How to share in the writing of "Goodbye, Pastor!"

Send me your story and you could earn $50. It's that easy!

Here's how it works

I am preparing a book on the theme of what happens to people when they LEAVE churches, or organized religion? Sound different?

Why did they quit? What put them off? Disillusion? Treated badly? Time conflicts? Personal trauma? The system did not work? Money or moral problems? A ctually, I do not want to do the thinking for others. What were their reasons? We hear many abuse scandals these days, but I suspect that these are not the reasons why most people quit. Let's find out.

Who were these people? Church professionals like pastors, priests and missionaries? Officers like church workers, deacons, Sunday School Teachers? Or ordinary adherents - church members and attendees?

What did they do next? G o to another church or religion? Invent their own? What personal or religious discoveries did they make? Did they wander into nothingness? And how did they handle the transition?

What are they like now? Just the same? Still confused? Better by far?

No book like this has ever been written

This is not intended as a book to knock religion; far from it. This is to track the journeys people take when the traditional pathways seem to fail. Frequently they lead to amazing personal discoveries, struggles and triumphs - but we do not hear the stories.

Myself? I left the Christian ministry in 1986 after being a pastor and preacher in England for 20 years. Apart from some nostalgia for the music, I have never looked back. My story, with all its trauma and discoveries, will be in this book. Yours can be too - and I will pay you $50 if it is featured.

The small print

Will everybody's story be in there? No. Many of them will form part of the descriptive analysis of different groups of people and their journeys - which is why we need thousands of responses. But quite a number of personal stories will be published. Nobody's story will be used without further direct permission. At their request we will change names and places to conceal identity but we will still need to know that the story is true. We reserve the right to make final editorial decisions on which material is included.

Everybody submitting material that is not directly used will be able to buy the book at a special discount because you will still have helped us enormously. We are pledged to confidentiality with your stories and will not share or divulge the details to anyone outside our editorial team. Some stories will be painful and emotional and we will be sensitive to this.

How to submit your story

Send it by any means you like - but I prefer emails (and attachments are okay). You must state your real name, age, contact phone number and mailing address. Your email address should be a real one and we prefer if you added us to your safe list so that our occasional emails do not get filtered out as junk mail.

How to prepare your story

You do not need to write a huge essay!

Background. Family, school, place you live, work, etc.

Religion or church. What was it and where? Include names if you wish, but indicate where you would not wish these to be used in print.

Nature of the problem that caused you to change direction. What you did. What happened. How you handled complications. What happened next.

An evaluation of the whole experience. Compare how you are now with where you were then. What did you learn? Why do you think this all happened?

Be very honest. If you made mistakes, admit them. It is very rare that these stories are all one-sided. Reflect on what others might think about what you did.

Spelling and grammar. Don't worry about this. We will deal with that. And we will do whatever basic editing is necessary to make your story effective.

You could start right now! Look for my email address uinder my Profile, and write to me.

Pass on the message

Email the address of this WEBLOG to others whether you think they would be interested or not. You cannot tell whom THEY know for whom this is a perfect fit. There are thousands of people out there who would love their stories to be told. So pass on the message.

The web address of this WEBLOG is http://goodbye-pastor.blogspot.com/

Just copy/paste into emails to your friends.

When will the book be ready?

This is impossible to be sure right now, but we will keep you in touch by email from time to time. As a provisional guide I reckon we will discontinue story collection by the end of 2004. You will be among the first to know.