Caution: Everything that will follow is a combination of facts and my own opinion. Anything involving dollar ammounts will be taken from facts that I have.
Now, are we ready to begin this discussion?
I attend a church in Mission, KS called Countryside Christian Church. It's named for the city that it was built in when it was first built back in the 40s or so. (Mission and Countryside were once 2 seperate cities. They have joined cities around the late 90s but there you have that brief history).
I have been going to this church since somewhere between 1989 and 1990 (I was in lower elementary at the time) and I was baptized in 1992 (which makes me a member there physically and, I believe, a member of the faith no matter what churches you go to during your life...but I'll get to that later). During my time there, I have been in a Youth Group, a Kids of the Kingdom music group that we had for children 3rd-6th grade, I have been a deacon for three years and I have also been on the audio/visual group for the contempary service and I have been the person who changes the sign in the front yard (if you look in the picture, that's the sign that is somewhat covered by bushes). I was also in a short lived drama team and was briefly part of the short lived Green Team.
But enough about my involvement and on to why I'm typing this entry. In May, we got into these mini-groups called New Beginnings. Very few of us were actually aware of what this was about (I thought it was a Bible study at first). In the meetings that were 1.25 hours long aprox. and went from May 22 to the first Sunday in July (but really needed a retreat over the course of 2 or 3 Saturday afternoons) we found that, 60-70 years after being built, the church is in trouble in more than one area:
1. There is something called a "Water Table." This wasn't a problem when the church was first built. But due to erosian (sp.) that has happened over the years, there is water pooling around there and, if it weren't for the west wall in the santuary, the santuary would be in 4feet of standing water.
2. There is an electrical fire hazard. The wireing of some of the lights in the church are super old (for wireing). They are beyond repair and need to be replaced. A fire hazard is there. We don't know when or if it will happen but the potential is there. If a fire marshell walked into the building and inspected it, s/he would be forced to close the church right then and there.
3. We have mold REALLY bad on the ceiling of the santuary. We have had several leaks over the years and the moisture has gathered in the air of the santuary and it CAN'T be removed. The mold is in there deep and is multiplying and simple bleaching isn't going to get rid of the mold.
4. We have a daycare at the church. The daycare is actually very successful. There is one problem though. There is a child to toilet ratio that legally must be maintained. I'm not sure what the ratio is but the children have only 2 toilets to use. We can't legally take in more children until we fix the lack of toilets.
5. All of the above must be paid for to be fixed/corrected. There is aprox. $15,600 in the checking account. We require money from loans, grants and/or gifts to pay for what we are not getting from the offering.
6. We severely lack in communication within our own members. Unless someone is involved with something within the church, they don't know what's going on...and then, they only know it from within their own group. I heard about a kid who answered the phone one time and, when asked what the church does for the community, the kid said we did nothing. For record, we do do things for the community. We have a food pantry. Our youth has gone on mission trips and always had. I went to Texas to build a house once. Some have gone to Juarez, Mexico. Some have gone to Colorado. A group went to Greensburg after the tornado hit there a few years back and also to a city in Kansas that was hit back in May or early June by a tornado. When I was in the Youth, we took a trip to Harvester's and did some work. When I was a deacon, we did many community services. Last August, we put on a musical extravaganza to help raise money for the childcare department that I mentioned. We do things. But propper communication isn't one of them.
7. We aren't getting as much money as we need from the offering. Here's why: The average age there is around 75. The church is in a neighborhood of people 35-45 so there is a serious problem of reaching out to the community. Also, people who are members are leaving by a few possable means. They are leaving because they have found another church that fits their schedule and/or meets their calling. They move away (a lot of people my age and younger have left to go to college or start a family in another location). Or they are dying off. Our member count of out-going is growing while the number joining is static. The more members that leave mean less cash inflow in the offerings.
After these meetings, we found that the plan was to get the congregation ready for a proposal that would have us joinging with a church congregation called Cherokee Christian Church. This would involve packing up all we want to keep and taking it to this other church building where the congregation was ready to accept us. By the end of the advent season, we would have been relocated. Then, both church corporations would close and then reopen with a completely different name and mission statement...further on down the line, we would end up building a whole new church building that incorporated the new congragation.
Here's the thing, from what we learned from New Beginnings, Countryside will more than likely have to close up in 3 years...Cherokee has all the facilities we need including the childcare toilets. They don't have a water table...what they do have (or they did back in July) was 6 months before they had to close. This new merger was going to be perfect and all the signs seem to say that this is what God most wanted us to do.
And then Hell broke loose. All of a sudden, everyone was remembering that they grew up and got married at Countryside. That is more important of a thing following the will of God as a church congregation because God didn't take into account the pwecious wittle memories. Then everytime the time came to vote on what to do, it kept getting pushed back. People starting blaming the ministers for not doing their jobs right. One minister was being too busy visiting patients in the hospital and doing marriage counceling, one was too busy being a preacher and trying to get a message across, and one was wasting time leading the youth. I mean, how dare they do the job they were given. Grrr. (Please note my sarcasm in this paragraph).
We've had 2 votes on it...one pushed it back from Labor Day weekend to this last weekend. The problem is that it wasn't enough time to change anyone's mind. Everyone was just as much for it or as much against it as they were to begin with (if not more so). On this last Sunday, we voted on how to go about doing this. First we voted to do one of the following 5:
1. Collaborrateion with other congregations.
2. Alternative Location(s)
3. Securing necesary fundig throgh loans, grants and/or gifts
4. Formation of a satellite congregation.
5. Lots and lots of prayer.
If you're keeping track, we voted as a congrgation to accept one or more of these stratagies. 1, 2, 4 actually involve leaving the church building. 3 involves getting money from sources that we don't even know we can get them from since we're already in the hole practically and based upon a system that you're expecting to get something (but I've never studied business), and 5 dosn't seem like it'll be much help if you've given listening to the obvious signs anyway. Anyway, on Sunday, aprox. 130 of us voted to either Yes: join corporately with the other church and then form a whole new church or No: we don't want to do that because then our precious wittle memories will ugh...and boo hoo hoo. Well, the No's had it. The majority decided to kill the church (though that wasn't their intention, that's what they pretty much did) because they already voted to go with one of 5 things where 3 involved leaving, 1 is stupid because it's imaginary and 1 is relying on prayer after they have basically said "F**k you, God! Die in the dirt already!"
If you can't tell, I was pretty pissed about it. A number of us and a few others are going to start actively leaving the church and seeking new congragations starting at or after advent. This is, currently, including me. This has been affecting me in the head all week and then I got even more pissed off when I read (by the way, have I said pissed off enough time in this entry for you to catch my drift? Yes? No? Whatever...) this letter that was sent to me:
September 28, 2011
Dear David,
After a large turnout for the congregation meeting Sunday, September 25, 2011, I thank all of you for your prayerful participation. We dealt with several very important issues, and now we need to unite as never before to face the tasks of moving ahead. 140 members signed in at the beginning of the meeting, but quite a few had to leave before teh ballot was taken. We are nearly evenly divided on how we will face the future. We run the risk of losing up to half of our members without prayerful cooperation from everyone as we seek to determine God's will for our future.
The Council is holding a special meeting on Tuesday, October 4th to begin addressing many of the issues voiced by the congregation.
However, we immediately need to face a pressing financial problem. At the beginning of the month, as indicated on the handout for the meeting, our checking account balance was $15,600, and we have "borrowed" almost $80,000 from our other funds. In spite of a very high attendance Sundaay, the collection waas down to $4,300. Currently our expenses require approximately $7,500 per week. We are being very selective about what bills are paid each week, annd the Council will consider requesting more "loans" from memorial funs to stay current unless donations come in at a sufficient rate to covver our expenses.
The Council will discuss more active follow up with the membership, goals for measuring progress, reviewing duties and responsibilities of various ministries and staff, and attempt to maximize our resources. We will also discuss Capital Improvement and Stewardship campaign strategies.
In short, our collective tasks are just beginning.
Please continue to pray for God's guidance aas we embark on this program.
After reading that letter, I had this to update my facebook status with:
I got a letter from my church informing me of everything that has to be done as we move forward and that we risk loosing 1/2 our members and I thought, yeah, no $iht! I'm one of those members you risk loosing.
I have said before that I don't want to be part of a dying church. And it seems that the majority of the congregation has already voted to let it die through unwillingness to leave the pass behind them and move on and also it seems to me that they have actively turned their backs on God so I don't know what good praying will do if they've already stopped listening.
I intend to stay at least until the end of October. The senior minister is stepping down and retiring and instead taking on the role that he's really been best at all along which is visiting patients in the hospitals and counceling. He will still get paid for that service but it is a pay cut...mostly so that funds can be focused better onto other matters. Then, I will probably start actively looking for another church.
Oh, but before this gets posted, I want one thing to be mentioned. There are some who complain that there are too many paid staff members. They should instead be unpaid volunteeres. Now, here is why this pisses me off: That doesn't work. Okay, I do volunteere work. I change the sign (as I stated). I've been doing it since at least 2008...maybe even 2007. I am a little burned out on it because I can't really put it on a schedule...I have to either ask if it needs to be changed the Sunday before I am considering coming up or get called about it. I drive from North-East Shawnee to the church to change it...not a huge deal when you consider I drive about the same distance (or maybe even furtehr) to go out to Bonner Springs just in the opposet direction. The reason I keep going up as the one to change the sign is for 2 reasons: I like feeling needed and two...volunteerism doesn't work...there is nobody else to tag team with me.
This is pretty much what's been going on at my church...especially for the people who have been asking me.
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