Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, hardcover

After nine years serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta, Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia (population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life to country dweller is something of a shock-Taylor is one of the only professional women in the community-but small town life offers many of its own unique ways. Taylor has five successful years that see significant growth in the church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep her faith she may have to leave.

By now I expected to be a seasoned parish minister, wearing black clergy shirts grown gray from frequent washing. I expected to love the children who hung on my legs after Sunday morning services until they grew up and had children of their own. I even expected to be buried wearing the same red vestments in which I was ordained.

Today those vestments are hanging in the sacristy of an Anglican church in Kenya, my church pension is frozen, and I am as likely to spend Sunday mornings with friendly Quakers, Presbyterians, or Congregationalists as I am with the Episcopalians who remain my closest kin. Some-times I even keep the Sabbath with a cup of steaming Assam tea on my front porch, watching towhees vie for the highest perch in the poplar tree while God watches me. These days I earn my living teaching school, not leading worship, and while I still dream of opening a small restaurant in Clarkesville or volunteering at an eye clinic in Nepal, there is no guarantee that I will not run off with the circus before I am through. This is not the life I planned, or the life I recommend to others. But it is the life that has turned out to be mine, and the central revelation in it for me -- that the call to serve God is first and last the call to be fully human -- seems important enough to witness to on paper. This book is my attempt to do that.

After nine years serving on the staff of a big urban church in Atlanta, Barbara Brown Taylor arrives in rural Clarkesville, Georgia (population 1,500), following her dream to become the pastor of her own small congregation. The adjustment from city life to country dweller is something of a shock -- Taylor is one of the only professional women in the community -- but small-town life offers many of its own unique joys. Taylor has five successful years that see significant growth in the church she serves, but ultimately she finds herself experiencing "compassion fatigue" and wonders what exactly God has called her to do. She realizes that in order to keep her faith she may have to leave.

Taylor describes a rich spiritual journey in which God has given her more questions than answers. As she becomes part of the flock instead of the shepherd, she describes her poignant and sincere struggle to regain her footing in the world without her defining collar. Taylor's realization that this may in fact be God's surprising path for her leads her to a refreshing search to find Him in new places. Leaving Church will remind even the most skeptical among us that life is about both disappointment and hope -- and ultimately, renewal.

Barbara Brown Taylor's last book, Leaving Church, was met with widespread critical acclaim including the New York Times, USA Today, NPR's Fresh Air, and others. Taylor spent fifteen years in parish ministry and was named one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world by Baylor University in 1996. She became a professor of religion at Piedmont College in 1998 and also teaches spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary. Still a priest in the Episcopal church, Taylor has traveled the world in pursuit of sacred wisdom, finding most of what she needed in her backyard. She lives on a working farm in rural north Georgia with her husband, Ed.

"A fiercely honest and gracious book about our primary vocation to be human."

"A beautifully crafted memoir . . . a slice of courage in a world that too often refuses to admit vulnerability."

"An Episcopal priest renowned for her eloquent sermons turns her talents to memoir..."

"Lovely . . . revealing . . . poignant. . . . I found in Taylor’s narrative a companionable voice..."

"Even without the collar, Barbara Brown Taylor is one of our most important spiritual writers today."

"I love this book . . . . Her beautiful, absorbing memoir will bless countless readers..."

"This memoir [...] is full of surprises[...] In her renewal is our own."

"Taylor describes doubt, faith and vocation, their limits, and how the church both blesses and muddies the waters."

"Taylor is a better writer than LaMott and a better theologian than Norris. ...she is the best there is."

"A finely crafted memoir . . . a rich evocation of her lifelong love affair with God."

"Told with insight, humor and compassion."

"Wonderfully crafted . . . this memoir is a soulful conversation."

"A wonderfully gifted Christian writer and speaker."

"...Taylor at her best, writing about congregational moments with such artistic grace and wit that we see them afresh"

"Leaving Church is a canticle of praise to creator and creation."

I cannot overstate how liberating and transforming I have found Leaving Church to be."

"This new memoir is among the summer’s best books..."

"Such is the power of Brown Taylor’s prose...and her humanity that this story becomes one of hope."

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Reviewed by Steve Lee, Sr. (Mesa, AZ), August 01, 2006

I've heard over and over again, in Christian circles, that Christianity is not about religion, it's about relationship. It is easy to say that, to nod in approval, but it is seldom actually lived out. What starts out as a relationship, often becomes religion and we're not even aware of it. We absorb the dogma, learn to talk a certain way, participate in the "life of the Church" and that leaves precious little time to cultivate the relationship with God that we were hungry for in the first place. What are we to do if we want to return to the primary relationship with our Creator? Leave Church? Maybe. One thing's for sure, there are no easy answers. Taylor, a gifted preacher and writer, with a keen desire to help others, tells us, in this personal memoir, of her own struggles with these questions. We all have to take our own journey through this life. There is no pattern or map. I know some will say, "Jesus is the pattern and the Bible is the map." I don't disagree with that, but making the application to our own lives is not as simple as that statement sounds. As we move along the path we have to make choices, not always between good and evil. As Taylor points out, the choices are usually between good, better, and best. Knowing which is which, isn't even possible most of the time with our finite knowledge. But that's what faith is for. We trust in God, who is bigger than we are, and nourish the hope that he will lead us. Where he leads us may not be where we thought we wanted to go, but his presence there with us gives life and joy to the journey. Reading Taylor's story of her own journey gives me hope and faith to continue on mine.

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