bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":
The $28 million budget for the two seminaries is just 2.5% of the LCMS synodical budget. A chunk of that includes student tuition.
The CPH budget is $39 million, which is just 3.39% of the LCMS budget. That would include all the book sales, no doubt, including sales of books to seminary students from the campus bookstores. I'm not sure whether Concordia U bookstores are now run by CPH. It was only a few years ago that CPH started running the seminary bookstores. One can see why CHP editors aren't itching to become seminary or CU professors!
I'm glad to see that the districts are only $84 million of the budget. From what I've seen in the past, one would think it would be much more, yet all the districts combined spend less than Corporate Synod. The rhetoric suggests that the districts dip into funds that would go to synod and missions.
Looking at the budgets of 2009 through 2011, it's interesting that the only synodical entity not to take a budgetary cut was Corporate Synod. The Districts, Seminaries, CPH, LCEF, Foundation and CHI (Concordia Historical Institute) each sustained a hit. Of course, Concordia Plans and CUS (Concordia U System) budgets aren't really controlled by the synod--only influenced by the synod.
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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":
I thought the LCMS Constitution states that one of the primary purposes of the synod is to support the sems and train men to administer Word and Sacrament. What is being done is shameful. Keep pumping in those Ablaze dollars, folks. Who needs the Means of Grace when you can "make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" Who needs the Means of Grace when we're all forgiven anyway? Spending Sunday morning on the golf course is regarded as equally valid.
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GJ - Concordia St. Louis suddenly had to have their own chapel, which is pictured above and underwritten by St. Marvin of Schwan. I thought he was WELS/ELS.
Mary Lou College suddenly had to have its own, separate chapel, so they built an $8 million cathedral after they re-arranged the books at The Love Shack (now called The Guilt Factory). The chapel was not built while the $8 million was missing. Then it was built, but no one explained where the loot went and where it came from. Apparently, this was also a St. Marvin of Schwan act of atonement.
Both schools are in the dumpers, so this proves that a cascade of cash does not make a college or seminary viable.
Both schools would be full of students today if the money had been applied to scholarships rather than another edifice to glorify a man who left his wife and married the Roman Catholic wife of his subordinate.
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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Mercy! - The LCMS Budget Is Corrupt Beyond Belief":
The chapel, Saints Timothy and Titus, does exactly mirror Walther's blend of Pietism and Lutheran theology, which is really Calvinism making inroads into Lutheranism. When it was built, people said, "Hmm, four white walls and a sermon". Now on some days they have cell groups instead of chapel. No surprise there!:
http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=12394
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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Mercy! - The LCMS Budget Is Corrupt Beyond Belief":
Is the altar on wheels to make room for the praise band?
5 comments:
The chapel, Saints Timothy and Titus, does exactly mirror Walther's blend of Pietism and Lutheran theology, which is really Calvinism making inroads into Lutheranism. When it was built, people said, "Hmm, four white walls and a sermon". Now on some days they have cell groups instead of chapel. No surprise there!:
http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=12394
Is the altar on wheels to make room for the praise band?
I've never seen or heard of a praise band at Saints Timothy and Titus, but the altar is huge and flat like a huge stage. At Ft Wayne's chapel, everything is a tight squeeze so they are limited in what they can do. Also, it is very dark, and all my pictures inside the Ft. Wayne chapel didn't turn out. By contrast, the clear huge windows of Timothy and Titus mean the inside is bright even w/o the lights on.
Thanks, Bruce. I was just joking about the praise band, although I wouldn't be surprised with the promotion of small groups. I have never been to St. Louis, although I have been to The Fort numerous times. I loved Kramer Chapel and was supposed to start at CTSFW, but things did not work out. Perhaps God is protecting my family and me from the heartache of being in debt up to our eyeballs while being unable to receive a call.
In the last few years two Preus sons opted for the LCC seminary at St. Catherines in Canada because it's much cheaper than Ft. Wayne, and they are still there. Students (and their wives) can stay in Canada or commute from the US which is only 15 miles away.
Here's what Daniel Preus of the Luther Academy had to say about his son who left Ft. Wayne sometime in 2008 or before. That son did not complete all four years there and didn't go into the ministry:
At the Texas Confessional Lutheran Free Conference XIX in Texas, on Sep 5, 2008, Rev. Daniel Preus told the audience at 1 hr, 3 min, and 44 seconds into the presentation (it's on MP3):
I will say this: we need more pastors...I'm a little bit sensitive to this because my son went to the seminary and couldn't afford to continue. He left. You have seminarians who are now graduating with debts of fifty to seventy thousand dollars. And I think the problem that we need to look at, which is not how many men are graduating, the problem is the church is not providing, our Missouri Synod is not providing for the education of ministerial candidates. Have I said that clearly enough? We are not taking care of the education of our ministerial candidates. And I think if one wants to give credibility to this Ablaze! movement, you would make it the first priority to cover entirely all the tuition of seminary students. And you would not make it the obligation of the seminaries to come up with the money, but that the church would do it.
Rev Daniel Preus, Luther Academy
http://www.lutheracademy.com/about-us/officers2/daniel-preus.html
Google Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=470+Glenridge+Ave,+St+Catherines,+Niagara+Regional+Municipality,+Ontario+L2T+3L2,+Canada&daddr=Lewiston,+ny&hl=en&geocode=FX8IkgIdLN5G-yldYnqU00_TiTHyDPxJaZIceA%3BFcvCkgIdGgJK-ylJ2k1I6l3TiTG63O8cbelPkg&mra=pd&mrcr=0&sll=43.150346,-79.136581&sspn=0.166315,0.244789&ie=UTF8&ll=43.149845,-79.134178&spn=0.166317,0.244789&t=h&z=12
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