bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Maybe Because Bruce Church Told the Truth about Sk...":
The LCMS is on a different trajectory than other shrinking denominations. Liberal denominations closed and consolidated seminaries as needed, and they always kept tuition low. Even now you can attend many liberal seminaries for $5 or $6 grand per year, much less than the $21,600 LCMS seminaries cost for the M Div programs.
Now students can't afford an M Div, so they are going alternative routes, according to the stats. Some fear not receiving a call, or being weeded out, so why get an M Div?
Meanwhile, the workers at synod HQ and in the districts are pulling down handsome salaries, and Kieschnick is currently trying to sell his $640k McMansion. Moreover, retirement age pastors are getting their salaries and pensions at the same time so they never retire, even as the synod loses 25,000 members per year. Concordia Seminary St Louis endowment fund is up to $80 million.
I think that the high salaries are a contributing cause to why the synod is going south in membership. But the LCMS leaders would rather keep their exorbitant salaries than turn the synod around. As in the liberal denominations, they are content to run the synod into the ground as long as they are being paid handsomely.
