I consider myself a fairly discerning sort of person. However I need to be really careful.
Whenever you look at a situation you make certain assessments of it. Peoples motives, feelings and level of emotion. Why are they leaving? Why do they choose to leave your community, often with no communication at all. Not just why they are leaving, but even the fact they are leaving!
You can make all sorts of assumptions about them.
It is pretty clear that in our church culture we run from conflict. From someone being honest and frank at the risk of feelings being hurt. I think this is the reason we don’t do ‘exit interviews’ of people who leave. We also just don’t ask.
It is a hard practice to get into. But its a good one. You discover all sorts of misunderstandings, good reasons and some mud that sticks…and confronts you to change.
When I left a church around six months ago, I let the pastor know and had an exit interview – I made it clear that I felt it was my time to move on. But like when you say that “in our church culture we run from conflict”, I deliberately didn’t raise issues where I disagreed with some decisions/teachings/church direction as I felt it would lead to an argument that wouldn’t be easily resolved.
I just knew it was time to go and didn’t want to create “bad blood” but instead wanted to keep whatever relationships I could with people.