I see he’s throwing his education credentials in Bette’s face again, which is typical.
In the post above, Mystic/Berserk touts, “One of the most satisfying aspects of m 8-year ministry in my last church was the ministry participation I was able to inspire.”
It’s true that he was in his last church from mid-2007 to mid-2015 - approximately 8 years. Thankfully, the United Methodist Church publishes attendance data from its churches:
Recall that Mystic/Berserk arrived in 2007, and departed in 2015. Therefore, he oversaw a 22% drop in attendance, despite what he will tell you.
If the argument is that all churches declined, then explain why in-person attendance shot up 15% after he left (plus another 20% gain in online attendance), only to drop back to Mystic/Berserk levels after Covid hit.
As Mystic/Berserk continues, “An annual youth Sunday was used to help our youth discover their gifts and increase their loyalty to the church,” let’s take a look at Sunday School attendance:
Similar story. A decline while Mystic/Berserk was in charge, followed by an even larger gain in students following his departure.
Take a look at the other published numbers yourself:
Doesn’t shock me. If he behaves among his congregants the way he does online, or at least has a similarly arrogant, self-righteous attitude, I wouldn’t want to be in his church either.
This congregation moved to the Global Methodists over the question of gay marriage and ordination sometime last year, so the United Methodists won’t be publishing any more data going forward. Therefore the congregation was already fairly conservative for the old denomination, yet Berserk couldn’t even hold onto the numbers he was given, let alone “inspire” anything of note.
Feel free to copy and paste any of this in a reply to him.
And if you ever try to justify your comments of years ago to chansen using this crap, then totally and forever, f*** you. That was your unforgiveable, and I’m not God, thankfully.
I think it always kinda bothered me that, after Berserk wrote that, people got all super offended with him and were talking about how he should just leave after something like that, then later it was like nothing happened.
