O'Reilly Help Us

The O’Reilly factor claims: “no spin”. I wonder what he would think of our reports that are made in our churches, districts, and at the general church level. Besides launching Fox news into the stratosphere and making himself a very wealthy man … we are given the impression that he hopes there are some folks who will look at facts in a way that motivates them to some appropriate action. He even attacks such sacred organizations as the Red Cross when he thinks they are “skimming” or not taking care of the “folks” the way they let on.

Now, enter the Wesleyan church international. We go to district conference and hear from our international headquarters. We have expectations that we will hear information that will motivate us to action; whether it be to rejoice or to get moving in areas that may have been slighted in the past year or years.

But among those listening fairly closely there is that hint of “spin”. (thus the help us O’Reilly)
Four years ago the report was given that our denomination had declined in church membership after completing a quadrenniam (how in the world do you spell that ) of diligent labor. Were we working too hard in the wrong areas … or just not hard enough in the right areas.

Well, we have assuaged our guilt, and our spirits were lifted at the last dist. Conference to hear that our denomination had made good gains. (not ‘great’ gains that would be obvious ‘spin’) Let’s be subtle here.

The “Factor” at times gets my curiosity going … and so did the dist. Conf. Report … for somewhat similar reasons. I have this ‘spin’ detector that I just can’t seem to shake. Just when I want to believe the glowing reports … the light blinks and the buzzer goes off like my car just after leaving the mechanics shop.

I continue to wonder … just how “swell” are we doing as a denomination. (it is bugging me, because I really, really, want us to do well. We are good people with a good message trying to reach good people who happen to be on their way to hell. At least most of my neighbors are. (I think)

In 2000 we had approx. 1,689 churches with approx. 128,578 members
In the years between then and 2004 we allowed other church groups to merge with us that was some where around 23 in the U.S. and 20 from Can. for a total of 43 churches.

It looks like in the past four years we had a gain of 25 churches or approx. 6 chs. Per year.
But when you factor in the fact that we added 43 through mergers … then it looks like we actually had a loss of approx. 18 churches in four years. If we had not lost 18 churches our total number of churches would be 1,732. In the words of “Bill” the “Factor” man; tell me, where did I go wrong.

This may not be a bad report in some people’s minds. But without at least a little ‘spin’ it sure don’t look good.
I wish it looked very very good. I wish that instead of gaining approx. 650 people per year, and instead of loosing 4 or 5 churches every year that …. Well …. That …. It was just simply a lot better report, but I don’t think it is. Tell me where did I go wrong?

It is a good thing to have reports, just ask any business manager. Those reports can tell you ‘stuff’ and then if you want to you can take action. But if I get a report that is “spin city”, I may not notice, and thus think that no action is necessary.

In our dist. there is need of reports that will help us direct our future actions. We may well move in that direction in the near future. I think we will. The action we would like to take … I can’t see it in full, but I can see it in part, and it looks like a difficult job. OR … who knows … the majority may prefer the “spin”.
Help us O’Reilly …….