Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

This question came up in another thread, and some of us expressed interest in knowing the most common ages of departure. If you left more than once, tell us about the most recent time. Comments are welcome.

i don't think I can pick just one. Leaving was such a long, drawn out process for me.

Moogy, I think I started to leave emotionally when I was in my early teens, and was finally
emotionally out in my late fifties.

I never actually subscribed to a lot of COC doctrine, but i did not stop attending the Sunday morning service until I was 52 (2013).

86 views but only 18 responses? Please reply to the question, friends, if you can.

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I think perhaps I am naturally rebellious. And one reflection of that may be that I almost always refuse to raise my hand when the speaker says "how many of you did blah blah...raise your hands". Oh and a performer telling audience to clap along or have the audience sings is right out. Perhaps I am just contrary.

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It also counts 'views' when someone visits more than one time, so it isn't like there have been 86 UNIQUE views. I know I've stopped in at least three times after voting.

zeek wrote:

klp wrote:I think perhaps I am naturally rebellious. And one reflection of that may be that I almost always refuse to raise my hand when the speaker says "how many of you did blah blah...raise your hands". Oh and a performer telling audience to clap along or have the audience sings is right out. Perhaps I am just contrary.

"Obstinate" is the word for the day.

Yes, this is another plausable explanation for the discrepency between views and participants. Probably it is some combination of the two.

I forgot, "Obstinate", yes that was a term I heard bantered about while on the membership role of the CofC.

I was just thinking about some of my relatives and how they left the COC without really making a decision to leave.

My dad moved in with me when he was about 90. Before that, he had attended faithfully since "marrying into" the COC. (He even sought out churches when working as a long-distance trucker). The nearby little town has only a mainline COC. Papa attended there once. He drove into the bigger town (about a hour away) to the nearest NICOC once or twice. Otherwise, he just skipped. So he never really quit, but he stopped attending at age 90.

My in-laws also used the "moving out of town" method of dropping out. They moved and just never bothered finding a new church. This was in their late 40s/early 50s.

I suspect many people have drifted away like this. None had living parents to guilt them into returning, and my dad no longer had my mom to insist that they had to go.