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As a pastor, I don't know how many times I have observed someone fleeing the faith or even whole churches collapsing and the founding leader(s) reacting with indifference. Trust me, this is commonplace. Here, Paul urgently needed to know if the church that he had worked so diligently to strengthen and establish was continuing in the faith. His zeal and passion reminds me of a person who is terrified that his (or her) romantic companion is considering a split. There is real fear. Almost compulsive fear as this person drops everything in order to re-establish and salvage the relationship.

I don't know how to change the sad dilemma that has overtaken the church, but I know what I can do. I know what you can do. We can make a deliberate choice to care. We should embrace the sadness that should follow when a believer apostasizes or slips up. And we should be asking ourselves if our processes of ministry are identifying true believers or are merely babysitting selfish people who will surely hit the road at the first sign of resistance. True, we can never know who is and who is not a true believer. But we'll never know as long as we don't pressure people to live the faith.