here’s a very interesting project by two guys at fuller. it’s called “letters from leavers“. it reminds me a bit of post-secret, the hyper-popular web 2.0 ‘share your secrets’ site (i wonder if it was an inpiration). this site is a place for people who are walking away from church to leave an open letter to the church. it’s worthwhile reading, especially for those of us in the employ of church leadership.
here’s a statement from tim bower (one of the two creators):
My name is Tim Bower and I am a student at Fuller Seminary. A classmate and I are doing a project as part of a Theology and Culture course taught by John Drane. The project is called Letters from Leavers www.lettersfromleavers.com and it is essentially a webspace for people who have left the Church to write a “Dear John” letter to the Church. My classmate and I want to read these letters and do some theological reflection on what they are saying and discern a way forward for the Church.
Makes me wonder what it would be like if you had to do an exit interview when you left a church, just like when you leave a job?
Yeah, exit interviews would be interesting, but (and I don’t want to suggest that we be exclusionary) I think if we did a better job on the front end we would have fewer exit interviews to do.
Yes! Someone caught the Post Secret inspiration! This was definitely a site we wanted to emulate on some level. Thanks so much for linking to us on your blog. We really appreciate it! Feel free to pass the site along to anyone you think would benefit from it in any way.
Tim Bower
LFL
an interesting concept. a place for people that are disgruntled to air their feelings and opinions. i do have some questions running through my mind but a brief glance at the site and i can appreciate it and what they are trying to do with it.
I believe this was done already several years ago. And compiled in a book entitled “Exit Interviews”
Perhaps in this day and age it’s appropiate to guage the reasons once again.
my senior pastors tell me they try to do exit interviews. i know they dont catch everyone, but it is helpful for them to hear why. and it is helpful for the person leaving to do so with full disclosure. that way we dont have to have anonymous websites…oh.lol.