Many of you know by now that the leadership at Crash, our Sunday Night Service, decided to bring things to a close in September. I have been working and worshiping at Crash for 7 years now. It has been the single most transformative experience of my life. This is where I first had full control over a worship service, shaping it purely in the way I felt God was leading me. This is where I began producing albums, writing songs, leading worship, and pastoring those around me. I saw first hand the trials of running a church. All the issues that any church faced, we faced. Issues of worship style, children’s programing, vision, mission, all that. Moreover, Crash is family to me. That is where my lifelong friendships were formed. We lived life together, and still do, out of this.
Why am I going on about all this though?
Exit Strategy
There really is no great way to end something. Sure, “strategy” denotes a plan of some kind that wraps up nicely in a bow. But I think we are too used to this kind of story telling from TV and Movies. There, everything has an obvious, satisfactory, end to the story. That is not real life however. Things never just, “end.” Especially Church. Because God placed community and works in community, He alters our being through experiences and shifts the way we think, and when we associate those experiences with a particular community of faith and particular people, this causes our soul to grieve when this ends. Anyway, this is a valid feeling, and one I feel.
But, there are concrete reasons why Crash ended. Those reasons where clearly revealed by God to the leadership at Crash.
Plainly, here they are:
1) There were not enough people to create a “Production Service” on a weekly basis. Early last March, we began to see an excessive decrease and fluctuation in attendance. We never really ran above 100 for anytime in the existence of the service really, but we started seeing attendance significant dip to about 40 or 50. Roughly half. This is unsustainable as all of the service relies on volunteers to produce the service.
2) As Crash grew up, so did the young couples and children’s programming became an issue. There is a great desire to have concurrent children’s bible programming along with the evening service. (Adults go to one place, children go to another simultaneously.) However, North Phoenix is a “Baptist church” with a Bible Study first then Worship Service model. The children from 1st grade and up join parents for the service. The Crash service did not have the infrastructure in place to provide adequately for this, and though we were working with Children’s Ministry to resource that experience better we did not have the volunteers or staff available to create the desired infrastructure.
3) God did not place a new vision for future of the service in the heart of its leader. Scott Savage was unsettled about the future of the service and what impact his leadership would have if the service continued on. Simply put: no vision from God, no leader to lead, no service.
As an Exit Strategy, we chose a simple Q & A session at the last Sunday Night of the service. Though this may have been abrupt, the writing was on the wall, clearly written I might add, and the transitional time made the above 3 items very clear and we needed to stop the service.
Crash has impacted hundreds and hundreds of people. We have innovated the way church had been done. Sang new original songs. Filmed original films. Tackled crazy topics. Changed the direction of NPHX significantly. Heard from God in mighty ways. We did something new as God did something new in us. We reflected our Creator brilliantly. We all carry some milestone with us from the service. We were blessed in so many ways over the last seven years, but because I was there from the beginning and there at the end and saw things from the inside out, I feel I was blessed most of all.
Well put sir.