From my colleague/friend Mark Tronson:

I was reading bits of your web site today and also clicked onto the ex-pastors site. Wow, so many sad stories.

Two weeks back I attended an information seminar for officers in Association Incorporations. There are 32,000 in NSW alone.

The most interesting bit to me was in dispute resolution. Their first option was trying to work it out (much laughter from the packed audience – a knowing nod from the presenter).

The second option the presenter spent a fair amount of time on. I call it the Barnabas Option.

The presenter talked about the difficulties their office has been presented with when someone complains, and they are not established to work through internal disputes.

Moreover the heartache and angst and trouble disputes create for the person’s own life, their family, their work, their other social life and how much this frustration and anger adds to our country’s health bill.

The advice was to “walk away, leave” – leave it behind, simply leave the problem behind. If you want to, form another Incorporated Association – 32,001 is not going to make any difference to the relevant State Department.

This was the best bit of common sense I’ve heard from a Government Official for years.

This is precisely what Barnabas did. He simply walked away. A second missionary and mission enterprise was established.

Protestantism is abundant proof this strategy has worked time and again, and I’m told by my Catholic friends that it works just the same within the Catholic system: new groups set up to meet specific needs.

And it has a history for those who need to leave parish ministry under protest, or conscience, or whatever.

Just something that came to my mind when I was reading those sad stories.