Do you need to officially end your church membership?

[nutrichuckles93]

I've been reading some older posts on the forum today. And one thing Geezer said a year ago caught my eye.

 

Today, I've been thinking a lot about how the Christians in the church I attended are as fake as the doctrine to which they so desperately cling. And how I'm not likely to go back for any reason.

 

My church is not the Catholic church or the Church of Christ where I've heard you have some insane membership contract with them. But a few months after I started attending, I went to a membership "class" and signed a very informal slip of paper agreeing to the church's ideals. There was no fine print or "you must do this to sever" like any other elongated contract.

 

But after reading an old post from Geezer, I wondered: do I need to protect myself, in the event of my likely never returning, from being legally harassed by the church?

 

The thought of opening communication with one of the pastors makes my skin crawl (even in just an email). I don't want to be harassed in my sudden non-attendance. What do I need to do?

[florduh]

You can't be legally bound to attend any church. The "contracts" some of them come up with are for show. I would recommend just staying away and ignoring. Should they try any form of harassment I would sue them, but I doubt that would ever happen unless you were a major donor and source of income for them.

[sdelsolray]

 

I've been reading some older posts on the forum today. And one thing Geezer said a year ago caught my eye.

 

Today, I've been thinking a lot about how the Christians in the church I attended are as fake as the doctrine to which they so desperately cling. And how I'm not likely to go back for any reason.

 

My church is not the Catholic church or the Church of Christ where I've heard you have some insane membership contract with them. But a few months after I started attending, I went to a membership "class" and signed a very informal slip of paper agreeing to the church's ideals. There was no fine print or "you must do this to sever" like any other elongated contract.

 

But after reading an old post from Geezer, I wondered: do I need to protect myself, in the event of my likely never returning, from being legally harassed by the church?

 

The thought of opening communication with one of the pastors makes my skin crawl (even in just an email). I don't want to be harassed in my sudden non-attendance. What do I need to do?

 

Move on.  If they contact you you can inform them you are no longer interested in what they are selling.

[mwc]

     Here's what usually happens in more moderate churches when you leave...

 

     That's right a big heaping bowl of nothing.

 

     The other thing that might happen is you'll get a call, after some period of time, with someone talking about how they're concerned about you and a bunch of other crap.  What this means is they finally noticed that you haven't been putting money in the plate and you should come around and do that.

 

     Don't bother telling them nothing.  All the stuff they do is to keep you hanging-on plain and simple.

 

          mwc

 

[Daffodil]

The only things I've heard are from Catholics and Mormons.  Catholics don't care if you never return, but they like to keep your name on the books because it makes it look like they're not bleeding numbers as fast as they are.  Mormons, on the other hand, apparently do care and will hound you at least for awhile.  Outside of that, I've never heard of any other denomination or individual church caring.  They usually just chalk it up to you going to some other church or never having been a true believer in the first place.  Those membership things really are just for show.