The church, which had blossomed to 15 branches in five states and had followers around the world, also plans to cut 30 to 40 percent of its paid staff of about 100. That staff already had seen layoffs last spring and a string of departures in recent weeks by pastors angry or uneasy about the church’s direction.

After 18 years of explosive growth, officials at Seattle megachurch Mars Hill say financial pressures in the wake of recent negative media attention are forcing them to cut staff and eliminate some branches, including consolidating the downtown Seattle and University District congregations with the Ballard church, leaders announced Sunday.

The church, which had blossomed to15 branches in five states and had followers around the world, also plans to cut 30 to 40 percent of its paid staff of about 100. That staff already had seen layoffs last spring and a string of departures in recent weeks by pastors angry or uneasy about the church’s direction.

The downtown and U District churches’ pastors told their attendees about the coming changes Sunday and said those three Seattle branches will all meet as one in Ballard on Oct. 12.

The downtown branch in January 2013 moved from a remodeled Belltown nightclub to the century-old First United Methodist Church building.

Also closing or possibly reconstituting in some other form is a Mars Hill branch in Phoenix. A branch in Huntington Beach, Calif., is in jeopardy if its financial picture does not improve.

The announcements about the influential and controversial organization Pastor Mark Driscoll started as a Bible study class in his Wallingford home in 1996 come after six months of often-public questions about his management, leadership style and forthrightness.

The decisions also come just weeks after Driscoll announced he was stepping down for six weeks while accusations against him were investigated, and suggest the constant debate about Driscoll and Mars Hill leadership has had an enormous impact on the church’s once-booming popularity.

At the start of the year, attendance at all Mars Hill branches combined was about 12,000 to 13,000 a week, said church spokesman Justin Dean, but is now down to 8,000 or 9,000 a week.

And most of the drop has come this summer.

“We’ve basically found ourselves in a tough financial position,” Dean said. “We started the year the strongest we’ve ever been, but since then we’ve seen a decline in attendance and giving, and we saw a steep decline over the last two months.”

A blog post on the church’s website more than a week ago made clear leaders were racing to close a financial gap. The post urged congregants in Washington and elsewhere to dig deeper.

“We have done much this year to prepare for a decline in giving, such as two rounds of staffing reductions and the cancellation of various events and projects, but we now find ourselves in a tougher financial position than we expected,” the website announced Aug. 29. “The drop in giving revenue has exceeded what we have been able to cut in expenses. This has required us to now consider further ways we can reduce expenses, such as additional staffing reductions.

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