Lutheran Pastors Getting Swindled

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Not Legal - More On the WELS Video and Stolen Musi...":

Compare Kieschnick's response to the looming pastor shortage and this Methodist bishop's response to the looming pastor shortage and high seminary debt. Bishop Hayes says set up a fund to repay pastor's student loans in order to get the best and brightest straight out of college, not out of a second career.

Kieschnick just instructs the seminaries to recruit harder, and spends a wad of cash on CG programs that don't work. That halfway solves the problem by shrinking the synod to equal the size of the potential pastor pool.

Unfortunately, Kieschnick and pals spent all the LCMS's spare cash, so the LCMS probably wouldn't be able to make LCMS seminaries less expensive, or repay student loans for a called worker, even if it wanted to.

The WELS situation is different. They recruit anyone with a pulse to be a pastor, but kick them out pronto as needed. No need to worry about getting quality students from the start when DPs can terminate them by certified mail.
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Money and the ministry: Methodist leader proposes a solution to seminary debt

by: BILL SHERMAN World Religion Writer, Thursday, June 03, 2010
6/3/2010

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100603_18_A9_Bishop6508

excerpt: The average United Methodist seminary student graduates with $40,000 to $45,000 in educational debt and steps into a low-paying job.

Under his plan, the state conference would work directly with seminaries to repay a student's loan.

More than half of United Methodist clergy members are 55 or older, and 95 percent of new clergy members are older than 35, many of them in their second careers, Hayes said.