Still Going Down

Last year in the middle of August we observed the one year anniversary (plus a few weeks) of Takoma Park's adoption of the recommendations of the Potomac Conference executive committee for resolving our governance dispute. Since these recommendations were supposed to resolve the issues at hand and clear the way for the church to move forward and grow, the Group at that time decided to stand back and let Pastor DeSilva have a free hand to implement the recommendations and lead the growth. A year later neither of these things had happened, so we marked the anniversary with a comparison of the attendance, tithe, and offering numbers for the second week of August 2010 with the second week of August 2009. All of those indicators had declined in the year that Pastor DeSilva had had Group-free reign to do exactly as he pleased at Takoma Park.

We have now passed the second anniversary of the adoption of the Potomac Conference's recommendations. They still have not been fully implemented and Takoma Park is still not growing. So here we are again to give the numerical evidence of the church's downward spiral under Pastor DeSilva's administration. Once again, we are comparing numbers from the second week in August.

On August 13, 2011, 59 people attended the first service at Takoma Park. There were 177 people at the second service, which made the total for the day 236 people. On the second Sabbath of August 2010 there were 241 people in attendance. This is a decline of 2.1% over one year. On the second Sabbath of August 2009 there were 410 people in attendance. This makes a decline in attendance of 42.5% over two years.

The 2011 year-to-date offerings for Takoma Park stood at $212,831 on August 13. One year before, the number was $241,602. Two years before, it was $254, 701. That makes a 12% drop over one year and a 16.5% drop over two years.

The 2011 year-to-date tithe for Takoma Park stood at $495, 701 on August 13. In 2010 that number was $567,778. In 2009 that number was $620, 131. That makes a 12.7% drop in the last year and a 20.1% drop in the last two years.

Potomac Conference, how low must these numbers drop before you are willing to recognize and deal with the problems at Takoma Park?