In the spring of 2007 I had come to the decision that Compass Point needed a challenge…a numerical challenge…to get us through the summer slump. In our history we had never laid out a numerical challenge before…mainly because they are just plain cheesy and the hype really comes off as flaky to our people. Besides…I have found that numerical goals are usually derived…not from God’s leading…but from a pastor’s ego. In this case…to steal the line from “Top Gun”…my ego was writing checks that Compass Point couldn’t cash. I knew God didn’t lead me to this decision…I knew that a book by a megachurch pastor had given me the vision. There was nothing wrong with the book, the pastor or his church…other than the fact that his vision wasn’t the vision that God gave Compass Point. Nevertheless an attendance goal and a servant evangelism goal was set.
“Evan Almighty” was coming out in theaters during the summer and a pastor friend of mine had been talking about how his church was playing off of the theme of the movie to really do something good in their community. Now I knew my folks hated any theme for a message series or event that even remotely related to a television show or movie. However, I knew that “The Office” was a television show that the majority of Compass Point 20-somethings watched…and that Steve Carrell was going to be in the lead role for “Evan Almighty”. Due to this extremely Biblical and spiritual leading (place tongue firmly in cheek when you say the preceding words) I set a goal for our folks to give out 10,000 bottles of free water and have a Sunday attendance at Compass Point of over 500 before the summer was out. It was going to be simple…Lakeland has a HUGE fireworks display on July 4th that draws over 50,000 people each year. We would give out the majority of the water that day…not to mention that people would be so blown away from getting free water on a hot summer day that they would flock to our church on Sunday. It was brilliant..it was easy…it was going to give us a “home run” for the summer…it would give us something to pump and hype…it was going to put Compass Point on the map in Polk County…it was something that God was totally left out of.
July 4th comes and it rains…all DAY. There were less than 5,000 near the event location braving the elements…no one was thirsty…the fireworks never came off…and we only gave out about 1,000 bottles of water that day. To top it off only about 5% of Compass Point showed up to help. We tried for several weeks after to get folks to give out water in parks, to the homeless and in the downtown area. We discovered that God did not wire everybody for servant outreach…and that not everybody in Lakeland wants a free bottle of water. By the end of the summer we had only given out abut 5,000 bottles…and instead of growing in attendance…we were actually declining.
To make matters worse I decided that the reason we were not having numerical success at Compass Point was because our people had no vision. I remembered back to a conference I had attended in the spring where I heard about being “mean about the vision”. It’s a great concept…if you as the pastor have God-given vision. The problem was that I was armed with a vision I got from books, conference speakers, blogs and podcasts. Also…I wasn’t being mean about the vision…I was just being mean. My Sunday messages served to attack specific people…I used the pulpit as a weapon…my frustration and anger hung on every word I spoke to our congregation…all the passion and love was gone. I had stopped being a visionary shepherd…I had become a hateful tyrant. By the end of July we were barely hanging on…people were leaving in droves. I blamed Compass Point for our failure…because my ego wouldn’t let me admit it was my fault.
School started back on August 10th…we had hoped that it would bring back some families that usually took most of the summer off from church. It didn’t happen…our numbers continued to slide…we dropped back to less than 50 people. I finally had to admit to the church that the numerical goals and servant projects were a colossal flop…they had only caused further damage to our morale and vision. I also had to admit to myself that I had not heard from God…I had heard only from my inner-ego for vision. I no longer trusted myself…my flock no longer trusted me. By the end of August I had been taken to “the woodshed” by every leader or potential leader at Compass Point. Some even suggested that we fold up the tent and move on…to shut Compass Point down. I was devastated…and broken.
The crash came…not with a loud bang…but with a quiet whimper. I no longer had the energy to even cry out to God. In my life there was only quiet…desperation…surrender. It is a great place to be…because then God…
More coming Part 3…
RAMBLINGS OF A FORMER STREET PASTOR 