Make a Plan to Leave the Church of England

One of the things I would most want to encourage evangelical Church of England clergy to do at the moment is make a plan to leave! If I were to attend a Church of Enlgand church, one of the questions I would be asking the minister is: What is your plan for leaving?

I know that for many this would seem like an undermining thing. Shouldn't I be planning to fight and getting on with the ministry God has given me? Well yes, I think you should. But that doesn't preclude making a plan to leave.

I want to give you a few reasons why I think it is so important right now.

1. You are really likely to be leaving in the next few years

There are two reasons you are perhaps more likely to be leaving soon than ever before in your ministry. One is that the Church of England is pitching up to cross some pretty serious red lines. I know that you will be hoping different. But it seems to me that with respect to the discussions around same-sex relationships a midway is going to be proposed. Furthermore, this is a midway between the current position of the church, which many of you already rightly feel to be seriously compromised and confusing, and an extremely liberal approach. If that happens, at a minimum having a well-thought through plan for leaving puts an important option on the table for you.

There is also a second reason. In my time in the Church of England there has always been a degree of maltreatment of conservative evangelicals. Initially it was around issues of women's ordination and then more recently around questions of sexuality. Being a conservative evangelical made it hard to get through selection, closed doors to many ministry positions and in general put you on the outside of things. More recently it seems that there are more active efforts to push conservative evangelicals out. Most people I've talked to who have left speak of something of that kind.

Even if you are broadly of the "I'll stay until I'm pushed" viewpoint, my observation would be that if you are open and honest about your views, being pushed is a real possibility. Often it is felt that the people who have experienced being pushed have been a bit extreme, or haven't acted as wisely as they might. Maybe that's true, but I doubt it covers it. I fear it's one of those things that could never happen to a reasonable person like me until it does!

2. You are more likely to leave badly if you don't have a plan

If you end up leaving in a hurry - either pushed, or because you know you must go - then you will be likely to leave badly. I have some expereince of this! As they say, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Leaving is hard. For you as a minister you are very likely to be leaving your home and your income. Unless you are particularly well off, it will take some careful planning about what you will do and where you will live. If you have family, this planning may be even more critical.

For the church, losing their minister without much preparation, is at the least a shock and if you believe you should be leaving then presumably you will think it likely they should too. If so, they will need to know why and how. Laying the groundwork for that, especially if you want to do something like a church plant will be very important.

The better your plan, the less traumatic the leave will be for all involved.

3. You are more likely not to leave when you should, if you don't have a plan

As I've said, sometimes leaving won't be your choice, but often what happens is that changes are made that you know you can't live with. You should leave. In fact, you will suspect that your faithfulness will be severely compromised if you don't leave. You will be preaching one thing while being signed up to another.

One of our problems is that this compromise is something we've seen evangelicals live with repeatedly over the years. For example, a friend tells the story of a well-known Anglican Evangelical declaring unambiguously that he would leave the church if women were ordained, yet he never did, though he remained conservative on the issue.

The truth is that without a plan it will always be difficult to leave. Of course that shouldn't stop us when it is a matter of faithfulness. But it will make us much more inclined to downgrade the issue, or find a loophole and so on. But with a plan to leave you are prepared and organised so that you can be faithful.

The time to make the plan is before you're compromised. If you leave until you are compromised you are much more likely to either leave badly (as above) or not leave at all, when you should.

I'm glad to have already left. I think I was already too compromised. I wish I had planned it better, but in the end I did put some kind of plan together. It wasn't perfect, but it made it possible. So my encouragement to you would start making a plan now. Be prepared and stay faithful to Jesus.