Episcopal Vision 20/20: Does Anyone Remember?

It was back 20 years ago that the Episcopal organization created a task force that laid out a vision for the year 2020. It was called the 20/20 strategy. One of its goals was to double average Sunday attendance (ASA) by the year 2020. That goal was quickly forgotten because by 2002 they were already setting new goals such as,

"...envisioning innovative and groundbreaking ways to move the Episcopal Church away from 'business as usual' and into a missional mode that would strike the words 'we’ve never done it that way before' from the Episcopal vocabulary." 

"Their vision had grown beyond data", they said.

If you look at the data currently available on their research pages you can see the utter failure of the Vision 20/20 Task Force's plan.

Average Sunday Attendance:

In 2001: 850,000
In 2004: 795,765
In 2008: 665,100
In 2018: 533,121

That is a whopping decline of 37%.

If their vision had been fulfilled, ASA should be 1,700,000 by now.

What went wrong?

 By electing non-celibate homosexual bishops, by creating blessings for same-sex couples, by continuing to support abortion, and by ignoring the scriptural warnings about such things, the Episcopal organization, the "Church", took the path to cater to people who did not put a lot of faith in the Bible.

People who do not put much stock in the Bible do not find much reason to schlep to church on Sunday mornings.

Don't expect to read any commentary on the 20/20 strategy group anywhere but here.

A lot can be learned from your mistakes, if you care to learn.