Managing the back (and front) doors of the church

The seminar I attended the other day has got me thinking and maybe even a little inspired. 

Although it was not made explicit in the seminar, I take it that when we talk about the back door of the church we are using it as a metaphor for the exit strategy of those people who leave the church disgruntled or disengaged in some way or another. Now this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. In fact, as the seminar developed through the day, it became clear that for some the back door was simply the exit used by anyone leaving the church.

This in turn generates some confusion because there are times when it is right for someone to leave their church, so why would we want to close the back door on them doing so? It seems to me that what we need to do is to manage the traffic that passes through the back door rather than approach it as the simple matter of keeping closed. I want to help people leave well if leaving is what they need to do.

So, I'm going to begin work on developing a strategy for how we manage our back door. Maybe this is, in part, a defence mechanism so that we can say that we've done everything we can to help a person to leave well, but it's surely worth having a plan. Even more so in our highly mobile and low commitment society where people move on with apparent ease. I've had a few thoughts that I need to get in some sort of order, but I'd be interested to know if anyone has a strategy that works well, or ideas about what might work well. 

As someone who has left a few churches over the years (that's because I'm a minister I hasten to add) I've had my share of good and bad experiences. I know too that it's just plain impossible to please everyone, so even the best strategy won't work for all leavers. 

To drop a pebble in the pond of your thinking, I suspect that the best strategy for managing the back door might just begin with our strategy for managing the front door, the entry point to our churches.