Many pastors break away from denominations because they want to control what their church preaches, how their church shall preach it, and how all the monies received in their church shall be spent.
I don’t want that to sound negative toward the pastor. The reasons I mentioned above could be very good reasons for splitting away.
A denomination will often select a “mission statement,” for lack of a better word, and require all the churches in the denom to emphasize that particular mission statement through the year.
However, a pastor will discern that this denominational mission statement is totally inappropriate for his/her church. Perhaps the mission statement is “Reaching the World for Christ.” But the pastor’s church is struggling with an internal sin problem, perhaps racism, and the church people refuse to give money to help each other, let alone “the world.”
So the pastor would like to lead his church towards racial reconciliation, perhaps by holding joint service with other churches of different races, and having small group studies and praying specifically for other races during prayer meetings.
BUT…he or she is REQUIRED to pass out all the literature from the denom about “Reaching the World for Christ.” He or she HAS to show the videos and host the travelling guest speakers and hold the giant rally and send the Youth Group to the “Reaching the World for Christ” youth convention in a far-away city ($$).
Do you see what I’m getting at? It’s kind of like if someone came along and tried to tell you how to raise your children–you would resent that, wouldn’t you?
As for the money issue, again, I’m not implying that a pastor wants to KEEP all the offerings. On the contrary, many non-denominational pastors barely get by when they first start up their new church. All the offering goes to pay the rent on the school building or storefront that they are using for church.
But denominations require that their churches send a certain amoung of offerings to them (like the Diocescan Pledge), and many pastors resent this when they can’t see any help that they are receiving from the denominational headquarters.
Also, denominations require that their churches support the denominational missionaries and sometimes forbid churches from supporting anyone outside the denomination, e.g., a missionary from Wycliffe Bible Translators, or Billy Graham Association.
In fact, sometimes denominations require that their churches NOT get involved in various missions (e.g., pro-life organizations!) that the pastor and people WANT to get involved with!
So there are some very good, legitimate reasons why pastors split away and form their own non-denominational churches. It’s not always because they disagree with a point of doctrine or a Scriptural interpretation. Sometimes it’s just practical–they want to shepherd their own flock instead of allowing some far-away “shepherding central” to interfere.
. I would best describe it as well I belong but not to anyone that does exist but doesn’t really not? exist?.