leaving the Mother Ship (part 3), writing the letter

This is the third post in a series about leaving TMC. Previous posts about leaving The Mother Church Part 1 and Part 2. For all posts see the tag “goodbyeTMC.”

There appear to be two ways to contact the Clerk (aka the person in charge of membership rosters) of TMC: e-mail (clerk@christianscience.com) and snail-mail:

Clerk
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
Membership, P06-10
210 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, MA 02115-3195

As becoming a member requires a ream of paperwork to be mailed in, it seems fitting that a actual letter should be mailed to voluntarily withdraw from the institution. Some how a formal letter seems appropriate for this sort of thing. This means I need to find envelopes and stamps.

The ExMormon website has some excellent guidelines for how to phrase the letter, I find the wording to be a bit strong in spots, but I understand the sentiment. I don’t think leaving TMC will be as complicated as leaving the LDS movement (they tend to shun any publicity that they don’t create), but we shall see. Personally, I plan to keep it short and respectful.

I don’t think there is anyone the Church could/would send by to try and talk me into changing my mind. I’m not a local branch church member, the CSP I talk with is several states away (and a personal friend, not just a CSP), and I’m not part of any association so there’s no teacher to try and talk me out of it. My MIL and some of her stauncher CS friends have tried to convince us to check out a local lecture or two, but by and large they’ve recognized we’re not likely to return to church.

Feel free to use the following letter as a template to write your own letter to the Clerk.

Real & Appropriate Address

Clerk
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
Membership, P06-10
210 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, MA 02115-3195

Random Month Date, Year

Dear Church Clerk,

I hereby voluntarily withdraw my membership The First Church of Christ, Scientist, effective immediately, and request you to remove my name permanently from your membership records.

I wish no further contact from the Church except to confirm that my name has been removed from your records. I expect to receive that confirmation within a reasonably short time.

My full name ——- .

My date of birth is ——- .

My residence address is ——- .

Thank you for taking care of this in a timely manner.

Sincerely,

Kat @ Kindism

Now that I think about it, I may leave out my date of birth, somehow it seems appropriate to omit this information. I should probably also tell them about any other names I may have used (maiden name/married name, World of Warcraft avatar’s name, etc).

Now to put this in a word doc, put in my real information, print it out, find an envelope, address it, mail it and wait. I’m not going to bother with priority mail, or delivery confirmation. Maybe I have too much faith in them. I don’t know. I wonder what will come of this.

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7 thoughts on “leaving the Mother Ship (part 3), writing the letter”

  1. emerginggently says:

    I sent a similar letter myself, I believe in 2011. Still have never heard back, but then I didn’t ask them to confirm. Perhaps I should have. For now, I will comfort myself in my assumption that they did receive it, and trust that Canada Post and/or the US Postal Service did not lose me somewhere between here and Boston.

    • kindism says:

      TMC makes it very hard to find anything about how to leave, and honestly, I’m OK with them never getting back to me and ceasing all stupid mailings. Interestingly the day after I mailed in my letter a “great deal” on the lesson full text subscription arrived in my mailbox. If there is a higher power, they have an interesting sense of humor.

  2. pavlusha says:

    I wrote this letter and got a response circa 1995. I got a response asking me if I was “sure”. My father “accidentally” opened it. (Hmmm, did save it? If so, buried somewhere.)

    I think it is crazy to ask kids to apply at 12, as I did. It was a big deal when I did it.

    Enjoying your blog so far.

    • kindism says:

      Thanks!

      I always wondered about kids being able to apply as young as 12. I think I was 16-17 when I applied and that was still way too young. My parents reminded me of the importance of carrying my membership card with me AT ALL TIMES so that I could refuse/opt-out of medical treatment “on religious grounds” if the need ever arose. Being member of TMC mostly meant I got junk mail from TMC.

  3. Amy Duncan says:

    I just resigned from TMC and my Association yesterday. All I did was send each an email saying “Please remove my name from your membership” and included my membership # in the TMC one. I received a reply from TMC today inviting me to share why I was leaving, which I choose not to do. Anyway, it’s not complicated at all, and you don’t have to write a letter and send it via snail mail.

    • kat @ kindism says:

      I agree, email is much easier. I actually ended up emailing them as well — they misplaced my snail-mail letter, so I got a membership card in the mail about 6 months later. I’ve since e-mailed them and been officially removed. Such a nice feeling. 🙂

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