St. Marcus blog:
Another Call
4/29-09 at 3:30 pm by: Paul Steinberg
We called another pastor -- for the fourth time. This time the Spirit led us to call Pastor Jared Oldenburg who serves right now in Washington State. We are praying for him to come. I am praying for him to come.
[GJ - Layman's note: "Oldenburg is the WELS pastor that
was attending Reggie McNeil's seminars and using Lyle Schaller's Parish
Paper garbage." McNeil is a BMer.]
But this call meeting was a little different. Due to loss of jobs of St. Marcus members and the down economy, our offerings are less than last year. At last Sunday's call meeting we discussed how the budget will look and saw that if a 3rd pastor does come as we pray, we will have to make cuts in order to pay him and not fall behind financially. All this is true even without Brian Davison's Wandani position being replaced. Now we will be asking our new third pastor to lead Wandani into the future where hopefully we will be able to afford a new staff person to lead it.
We'll see. There's no guarantee that this pastor will come or the next one or anyone. But there is a guarantee that the Spirit will send us the right person at the right time. That can make all of us content as we wait.
Pastor Paul
***
GJ - The bad news for the economy just keeps coming in. The FHA will have to be bailed out because they also went gangbusters into bad mortgages (Wall Street Journal report). Already the consensus is that most people lost 50% of their investments, IRAs, etc in this last meltdown.
Big congregations have large staffs, which have to be cut when a recession hits. This downturn is far more than a recession. The bad news is global and the world leadership is too incompetent or corrupt to fix matters.
St. Marcus relies on Thrivent money, lots of foundation grants, and who knows what else. The people most likely to give have been swindled out of their life savings or their jobs are threatened, or both of the above.
Also from the WS Journal: "The U.S. is expected to direct about 10 of the 19 banks undergoing government stress tests to boost their capital, a move that officials hope will quell fears about the solvency of the financial sector.
The exact number of banks affected remains under discussion. It could include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup and several regional banks. At one point, officials believed as many as 14 banks would need to raise more funds to create a stronger buffer against future losses, but that number has fallen in recent days.
Representatives from Wells, Bank of America and Citi declined to comment."
