PREFACE: "Goodbye, Pastor!"

IT IS THE FIRST WEEKEND of October, 1986 - exactly 20 years to the day since I first entered the Christian Ministry and became pastor of a medium sized Baptist church in North London.

Now I am standing at the porch of one of the largest and most famous Baptist churches on the south coast of England. My wife, Jill, stands across from me shaking hands with the worshippers as they leave. I have just preached my last sermon from the last verse of the last book of the Bible. "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen." My eyes are heavy with tears, my heart with a tumult of mixed emotions. A few people shun me as they leave, averting their eyes as if to have me believe they never noticed me standing there. Many grasp my hand and we exchange a few words, some full of regret, many appreciative and loving. We bid farewell and make empty noise about what the future may bring. They will, it seems, all be praying for me. One person after another simply says, "Goodbye, Pastor."

Very few of those people knew what lay behind my departure that day. What had really taken place in the many closed door meetings with deacons and church officers? Were the rumours true? Did I jump or was I pushed? Some months later, after my name and actions had been held up for scrutiny and condemnation many of them would come to believe that I had become the instrument of the devil, engaged in a dark strategy to subvert the church.

In the years that have passed since that awful day I have often reflected on the great number of men who for various reasons left the ministry prematurely, though surely some would also suggest, not a moment too soon. They, too, have heard the people say, "Goodbye, Pastor." The nuances of that farewell would not be complete unless I also remembered the many church members I have seen who walked out of the church - broken, disappointed, bitter, never to return - who in as many words also said, "Goodbye, Pastor." Usually they were not so courteous.

This is a book about leaving the church, leaving behind the structure, the comfort, the security, the family of believers - the body of Christ. It explores the reasons why pastors and people quit, and where they go next.

My departure from the hallowed walls of organised Christian religion was, for me, one of the best steps I ever took in my life. Yet I still look back upon those years with a certain nostalgia. I am at an age when many of my contemporaries from the days when I trained at the London Bible College are now retiring from ministry having served the cause with which they started without ever looking back. They have held their course and kept their eyes on the goal of their faith. A few have died and, in the jargon of the faith, gone to glory. I have a sort of envy for men I once knew well who have now become household names within Britsh evengelicalism as some of the best preachers, teachers, writers and pastors of the late 20th century. And I might have been amongst their number.

But I became, in their view, an apostate; one who denied the faith, one who (in the words of Hebrews 6:6) crucified the Son of God all over again, subjecting him to public disgrace. A few believed that one day I would return to the fold, clinging to the fond notion that once saved always saved. Others prefer to go on record that I was never truly saved and that my whole ministry was a sham, a lie, an act of self-conceit.

This gives steel to my determination, finally, to set down the side of a story that many Christians would prefer not to hear. The bitterness has gone, but not the memories. This is a book that needs to be written. It is my story. It is the story of people I knew, pastors and church members alike. It's a story that must be told.

Michael Buss
Santa Ana, California
May 2004.