How did you leave?

[Bob M]

I just read this whole thread. And in every case, at least almost every one, the person was scared.


That is how the Fundies keep people there. Fear. Make you scared that you will lose your salvation, or worse, that your kids will start listening to rock music and taking drugs and having sex outside marriage and starting gangs....all if you leave the IFB church.

I was a pastor and I decided right away to be as honest as I could with the Bible. Half of the congregation left in the first 3 years, and joined a fundy church 3 miles away. Most of them were when we started using contemporary music, including drums. We made some more changes and more left. Then we could not pay the huge mortgage the Fundies made us borrow, so we sold the building.

I had struggled for a year with self doubt, fear and some serious conflicts with leadership. I fell into sin and resigned. God got ahold of my heart and I repented. One man from that church, one of the youngest, stayed with me through my repentance and got me on my feet again. I was seriously damaged by the conflicts and accusations that I had been on the end of a pastor. It was relentless. they said I was out to build my name. I was a liberal. I was self righteous. And I tried with all my might not to be those things. After resigning I visited a couple fundy churches who were on the liberal edge. But I saw right through their agenda. It was so easy, having been in the ministry for 11 years. I became very suspicious. So I started visiting a non fundy church that I had visited on Saturday nights. I was immediately invited to a men's small group and have been in it ever since. It was the first place, outside counseling, where I could talk openly and seek spiritual growth without condemnation or false guilt.

There is so much more I want to say. I started writing a book in 2006 or so, but have left off that. I want to share what I have learned with younger men, in a right way. I tend to be very sarcastic and a little edgy about fundies, but I know that there are men like me who know no better and want to do right, but are honestly scared that outside fundamentalism, there is no real church.

I am so glad God gave me the grace to leave. Even though I would never choose to sin in that way, God used it.

[Papa Bear]

(01-05-2011 08:15 PM)Faith Wrote:  I stopped going to church halfway through my senior year of HS. I didn't get kicked out of the church's school because my dad was a deacon.

Wow, the fundy churches I was in would have kicked him off the deacon board. I had an outstanding English teacher in our fundy school. Her son was not doing well in that school because it just wasn't a good fit for him. She enrolled him in a nearby public school because they had an outstanding radio and TV production program, and that was where his talents were. He really thrived there. The fundy school fired her.

[Number_6]

(04-10-2012 12:26 PM)Papa Bear Wrote:  

(01-05-2011 08:15 PM)Faith Wrote:  I stopped going to church halfway through my senior year of HS. I didn't get kicked out of the church's school because my dad was a deacon.

Wow, the fundy churches I was in would have kicked him off the deacon board. I had an outstanding English teacher in our fundy school. Her son was not doing well in that school because it just wasn't a good fit for him. She enrolled him in a nearby public school because they had an outstanding radio and TV production program, and that was where his talents were. He really thrived there. The fundy school fired her.

True Christians, those people....

[Tiarali]

There's this little thing called 'unfair dismissal'.

[EmilyKing]

I left by enlisting. The whole way to basic training I thought the plane would get struck by lightening as punishment for leaving.

[notdrinkingthekoolaid]

I was ready to go about a year before Mr. NDTK was. As a matter of respect for him as the leader in our home, I didn't force the issue, but it was a FREQUENT topic of conversation. That was one of the most difficult times in my life personally. I sunk into a nasty cycle of anxiety and depression because I just couldn't see a way out. Nothing worse than feeling trapped.

Mr. NDTK finally came around, but then we faced the problem of HOW to extricate ourselves. We were deeply entrenched and involved in nearly every part of the church, but our biggest responsibility was leading the youth group. Our ultimate game plan...Mr. NDTK went to a deacon's meeting and read a note that we were done. Case closed. The end. The pastor tried to contact us but we didn't answer or return calls. They got the idea pretty quickly.

To the church it looked sudden and completely unexpected. To us, it was a gut wrenching decision we'd wrestled with for a long time. We didn't stir up any trouble, but our leaving caused some ripples. Eventually we were able to explain things to those who mattered to us--mainly some of the youth group kids and their parents. They understood as best they could and didn't give us a hard time...mainly because we had built a relationship with them. (Oddly enough...6 years later most of those families no longer attend that church for a variety of reasons, though none of them relocated.)

So that's my exit story...and we're sticking to it.

[Number_6]

When High School ended, my affiliation with Funadmentalism ended, but my willingness to live that life died after the 7th grade. The way they treated me killed it.

[senda wales]

I was at the height of my fundy involvement in April 2011 when I made the decision to leave. I had been mentally on the brink of leaving a year earlier but I had been interested in a guy at church and had decided to stick around to see where it would go. It ended with him asking some other girl out. So everything kind of exploded at once - I was upset at this guy, I had been questioning everything for years, I had been ready to leave for a year, and then the 20/20 video came out and I was like, Well, if other people could leave and be okay, so can I.

So I slowly pulled out of Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, and organized soulwinning with the "excuse" (it was a legitimate reason!) that I was too busy working 50 hours/week and taking 2 community college classes. Then I moved out of town (far enough that it would be a real pain in the ass to commute back but close enough that it was possible) and emailed the directors of ministries I was serving in that I could no longer continue serving because of the distance. Then I just stopped attending. I got quite a few calls and emails asking me where I was and why I was no longer attending. Looking back, I do see that I just had a lot of people who really did care a lot about me and they really were showing how they cared in their fundy way. But it was very stressful.

So it's been about a year. Since then, there's really only 2 fundy friends who keep in touch at all with legitimately friendly phone calls or IM chats. I'd say I was genuinely close to both of them when I left. Almost everyone else I held a superficial level of friendship with, so we don't stay in touch at all. I'm related to the pastor, so I've seen him at a couple of family events and even ran into him and his family at a restaurant my extended family and I frequently visit in the area. In the past few months I've attended a few of the singles' group secular outings for the sake of the friendship, which have generally gone well. We all just keep it very friendly and are happy to see each other. However, the longer I stay out of fundyland, the more my life and identity changes, and the more I feel the difference between me and them that I don't know will ever be bridged. I've been somewhat honest with only 1 of my fundy friends, but that's about it. I definitely haven't stepped a foot back in the church at all.

[Tiarali]

Wow, I can't believe I haven't answered this thread yet.

Hmm... how do I say this?

I was absolutely in love with my church.

Then I found out something horribly disturbing about my husband, that would necessitate leaving him. The same day, I was told my pastor wanted to meet with me to talk about the issue.

The meeting with the pastor was... bizarre. At the time I was in shock, but later I started to have questions about what my pastor had said.

I then faced nastiness from church members for leaving my husband - even from those who knew what had happened.

The head of the counselling ministry got involved to help my husband and, therefore, hurt us. I asked my pastor for help, and he refused to act appropriately.

There were a series of incidents where the church would do something bizarre, and I would react, and then it would get more bizarre again... to start with I just yelled loudly - I wrote to my pastor, I told friends what was happening, I wrote about it on facebook. I honestly believed these were good people who would help me if they knew what was happening.

I was wrong.

Eventually I stepped back a bit every time the church went bizarre, until finally I was GONE.

And oh, so much happier!

[elfdream]

We moved. Husband also enlisted and we went around the world and met other Christians of other denominations and found out that they weren't 'bad' people. Some of them were in fact the kind of loving, reasonable and caring people that I had always envisioned Christians to be.

When we returned to the area we did not return to that church. By that time the church had a new pastor and there had been a turn over in membership so the pressure to return was not as strong as it could have been if the old membership were still there. By that time they were scattered about in other fundy churches.