To Letter...or NOT to letter...that is the question!

[SpinningHead]

Folks have been talking about writing letters/emails to their pastors when they leave the church.

Now, in June when Pastor was at the house (again, eating my chocolate cake!) we asked him straight out, "How can we stay here having endured what we've endured?" and his famous answer was #1) it's a big church (400-500) and we don't have to come in contact with everyone and #2) Time heals all wounds and #2.1) if it doesn't, then it was his experience that the person (the victim) has unresolved sin in their life. :eek: Still blows my mind every time I think about it. (to Baldguy...you're an associate P...any reactions?)

Anyway...you all know that we stayed throughout the summer and fulfilled our ministry obligations and found replacements for our retreat (see the Hanes thread). We just stopped going this past Sept.

Question for you all...would you suggest we write a letter of "see ya"? I'm torn...

Hubby thinks No b/c we told P in June that we were having difficulty remaining at the church. So P should know why we're not there anymore. P hasn't shared that info w/ anyone else on staff so we get the occasional call/e-mail "where've ya been? we miss you? and are you coming to the fall chorus?" To which I generally go into a short but sweet, "No...we left."

I'm half & half... We told the P we most likely would not stay and we owe nothing more. We're done. We were official members...so far I can't find any thing about a church membership cancellation procedure but is that a standard common courtesy procedure?

And then also...I really don't want to get into anything in writing so what does one say?

"Dear P, Notice I ain't there no more? There's a reason buddy!". :D

No seriously, what is general wording?

[Katie]

Here is the letter we wrote:

Dear (names of leaders here),

After much prayer and consideration, we have decided to walk in another direction.

We are not leaving the kingdom or the purposes of God, however, at this time, we are leaving (name of church).

We carry no offenses and have forgiven all that was hurtful to us. We do not intend to sever our friendships.

We are walking closely with the Lord, and our hearts are His. We ask that you accept this without offense.

Sincerely,

The response was:
1. A special church meeting where everyone was told that to pray for us because we left because we are deceived.

2. A letter telling us that we are offended and in unforgiveness or we would have stayed.

3. Shunning by everyone who claimed to love us, especially those in leadership.

[SpinningHead]

Katie...

GOOOOOOD letter!

[gwen]

Dear SpinningHead,

At this point, I doubt that a letter from you would do much good. You said that you already talked to your pastor in June, so he knows where you stand and he knows why you left. Since you went to a fairly large church, I doubt that the leadership would read your letter to the congregation. (Especially since they're keeping the issues why you left hush-hush from the congregation.) Since you fulfilled your obligation with the retreat, I don't think you need to do anything more.

We wrote a resignation letter basically because of our leadership positions. Our wording was similar to Katie's and the reaction to the letter was pretty much the same.

Hope that helps...
Gwen

[Joseph]

Hi,
A letter or an e-mail is not recommended to the Pastor, I speak from experience.
An e-mail can be altered and a letter can be disected, like reading one line out of it to the congregation so it can be taken out of context (just like when they use part of a scripture to prove their point). I've seen it happen and I've heard it happening to other people. You sound like you went and confronted the Pastor already so what I have seen work is writing one letter and sending it to everyone in the congregation, I know, 500 people, that's alot to ask, I would write to the ones that matter to you, it will get around.

Joe

[mirror]

SpinningHead,

Hubby was associate pastor and I was secretary of the church when we left. We spoke to the pastor as to why we would no longer stay, and after trying shame "How dare you leave when it's YOUR fault the youth are causing trouble" and "How could you leave me when I'm having heart problems? If I die of heart attack, you will have to answer to God for it." and then trying crying, he realized we wouldn't change our minds. He then insisted on us not telling anyone else at the church until he could tell them the next Sunday. I KNEW he was going to insist on that and was ready! I told him there was no way I was going to let my friends find out that way and I insisted that we would tell whoever we wanted to tell. There was a young adult meeting going on that night, and he insisted on following us to hear how we would tell them. So we let him.

We did not write a letter, nor do anything more than call our friends to let them know what had happened (looking back, I sure wish we had told them why, but the unspoken "don't talk" rule was tight there), and I'm glad we didn't try to write a letter, even though the pastor ended up telling people we'd left so hubby could go be a big shot at my father's church, or that we left because I refused to wear a dress. The pastor would have probably changed the wording in the letter to suit his needs anyway. In the end, these people have found out the truth.

[baldguy]

Dear Spinning Head,

Baldguy here. As an Associate P I would say this. Don't write a letter. Say what you are going to say face to face. You've done that so -- communicate honestly with those whom you care about in the congregation. What would a letter do? The Pastor is going to say what he wants. As people have left our church I have heard it all from they just arn't people of prayer to well it's good that they've left because they aren't going to serve God anyway.

Please don't wait for approval from this guy... It isn't coming. He isn't going to agree with you. The good news is this...............GOD DOES. You've done the right thing.

Spinning Head, thank you for your thread back to me it was a blessing.

baldguy:D

[ex-shep]

Dear Spinning Head,

Baldguy here. As an Associate P I would say this. Don't write a letter. Say what you are going to say face to face. You've done that so -- communicate honestly with those whom you care about in the congregation. What would a letter do? The Pastor is going to say what he wants. As people have left our church I have heard it all from they just arn't people of prayer to well it's good that they've left because they aren't going to serve God anyway.

Please don't wait for approval from this guy... It isn't coming. He isn't going to agree with you. The good news is this...............GOD DOES. You've done the right thing.

Spinning Head, thank you for your thread back to me it was a blessing.

baldguy:D

I had not read the original post. I did not bother to confront the previous church on their issues. Sometimes it is best to vote with one's feet. Excellent point on not havin to wait on somebody else's approval. That calls for a latte.

[Jerry]

Dear SpinningHead,,,
Naw !!!!!! Don't write.........I think we all fantisize about somehow vindicating the truth and ourselves before an abusive Church ;) But alas,,,,,it never works,it only boxes a corpse,the truth can't be tidied up,because their truth keeps changing.Sweetie,,,,,I think ya just "Get on the Bus Gus" :D
Love Jerry

[Janice]

I know the letter I wrote is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MAILED!

It did make me feel good to write it all out though.

I think when we leave. (And God, please let it be SOON) that the right thing for US to do (just speaking for hubby & I) is to sit down and talk face to face with the pastors about it and let them know our reasons why.

I'm sure it will do absolutely no good because its "their way or the highway" but out of respect, I feel we owe them that.

[Joseph]

Hi,

Sitting down face to face is definitley the way to go, I did it with seven leaders for over 2 hours and it was a disaster, 2 hours of lying and denial of things I witnessed and they all backed each other up. It did show me that I was correct in my decision to leave, it confirmed what I felt all along, and I did feel good because this is the way God wanted me to do it. You should have seen the theatrics, crocodile tears, leaving the room upset, all because I wouldn't agree with them. They told the people that I got bored and lost interest in the ministry.

Joe

[SpinningHead]

Happy Halloween! or for those of you who are cringing...Good Morning! :p

Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU for your help in this thread. Hubby and I had a good talk regarding whether or not to send a letter. He initially wanted to and I didn't but we both understood each other's intentions behind our initial wanting to/not wanting to send a letter.

We talked about what we would say if we sent one and about what our motives was in sending the letter. Then we anticipated realistically what the response would be (based on our history with this church and how they respond to things being up in writing). In the end, we believed that they would only react w/ defenses regardless of what we said and their defenses would fuel the whole passive-aggressive, "Let's just pray for Mr. & Mrs. SpinningHead for they are woe-fully guided w/ unresovled sin and must come to terms w/ forgiveness".

I shared w/ him forum's advice/experiences and that just kind of cinched it. There is only one person in my life who sent a letter to her pastor informing him that she would be changing churches and he responded in turn w/ a lovely letter of encouragement. The 99.999% of the rest of letter stories are not as positive and since we have left due to fraud and poor stewardship and smarminess...I had one question for us...

We need this???

...we don't need this!

Q: HEY! What do you call a meatless hotdog???
A: A Hollow-WEENEY! Get it?? A HOLLOW-WEENEY!!! :D

[Hope 98]

I know the letter I wrote is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MAILED!

It did make me feel good to write it all out though.

I think when we leave. (And God, please let it be SOON) that the right thing for US to do (just speaking for hubby & I) is to sit down and talk face to face with the pastors about it and let them know our reasons why.

I'm sure it will do absolutely no good because its "their way or the highway" but out of respect, I feel we owe them that.

I have found that sometimes we need to say some things that we know will NOT MATTER to those who need to hear them, but it does matter to us that we say them anyway.

God hears.
Satan hears.
We hear ourselves speaking truth out loud! We can thank God for giving us courage, grace, and the truth that we speak.

If you tell your pastor or write to him about why you're leaving, do it for yourself and you'll succeed - regardless of what the pastor does with it.

[Leslie]

Hi SpinningHead,
Glad that you (and hubby) resolved this to your satisfaction. :)
Leslie
P.S. Thanks for the joke short enough that I should be able to repeat it!