Change and Die?

“Whac-A-Bogeyman”:

On Ministry Success, Failure and “Whac-A-Bogeyman”:

There is a tendency to:

  • If a ministry fails (closes or is in decline) and one is not a friend of the same, blame something that is seen as a threat. Goes like this: “XYZ Christian College closed … and you know why? … they tolerated CCM
  • If a ministry is successful and one is not a friend of the same, blame something that is seen as a threat. Goes like this: “XYZ Christian College is busting at the seams … and you know why? … they tolerate CCM
  • If a ministry is successful and one is a friend of the same - “It’s the Lord’s blessings for their obedience!”
  • If a ministry fails and one is a friend of the same - Blame the world and the devil.

Happens all the time!

http://www.proclaimanddefend.org/2015/06/16/from-the-front-pew-this-pas…

Although all of the above no doubt contribute to the demise of CCC; I suggest from my vantage point that the leadership of the college over the past 10 years steered the college away from its founder’s purpose, philosophy and vision. Rather than an institution dedicated to educating, challenging and equipping young people to be “soldiers of Christ”, CCC evolved to a pragmatic philosophy of accommodation lowering her standards, adopting CCM music in her chapels and athletic events and most recently featuring an activity night of rap and rock music. It is with sorrow that I realize the beautiful campus by the Bay will no longer serve my church or young people; however, I’m afraid that has been true for many years.

I really like the way Dr. Bauder points out that the real cause of Clearwater’s demise was unsecured debt. How many chances were missed because the first half million in the budget was already spoken for—and that doesn’t even count the cost of maintaining, heating, lighting, and cooling those facilities built with the debt.

And I hate to say it, but I cringe at what Travis Smith writes about the demise of Clearwater. I don’t know that it’s how he means it, but when people talk about “standards” and “lowering standards”, my mind immediately goes to the kind of nonsense we’re discussing on the Gothard thread. While most CCM is fit for the circular file, Scripture clearly commends percussive instruments and dancing to us in Psalms 149 and 150, So to refer to CCM in terms of “falling standards” really begs the question of what our Biblical point of view ought to be.

(why I think CCM is fit for the circular file; not because it has a beat, but rather because it tends to have very shallow lyrics with very poor poetry, backed with poor musicianship where the # of instruments and the volume is confused for musicality. This is really the same reason I don’t have a lot of use for most stuff coming out of BJU)

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

That along with Dr Bauder, many commenting here will misread what pastor Smith says and make it the sole focus of criticism.

The debt factor surely is a key issue in the Clearwater case. But to ignore the philosophical shift as displayed in changing standards is naive. For any school heavily dependent on tuition as Bauder says Clearwater was, then changing your standards in such a way as to alienate a significant portion of your supporting base is clearly a foolhardy decision. The other schools Bauder mentions, especially Liberty, have long been supported by a different base and had other factors ensuring a greater financial stability.

the current times are challenging for colleges of all stripes, but surely we cannot dismiss the impact of alienating a significant portion of your base at the same time as carrying potentially crippling debt. The correlation should be obvious.

I predict, however, that most will not want to see any correlation and will thus deny it.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

The fact is Don, that both Clearwater and Northland were hanging on by a thread to begin with. In fact, it was questionable whether Northland was ever really solvent from Day 1. There is not enough data to indicate that a change in philosophy was the problem or the inevitable. Pillsbury didn’t change and it closed. PCC changed and it didn’t close. BJU hasn’t changed and it is hanging on by a thread in terms of finances.

There just isn’t enough information. I agree with Dr. Bauder, that those who do not agree with the change, are quick to point to that as the demise, but clearly there are cases where change does and doesn’t occur and schools stay open and close. There are typically a lot of factors in play.

I think it almost all has to do with finances. Why go to Clearwater, when for a little more you can go to Liberty. Inflation was 2% last year, yet BJU room, board and tuition went up 4.5%. Whatever is driving such a disparity between overall inflation and education inflation, if it doesn’t stop, Christian colleges will continue to go down while Christian families look for more affordable options (public colleges, community colleges).

[Don Johnson]

That along with Dr Bauder, many commenting here will misread what pastor Smith says and make it the sole focus of criticism.

The debt factor surely is a key issue in the Clearwater case. But to ignore the philosophical shift as displayed in changing standards is naive. For any school heavily dependent on tuition as Bauder says Clearwater was, then changing your standards in such a way as to alienate a significant portion of your supporting base is clearly a foolhardy decision. The other schools Bauder mentions, especially Liberty, have long been supported by a different base and had other factors ensuring a greater financial stability.

the current times are challenging for colleges of all stripes, but surely we cannot dismiss the impact of alienating a significant portion of your base at the same time as carrying potentially crippling debt. The correlation should be obvious.

I predict, however, that most will not want to see any correlation and will thus deny it.

Don,

I am as IFB as they come and I will have to disagree with you. Clearwater never had much of a base in its history. If it did, it wouldn’t have had to borrow so much to expand during its peak of 600 students. That is alot of debt for a college that size so any decrease in enrollment made it vulnerable. In IFB circles, Clearwater was never really widely accepted . You know it and I know it. When I was in college in the 80’s Clearwater was lumped in with Cedarville, Tennessee Temple, etc. as schools whose rules were more lax than BJU, Maranatha, and PCC. The truth is it was considered a little left of BJU back then just like it was considered a little left of BJU in 2014.

It comes, in this corner, as no surprise that many from around the fruited plain would have issues with someone who had (in his terms) a “front pew seat.” Clearly most of us know more than a local pastor who served on the CCC board for a few years and had first-hand knowledge of what was transpiring.

Those of us who have a long-distance, second-hand relationship with CCC obviously are in a better spot to diagnose and evaluate reasons for its demise. I’m sure that any change in philosophy/practice is only one of perception and had nothing to do with parents/alumni not supporting the school as they may have in the past.

I remember when Cedarville and Cornerstone “changed” in the early 1980’s. The conservative and not-as-conservative members of the GARBC engaged in often heated debate with some predicting the demise of both schools.

On the other hand I’m familiar with fundamental churches that haven’t changed anything since 1950 whose membership are mostly AARP members and who haven’t seen a member added through conversion in years.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

[KD Merrill]

It comes, in this corner, as no surprise that many from around the fruited plain would have issues with someone who had (in his terms) a “front pew seat.” Clearly most of us know more than a local pastor who served on the CCC board for a few years and had first-hand knowledge of what was transpiring.

Those of us who have a long-distance, second-hand relationship with CCC obviously are in a better spot to diagnose and evaluate reasons for its demise. I’m sure that any change in philosophy/practice is only one of perception and had nothing to do with parents/alumni not supporting the school as they may have in the past.

There are others who have as much or more first hand knowledge than the local pastor who used to be on the board.

KD, that’s just a genetic fallacy on your part—the logically fallacious tactic of pointing to the origins of an idea with the false notion that it somehow impeaches the idea. If you want your thoughts to be respected by those who have learned a touch of logic, I encourage you to abandon this tactic.

Reality here is that proximity is not required to take a look at a spreadsheet and warn of problems—Enron’s problems were diagnosed in 1999 from 1500 miles away by a Wall Street analyst, for example. And in this case, a look at those spreadsheets indicates that the school was starting each budget cycle somewhere north of five hundred grand in the hole—probably somewhere north of a million all told. Good luck keeping the budget in the black when you’re starting 10-20% in the red, to put it mildly.

The building program is implicated, as is the school’s ownership of (as far as I can tell) the entire peninsula on which it was sited, but only using about 10-20 acres of that 140 acres for its campus. If you look at the site on Google maps, it appears that the school either bought a failed subdivision or two that filled the rest of the peninsula, or they created a failed subdivision once they had purchased the land. You can tell this by the decidedly non-random patterns of white dots and dark lines on the satellite view—those are overgrown roads and possibly abandoned foundations.

I don’t know which, but it suggests to me that any good leader of a church or college needs to do what he can to make sure he’s got some “green eyeshades” guys who can look at the financial statements and warn that a proposed business plan is not tenable.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

http://www.centralseminary.edu/resources/nick-of-time/change-or-die

Excerpt:

The decade of the 1990s was a golden time for fundamentalist higher education. Schools were experiencing relatively strong enrollments and donations. That situation began to change with the new decade. Within three to five years, virtually all mainstream, fundamentalist schools began to feel a pinch. Donations leveled off and the matriculations began to decline.

This turnaround corresponded to a generational change. Fundamentalists were getting their first taste of the millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000. The first wave of millennials turned college age around 2000, and the leaders of fundamentalist higher education discovered that this generation would not be attracted in the same way as their predecessors. Why?

In the first place, there were fewer of them. By 2000, fundamentalist churches and fellowships were shrinking. Many churches were closing their doors. Those that remained were sending a smaller proportion of their young people into vocational Christian service. Not only schools, but fundamentalist missions and quasi-denominations were affected.

Second, educational options were proliferating. Secular universities lost some of their stigma among fundamentalists. New programs permitted students to combine their first years of college with their last years of high school, a choice that offered significant economic incentives for students to attend community colleges. Even those who eventually made it into a Christian school spent less time there.

Third, some students were simply repelled by fundamentalist institutions. They had witnessed unbecoming conduct among some fundamentalist leaders. They saw little reason to submit themselves to what they saw as unreasonably harsh regulations and punitive demerit systems.

Finally, the advent of the internet—and especially of blogging—brought students into contact with information, perspectives, and opportunities that were previously inaccessible. The internet also provided a platform for critics of the institutions, sometimes with devastating effect. For the first time, technology made it possible for a small number of outside detractors to stampede the students, alumni, and even supporters of any school.

The result was that by about 2005, most or all mainstream fundamentalist institutions had begun to agonize. They realized that they had to respond. They had to implement some form of change or they would die. The fact is that every one of them did change and continues to change in multiple ways.

Some schools were poorly positioned to weather the transition. Remote location was now a negative. Once-faithful donors began to age and die. Schools that had relied upon leaders with charismatic personalities or considerable personal force found that a new generation of leadership brought a new dynamic. Some schools faced significant debt. Any of these factors would leave an institution exposed in the new economic and educational climate.