Why turnaround?

I've been at my current church for 14 years, 7 1/2 as youth pastor and six plus as the Senior pastor. The church had been in a 12-14 year slide downward in attendance when I started, and was over $1.1 million in debt. The attendance on a Sunday was around 160-170 then. I began a study on turnaround churches, those churches that were established, had their "hey day", and went into decline. I began by reading George Barna's book, "Turnaround Churches." I then talked to other pastors, listened, and tried to get a hold of any books on church growth I could get, attempting to apply them to our situation. In Barna's book, he wrote about the emotional toll it would take on a pastor (and I should add, to the pastor's spouse, too!) to turnaround a church very set in it's ways. What I thought I would do is share some of my victories as well as defeats, pitfalls and triumphs in turning a church around. Hence the name, "turnaround." Why was the word "brave" added to the beginning? Because "turnaround" was taken as a blog name. And for two other reasons, 1. I love the movie, Braveheart, it speaks to me every time I watch it, and 2. it takes bravery to buck the status quo in a church and turn it around. More later.