The Grace to leave and be gone...

[ILG]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

Lately I have noticed lots of comments on the UPCI. What I say here is not that I am for or against those that left for I do NOT even belong.
However when we leave something that served us why not leave in grace and just go on...Close that chapter....Let them go on and you go on...Why vomit on the table where you once ate?
Everybody in leadership has had those people who couldn´t stay out of your house and as long as you were feeding them you were heaven sent...but the day the table was empty they were gone...and telling how evil you (organization) were.
I know a former missionary that left Brazil many years ago and the people would write this missionary, try to contact this missionary but the former missionary said to me, "Janice, If I contact the people in the end I will cause confusion. I love the people ENOUGH not to contact them"
I was young back then and thought that was strange for she had raised up a work from nothing...it in reality was her work but due to circumstances she felt to leave.
Now many years have passed and I can look back and I see seh did the right thing. She did not keep a stir and an unrest...she just gracefully walked out.

I was so young back then I really thought she ought to keep contact. After all they were her babies so to speak...she had not come in and worked in someone else´s work and taken advantage of anyone. They were the product of her labor.
Today that work still goes on...today I know if she would have kept in contact there would have been unrest until today...She was godly enough to make the right decision.
That is how I feel about people leaving any group...it is fine to leave but have enough grace to LEAVE...
In reality this person in my eyes was done wrong but the souls involved meant more to her than her personal feelings...a rare thing in the world today.

...and this is to no certain person or group...just my thoughts...

Sis. A,

Although this might be ideal in a perfect world, the world is far from perfect. Things are not that easy, black and white, cut and dried. Often, the ministry and church members speak badly of those who left just as those who have left speak badly of the church. Both sides have their issues. However, those who leave are usually used to having kept their mouths shut for years while listening to the church say bad things about the people outside and in. When a person leaves, they are often exercising a right they feel they have been denied for a long time. I say let them speak. The church might learn something if it takes the time to listen. Often, if I speak (write) about any negative experience, whether I am venting or just speaking about facts, ministry will bring up issues like you have, how they have been hurt in the ministry by laity but they don't talk about it. Well, fact is, they do. But ministry also has a reason not to....more of a reason than those who left, because the people that hurt them are basically subordinates. Being hurt by church members is not the same as being hurt by ministry. I know because I have experienced both. Ministry is expected to take the high road. They also get paid to take the high road, theoretically.

At any rate, ministry should stop trying to get people to quit talking and begin listening. They just might learn something.