Letters from Leavers

This is a thought-provoking site launched by students from the Fuller Seminary for research.

There are letters from people who has left different churches and their reasons behind...

Wonder if I can find one similar to the situation in my church =P

Another website: Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation
I found this from this second website... you know why I quote this if you're from my church... sigh...

Dear Church, How come we spend our money on heating church buildings rather than feeding the poor and outcast? May we live out James 1:27 which reads "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." May we also love out Isaiah 1:17. It says "learn to do right! "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." May we love the poor, the widows, and the orphans. Jesus called us to love and take care of them. May we, the representation of Christ to the world, show the world's outcast love.

On a related theme here... 12 Shocking Facts about the church
(not sure how true the stats are, the website doesn't sound really trustworthy... =P but I think they must be at least partly true. sigh... how I wished these are not true...)

-the total cost of Christian outreach averages $330,000 for each and every newly baptised person.

-Many denominations have a huge backdoor. NZ Baptist churches, for example, are baptising the equivalent of nearly 10% of adult church members each year, yet there is little overall growth in the denomination.

-The local church of 70 adults 10 years ago is still the local church of about 70 adults. In 10 years of hard work, prayer, programmes, and planning there has been little overall change.

-Historically, the Church has taken the lead in areas such as the value of human life, education, and the abolition of slavery. Now we are behind in other important areas we should be leading, such as gender equality, ecology and the “green” movement, world justice and the elimination of poverty.

-Church has some theology, values, structures and practices that don’t reflect New Testament priorities.

- Western Christians and churches control trillions of dollars in assets and income, while 850 million people, including 200 million Christians, are currently starving.

- If Western Christians gave just 5% of their income towards this, it would solve the problem totally.

- the combined personal income of church members is $15 trillion a year while each member spends on average $7.80 a year on foreign missions or about one one-thousandth of their income.

- Preaching in the Bible is always in the context of evangelism, whereas we typically preach to the converted (week after week for the rest of their lives).

- The Church is often focused on building itself, rather than building the Kingdom.

Really thought-provoking, huh?