However, coping with a rapid onset health issue plus managing the long-term disabilities of my children provided an opportunity for some discontented people in the church to start making complaints against me.  Unfortunately, the leadership didn’t support me, and it quickly became clear that my time at the church was coming to an abrupt end.

It was a difficult and painful time as it involved moving house, moving church, leaving friends and leaving my ministry.  As part of the exit process, it was agreed that the church would give me a generous settlement, and I wouldn’t take legal action for the numerous breaches of employment law they had committed.  I was happy with this – I had no desire to drag anything through the courts.  Once that had been agreed in principle, we thought that we would soon be able to put the whole experience behind us.

To my shock, non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses were put into the settlement agreement.  They were so restrictive that they would have prevented me from even discussing the existence of the agreement with any friends, my new pastor, a therapist – indeed, with anyone except my wife.  Or from saying anything truthful that could in any way be perceived as detrimental to the church.

I couldn’t quite believe what was in the agreement, particularly as it was written by Christian solicitors associated with our church denomination.  We immediately felt full of fear and worry – we had no intention of starting a campaign against the church, but would we have to watch every conversation and every social media post for the rest of our lives?  Would we have to remain silent and unable to heal and process the trauma we had been through?

At first, as legal fees escalated, we tried to negotiate a less restrictive version of the NDA.  However, the church leadership were unwilling to make meaningful concessions.  We tried reaching out through a third party, but this again only led to minor adjustments.  We were frustrated and at our wits end. 

I was advised by my lawyer just to sign – the NDA clauses would be unenforceable anyway.  But for me, it was a matter of integrity.  I wasn’t prepared to sign a legal agreement that I intended to ignore or disregard.  As a Christian, I want my yes to be yes, and my no to be no.

I then did further research and reading, including using guidance from the #NDAfree website.  I became more and more uncomfortable with the restrictions an NDA would place upon us, and the abuse of power that it involved.

Finally, I wrote a letter to the church leadership explaining that I would not be signing a settlement agreement with non-disclosure or non-disparagement clauses in any circumstances.  The letter was as gentle and gracious as I could make it, and listed 10 reasons why I would not be signing an NDA.  This included some of the following:

• Non-disclosure agreements have a bad reputation in and outside the church.
• Non-disclosure agreements give the impression of a cover-up.
• A non-disclosure agreement diminishes my voice.
• A non-disclosure agreement works against future forgiveness and reconciliation.
• A non-disclosure agreement isolates me and my wife, hindering us from getting appropriate support
• A non-disclosure agreement disproportionately affects my wife, even though she has never been an employee of the church.
• A non-disclosure agreement puts me in the position where I might have to lie in order to avoid breaking it.

I could have included more reasons, such as the fact that NDAs are a method of control and misuse of power, but my goal was to write a letter that de-escalated, rather than inflamed matters!  I was also careful not to be accusatory in the letter – I didn’t say that they were trying to cover up their mistreatment of me, but that it could give the impression of a cover-up!

And finally, I explained that even if I walked away with nothing, there was no way I was signing a settlement agreement with those clauses in it.  I bypassed the church’s lawyers and sent the letter directly to the church leadership.  I don’t know what was said behind the scenes, but within 24 hours, they had agreed to remove all NDA-related clauses.  A complete U-turn, and a relief for me and my wife.

My exit from my ministry was painful and involved much loss, but the fight not to sign an NDA was by far the hardest part of it all.  That being said, I would do the same again.  If we had signed it, I would have been looking over my shoulder every time I did so much as ‘like’ a tweet online about church hurt, or church abuse, worrying that it could be used against me by my former church.  What if I had a private conversation with a friend, and it somehow got back to the church leadership?  Would I have to lie in my job search when people asked me why I left my previous church?

We signed the NDA-free settlement agreement 3 days before Christmas, and it was the absolute best Christmas present I’ve ever had.  Now that I have left my post and moved out of the church house, I am filled with joy and relief at the fact that the leadership have no ongoing power over my voice.  I know that I would have regretted signing it, but at times was sorely tempted, just because we wanted to get things over with. I’d encourage anybody facing similar circumstances: understand the issues, use the available resources, seek help – and know that it is possible to resist NDAs.