Part Three: The Weighing

This part sorts the reasons people give for leaving a congregation into four kinds, from the lightest to the heaviest.

The sorting is not a scale that adds up to an answer. Many people have more than one reason, and a light one and a heavy one can sit side by side. The sorting is there to help you name your reason honestly, and to ask what that kind of reason calls for.

Some call for patience. Some call for a conversation. Some may justify leaving. A few require it.

Three things before we begin.

First, this part is for safe churches. If someone is harming you or a child, or leaders are hiding harm, nothing here is yours to weigh. Go to Chapter Two.

Second, if you are Catholic or Orthodox, read this part as being about your parish. Moving to another parish of your own Church is not leaving the Church. Leaving the Church itself is a different question, and Chapter Four is where it begins.

Third, reasons to stay can be borrowed too. Fear can dress up as faithfulness. So can not wanting a hard conversation, not wanting to lose a seat on a committee, not wanting to disappoint your mother.

The chapters ahead ask of each reason to leave, "What has to be true?" Chapter Nine asks the same of staying.

If you have used the Denominational Mapping Instrument on this site, you have already asked which of your convictions are musts. Ask it again here.

If your tradition teaches that some points bind every member, then some of your musts are set for you, not chosen by you. Ask your pastor or priest which they are.

A map can show you where you and your church differ. It cannot tell you what the difference should cost. That is what this part is about.

Dear friend, these things are written to you so that you may weigh your reason in the light. Whatever it is, light or heavy, bring it out where it can be seen.

"But the one who practices the truth comes to the light" (John 3:21, NET).