Raw and Uncensored…Sort of (Part 4)

So here's my best-but-surely-flawed shot at explaining what happened. Bottom line: more people left than usual and less people joined than usual. If we had reached more people this past year at a rate similar to other years, we would not have had nearly the shortfall in growth or in finances (I''ll address this in another post). But I think we would still have had some troubles because enough people left to make a serious dent, and there was a lot of sadness in many of our members over those who left. It hurt morale. I personally was reeling and have talked to others who felt the same way. Add to this long-time leaders/friends/staff that moved away like the Westurn's, Thomas', Jackson's, Bents', Johnson's, and LaCroix's (transitioning to leave). (I think I missed one or two others, but I'm tired and it's late right now.)

So why did so many people leave? My analysis is based on several "exit interviews" and conversations with others who are still here but talked to those who exited.

I think a perfect storm of factors led to a larger than usual number of exits. But I think it's important to note that most of the folks that left this last year had been dissatisfied for quite a while. It's a little disconcerting when someone seems to have to go back five or more years to talk about the good old days at Five Oaks or a series they felt exemplified the best of my preaching. 

Among the reasons I heard for people leaving included (with most people offering multiple reasons):

• We're not doing enough to disciple believers.
• Disagreements with leadership decisions, sometimes dating back five years.
• Personal offenses, some dating back two years.
• Not being fed spiritually and leaving the service "empty" week after week.
• The worship style, quality, leadership, changes, lights, staging, song choices, etc.
• The way we do small groups or their small group experience in particular.
• Not enough emphasis on one ministry or another that is dear to them.
• Too seeker oriented.
• Unduly influenced by places like Saddleback and Willow Creek.
• A very particular dislike for specific series like No Perfect People Allowed, U2CanRocktheWorld and even The Naked Truth About Sex from 2006.
• The desire to find a place that "just teaches the Bible" or "teaches the Bible and only the Bible."
• Particular comments I made in a sermon or this blog.
• The need for change in their own lives.
• They like us but some family members don't and they wanted to go with their family members (I know of at least three instances of this one).

I could go on. I'm not listing some that were more personal and pointed...but I think you get the idea. And some themes began to emerge for me the more I listened.

The tipping point--the big dip in attendance which was then reflected in the general fund--was Easter. Our infamous Easter service that didn't feel much like Easter. For most of these folks it seems that my apology came too late and didn't cover enough of their concerns.

Okay, I'm ready now to give my analysis, but this post is already too long, so it will have to wait. Be back soon.   

Raw and Uncensored…Sort of (Part 3)

The ministry "wins" of the past year or so also came with some significant losses. After ten years of growth (most of them in the double digits), we experienced a -1% loss in attendance for our ministry year (September to August compared to the previous year). The loss was worse than that if you compare September '07 attendance to September '06. For those of you who don't like numbers and feel the church shouldn't count, let me put it in human terms (by the way, the Bible is enamored with counting because those numbers represent people..."three thousand were baptized that day," The Book of Numbers, etc.).

The loss was such that we had to reduce the budget by about 10% half-way through the year resulting in hardship to many of our staff. Some people had hours cut back. Some people had to take on a lot more responsibility because staff hours and part-time personnel we were adding in September were eliminated. Our Campus Pastor position in Hudson will from full-time now to part-time next March '08, and we can't afford to fill the lost time with other work. This has been by far the hardest part for me. When you plan on growth, a loss of 10% translates into 15-20% because now you have to factor in the lack of growth you were expecting and planned on. This impacts real people.

It also impacts real ministry to real people. How do you plan for a new campus in the middle of all of this? How do you pay for it? We don't spend very much on promotion as it is (things like impact cards or the billboard on I94 that has resulted in more than a dozen household visiting the new campus), but as we plan a major outreach for early '08, we're running up against significant limitations because we have no margin. P.E.A.C.E. partnerships have been and will be impacted (10% of a smaller budget results in a smaller amount going out for missionaries we support and P.E.A.C.E. efforts we initiate).

We haven't publicized most this throughout the year, but we've talked pretty openly about most of it, so a fair number of you are aware. But if this is new to you, take a deep breath and remember...God is control. By the time this series of posts is over I think you will agree that God isn't through with Five Oaks yet and that our best days are ahead of us for ministry. Relax.

So, what happened? I'll give you my best-but-surely-flawed shot at explaining it in the following posts. I wish I could blame the road work or the slowdown in housing. They are real and significant factors, but they're not at the core of my analysis. In the end I believe I made a series of bad leadership calls. (If you know football, and you compared our ministry to a football game, you might say that as quarterback I made some errant reads and called some bad audibles on the field, fumbled the ball in critical situations and threw a couple of hail mary's that were intercepted.)