Big Trouble in Shrinking WELS

If you take the Miller Analogies Test, you will will find questions like this - What is the next number in this sequence: 7, 6, 5, 4, 3...?

That was easy - 2! The Wisconsin Synod once had seven schools - four prep schools for future teachers and pastors, one college for teachers, one college for future pastors, one seminary. The far-sighted leaders of WELS closed one prep school, Mobridge, and moved the New Ulm prep school far away from their own members, to Prairie. SIX SCHOOLS. They actually had an emergency synod convention in 1978 to buy a Roman Catholic school that failed, even with all the Kennedy money donated. Did you ever wonder why Pope John Paul I died in 1978, after being pope for only 33 days? He fell off his throne laughing when he heard that WELS bought Prairie! So WELS spent a lot of money on Prairie and closed the school. FIVE SCHOOLS. Northwestern College in Watertown was an outpost of resistance to the Church Growth Movement in WELS, so that school was merged into Dr. Martin Luther College in New Ulm, at a reported cost of $30 million. Relax - that was to save money, as in, "Honey, look at how much money I saved at the white sale today! They declined our Visa so I had to use the debit card." FOUR SCHOOLS.

The Wisconsin Synod went on a spending spree and blamed it on one man. The leaders ran the funds down to zero. First they forced tuition up and used the extra money to help balance their books. They lost a lot of students in the system from a 30% increase in tuiton. Now the synod is closing Michigan Lutheran Seminary. THREE SCHOOLS. The Watertown prep school is imperiled and is expected to close in the near future. TWO SCHOOLS. That would leave Martin Luther College. MLC has already been the subject of closing rumors while still getting recruits from two preps. ONE SCHOOL left - the seminary.

The synod has offered to sell Michigan Lutheran (prep) for One Dollar to the Michiganders, who are breathing fire about how they have been treated. The synod could fund the preps but chose not to do so. A last-minute gift of $2.5 million per year for the next five years breathed hope into the corpse of the synod. But that was not for the preps, the spend-thrift leaders said.

The synod will meet in convention this summer. The schedule should have taken it to Michigan Lutheran in Saginaw, but the smell of burning torches and the clang of waving pitchforks made New Ulm a better venue choice. July 30th is the starting date.