Staff,
In case you weren’t in our Staff Prayer Meeting today, I wanted you to hear an important update. Clayton wrote out the announcement & delivered it, so I’m going to copy & paste that here:
Over the last couple of years we have seen our attendance continue to decline and we have not been able to turn it around. We have also seen our giving at this campus continue to decline and it has reached a point where we can no longer afford to do the bare minimum.
We asked Kyle and his family to take a risk and move across the nation to Amarillo to try and turn the campus around but we have not been able to turn these declining numbers around.
Chris and I met with Kyle before our LT Retreat to find out where he believes the campus is and then on our LT Retreat we spent 25% of the time discussing next steps for the Amarillo Campus. After the retreat, I spoke with Kyle about what we were thinking and he was on the same page.
At this time, we believe its best to close the Amarillo Campus.
While we are disappointed we were not able to turn things around and that we have to close this campus, we are so thankful for everything we saw God do at the Amarillo Campus over the last few years.
We have also learned that this is not unusual. John, Brandon, and I have been a part of a multi-site coaching group with pastors from LifeChurch, Willow Creek, and Seacoast. Each one of these guys were extremely impressed we have been able to keep the campus open this long. We also learned from them that closing campuses, while never exciting, is normal. Not every church plant or campus ends up lasting long term. In fact, 80% of church plants end up closing and 20% of multi-site campuses end up closing. So, while we are disappointed we are closing AMA, we realize that other large multi-site churches have been through this a lot. While we hope this never happens again, chances are it could. Starting new churches and campuses is just risky.
Now you may be wondering what is happening with Kyle and his family. We have offered Kyle a position on our staff here in Lubbock. Before Kyle came to eLife, he was a Family Pastor for a church plant in Missouri. He worked with the curriculum we use, Orange. He went to the Orange conferences. He knows our material, has a vision for where to go with this curriculum, and how we can improve our ministry to parents and families. So, we have asked him to be our Central Family Pastor. He will work with our eKids Directors in the same way Brandon works with our Worship Leaders. Resourcing them, bringing them together, and helping to improve our eKids ministry. We have been looking for this position since the church started and just have not found the right person. We are pumped that we will finally have a strong leader in this role. So after we transition all the AMA stuff back to LBB, he will get started. Please pray for him and his family in this transition and for Emily to find a teaching job here in Lubbock.
Now, here’s the part I shared after Clayton:
The success of a church or campus is not measured by how long it lasts. If that were the case, we might think weโve been unsuccessful as a campus in Amarillo. But no local church lasts forever.
The success of a church is measured by how faithful & fruitful it was while it lasted.
By the faithfulness measure, I believe our Amarillo staff (Kyle, Caleb, & Amber) have served Jesus faithfully by seeking his direction as they led this campus & Iโm very proud of them. I hope you’ll take a minute to e-mail them & thank them for leading so faithfully over these last few years.
By the fruitfulness measure, in just under 3 years in Amarillo, weโve seen 231 people indicate they were committing their lives to Christ and 166 people get baptized. Wow! Isn’t that amazing?
Based on that criteria, AMA has been a huge success!
Please pray for us as we head to Amarillo this weekend to share this with that campus in person.
Also, please do not share this on social media or with anyone other than family until we’ve made the announcement to the Amarillo Campus. We really want people hearing for the first time from us.
After we make the announcement, I’m sure people will ask you some questions. Here’s what Clayton is suggesting we share:
Over the last couple of years we have seen our attendance and giving continue to decline and we have not been able to turn it around. The Leadership Team and Kyle believed it was time to close this campus. Kyle is moving to Lubbock to be our Central Family Pastor.
If they have any other questions, it’s best to just direct them to Clayton.
Thanks for listening – you guys rock!
Chris
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Chris Galanos
Lead Pastor
ExperienceLifeNow.com
