Craddock Story – Un-joining Church
Have you ever been present when anybody unjoined a church? I experienced that only once. It was in Oklahoma, and my wife and I belonged to a church, it was a rather large church there. One Sunday morning during the closing hymn, a hymn of dedication, consecration, a woman in her mid-thirties, we both knew her, went to the front. People stopped singing and were looking at each other. Why is she doing that? She is already a member. Maybe she is going to rededicate her life. Maybe she is going to become a minister. So we all hushed and waited.
She spoke quietly to the minister; we didn’t know what she was saying. At the conclusion of the hymn, he asked us all to sit down. We waited as she turned around to address us. What she said in essence was, ‘I owe it to you to let you know I am leaving the church. And since I made this public notice when I came, I wanted to make public notice when I leave. I don’t think it is right just to drift off into inactive membership. I am leaving the Christian circle. I have been disappointed. What I expected from the church and from the gospel and from the scriptures and from God, I have not received. I am leaving. For those of you who have expressed concern about my life’ – and hers was a troubled life – ‘for those among you who know it and expressed concern about it, I thank you. To that extent, I have some regret. Thank you.’
It was a strange morning. We didn’t know how to leave. We didn’t pay attention to the benediction. We bumped into the furniture and into each other leaving. And many of us spent Sunday afternoon thinking about what she did. It made us determine whether we would claim our own commitment in view of the fact that one of our group had decided to leave.
Have you ever been present when anybody unjoined a church? I experienced that only once. It was in Oklahoma, and my wife and I belonged to a church, it was a rather large church there. One Sunday morning during the closing hymn, a hymn of dedication, consecration, a woman in her mid-thirties, we both knew her, went to the front. People stopped singing and were looking at each other. Why is she doing that? She is already a member. Maybe she is going to rededicate her life. Maybe she is going to become a minister. So we all hushed and waited.
She spoke quietly to the minister; we didn’t know what she was saying. At the conclusion of the hymn, he asked us all to sit down. We waited as she turned around to address us. What she said in essence was, ‘I owe it to you to let you know I am leaving the church. And since I made this public notice when I came, I wanted to make public notice when I leave. I don’t think it is right just to drift off into inactive membership. I am leaving the Christian circle. I have been disappointed. What I expected from the church and from the gospel and from the scriptures and from God, I have not received. I am leaving. For those of you who have expressed concern about my life’ – and hers was a troubled life – ‘for those among you who know it and expressed concern about it, I thank you. To that extent, I have some regret. Thank you.’
It was a strange morning. We didn’t know how to leave. We didn’t pay attention to the benediction. We bumped into the furniture and into each other leaving. And many of us spent Sunday afternoon thinking about what she did. It made us determine whether we would claim our own commitment in view of the fact that one of our group had decided to leave.
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The NYT has a story today (2/26/08) about people changing their religious affiliations. It makes me wonder. What are churches 'selling'? I think I know. It is not always the Way of Jesus. It is not always the self-sacrificing love that God demonstrates. Sometimes that is not what people were really hoping for.
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