Martin Luther College Chapel Blows Budget

McGavran Chapel at Martin Luther College has blown through its initial budget. Obviously they were looking at a low-cost church, with rubber mats instead of red carpeting, for only $7 million.

The bids came in $800,000 above the budget, so WELS leaders did what everyone expected. They said, "So what! We'll take $300K here and $500K there, and pay the difference."

At $8 million, the building deserves to be called a cathedral. McGavran Chapel sounds so pedestrian. But imagine the PR value of this title - The Cathedral of Church Growth.

MLC Costs 2008-2009
Tuition $10,350
Room & Board $4,020
Total $14,370

They never had a place to worship before.

Mrs. Ichabod is reading over my shoulder again. She says, "The college is almost 125 years old. Surely they had worship services before."

I knew that. They got by for 125 years without the Cathedral of Church Growth. They need a separate building, they say, to continue their progress in the Church Shrinkage Movement.

Larry Olson (DMin, Fuller)--the Waldo Werning Professor of Church Shrinkage--should be the preacher at the dedication.

Progress, as Kelm, Olson, Huebner, and others have claimed, should be specific, achievable, and measurable. Kelm used a longer acronym, but I cannot remember it.

Here are the S.A.M. results of the Church Shrinkage Movement in WELS:
1. Lower baptized membership every year since 1970.
2. Lower communing membership every year since 1970.
3. Vastly increasing number of staffers at the Love Shack.
4. Huge increase in budgets, deficits, and skims (internal loans from designated funds).
5. Closing and merging of congregations.
6. Closing of synodical schools (two preps and one college already).
7. Closing of parochial schools.