others more honestly, and to live with greater purpose?

It may be where you are now. Or it may be somewhere new. Either way, you are allowed to seek a faith that feels real, nourishing, and alive.

So, take a moment. Be honest with yourself. When you leave worship, do you feel even a small spark of hope, challenge, or comfort? Or do you feel the same emptiness you carried in?

What might change if you gave yourself permission to seek the place where your soul can finally breathe again?