As I noted in another post, I was impressed with Lance's take, his spin, on the Statistical Reports from 2013 as he addressed the numbers in the most recent issue of The CHURCH ADVOCATE.
Lance's honesty startled me. I've not been accustomed to honesty coming from the mountaintop in quite some time.
If you haven't read Lance's commentary for its tone, read it for its tone. Also note that this article is one of the places that Lance calls for the CGGC to change.
When I read the article I recalled that Ed wrote a similar article a little more than a year earlier, which I commented on on this blog, and in which I chided Ed for celebrating 28,000 in worship in 2012 when 20 years earlier we were seeking 35,000 by the year 2000.
That number 28,000 stuck in my mind so I looked up the old blog post and discovered a fact that is not clear from Lance's account of how bad 2013 was.
Ed reported worship attendance of 28,072 in 2012. Lance reports 27,177 for 2013.
Doing the math, worship attendance declined by 895 in that year or 3.2% in a single year.
And, if you remember the 2013 statistical report, this year's report included a 99 word formula for counting worship attendance that greatly expanded the definition of worship attendance to include several categories of people who would not have been counted in 2012.
That diluted definition of how to count worship attendance coupled with the fact that our Regions have added congregations by merely adopting them to our number suggests that we probably lost far more in attendance than 895 or 3.2% in that one year.
It is no wonder that Lance presents a bleak picture. But, the truth is that the picture is much more bleak than a mere reading of the article suggests.
Lance inherited a mess.
We must repent. He must lead repentance.
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