Big News for the Conley Family

Many of the Conley family and friends know the news by now, but if you don’t… here’s the scoop! As you know I have been the Children’s Pastor at Cross Timbers Church for the last 2 years. Initially we moved to Keller, Texas to be the Children’s Pastor at Anchor Church which merged into Cross Timbers after a little over a year. I was quickly promoted to the larger campus in Argyle, TX where I set to work on fixing a disjointed children’s ministry that needed a lot of attention as well as overseeing the hiring of a Keller campus Children’s Pastor (to replace me) and a Denton Children’s Pastor (a campus to open later). It’s been a very busy and productive time. This last year especially has been very difficult as I’ve been a part of a multi-site church that is still formulating how exactly it wants to “do” multi-site (currently there are many different strategies). What this has meant for me is transition and changes in responsibility.

This last year was a very productive year for the Children’s Ministry at Cross Timbers. I led the charge in a total re-branding of the Children’s Ministry from TimberLand to CT Kids. I made some strategic changes in staff, developed a Small Group ministry for elementary aged students (which has grown 40% every semester for 3 semesters), revamped the Nursery ministry, resurrected a Vacation Bible School program (we had 900 kids participate which was triple the size of the last one), created a mission outreach for 4^th and 5^th graders (took 20 kids and 20 adults to Mexico for 4 days), improved a self-run summer camp for 3^rd-5^th graders (we took almost double the kids we took the year before) and brought a 140 child weekday preschool under the leadership of the children’s ministry. In addition to all of this, I brought Sara on staff with me (part time as a volunteer coordinator) and we had a baby in the summer. Did I mention it was a busy year too?

For the past three years Cross Timbers has been on the “Top 100 Fastest Growing Churches” list and this last year was no exception (2005, 2006, 2007). However, with this year’s attendance growth, giving did not keep up. Leadership made budget projections for 2007 and so far Cross Timbers has failed to meet these projections on a weekly giving basis. Although we recently raised over 2 million dollars for a special offering (these are restricted funds that cannot be used for general budget needs), giving has been significantly down.

That’s where we come in. This Monday, Cross Timbers’ Leadership was forced with the unpleasant decision to make staff layoffs… 16 to be exact. In addition, key leadership took pay cuts as well. Sara and I were fortunate enough to be on this list. Yeah, our world got rocked this Monday! You can read the official news from Cross Timbers Here.

At about 10:00 AM on Monday I got an all staff email requesting all staff to attend an urgent staff meeting. I remember thinking to myself… this can’t be good. Just a minute later, I got an email invite for Sara and I to attend a meeting with the leadership team. My heart sank… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was happening.

I went home, prepped Sara for what was coming and we came back for our meeting. This had to be a horrible day for the leadership team. We met for about 20 minutes and thanked them for the opportunity to serve at Cross Timbers. They were generous to give us severance until the end of the year which helps us out tremendously.

Once we walked out of Cross Timbers, the weight of responsibility was lifted from my shoulders. It felt very freeing. However, I was immediately saddled with the pressure of finding a new job in order to provide for my family… I don’t know which is heavier!

You may be asking, “Well how are you guys?”

Actually, we’re surprisingly good. The funny thing is that we’re kind of excited. About 6 weeks ago we decided that we were going to put our house on the market… so we were already headed toward getting the house ready. We’ve seen God work in amazing ways has he has prepared us for what was next. I don’t doubt for one minute that God is already working behind the scenes to place us exactly where he wants us. Although losing my job could be a “drop-kick” to the pride, I feel more secure in my calling than I ever have. Just before I walked out of Cross Timbers on Monday, I check my mailbox one last time. In it was a hand-made letter from an elementary aged girl. Click here to see it.

Isn’t it amazing how God can speak to us through so many different ways? In this case, he spoke to me through the creation of a little girl. God was telling me in the midst of a crisis or the worst day possible that I was making a difference doing exactly what he’s called me to do. What a beautiful and gentle reminder of his presence and plan.

So, that’s our big news this week. I’ll definitely keep everyone posted with current news.

Thanks for your prayers!