Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Tapped Out the Line of Credit?

The Faith-Tones will entertain at the next annual once-in-a-lifetime appeal.



rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "How Many Shrinker Churches in the Syn Conference W...":

Coming to a Shrinker church near you - bankruptcy! I mean the financial kind. The theological bankruptcy has already happened. As mentioned previously here at Ichabod, my former WElS congregation has engaged in Masonry Evangelism. Pardon the pun, but they have pulled out all of the stops. Naturally, they have brought in Cornerstone for the latest capital appeal and to bring new meaning to the phrase, fleecing the sheep. Now, it is community outreach.

This means getting the unchurched through the doors without the benefit of proclaiming the gospel. There is no need to proclaim forgiveness through the gospel, since all are saved anyways.

But, I wondered why they cut the veteran teacher at their school halfway through the school year. There is a sense of urgency about this. In years past, this congregation would restructure their debt, and borrow against their line of credit to meet their operating expenses. This was even how the cash crop farmers, who are members, ran their business.

But, the congregation had borrowed against their capital appeal funds that were designated for the masonry evangelism. Initially, this seemed odd. My guess is that there no longer is a line of credit to draw from, or it is already been tapped to the limit.

This would explain the cutting of the payroll - almost immediately.

I liken it to the irresponsible extended family member who does not have credit available to him through conventional lending and has to shake down others for cash.

3 comments:

garyz said...

It is all about money.

bruce-church said...

I'd bet they have bankers and insurance workers at Shepherd of Peace in Powell, Ohio, now since it's is the north end of Columbus, and the church looks a lot better than the old one. The banks there just lost a source of operating funds since a judge has slowed down the process of foreclosures in Franklin County, and other Ohio counties. Also, with the boomers turning 65, the insurance companies are paying out on policies and not just taking in money like they used to:

Ohio Judges Halt Foreclosure Proceedings In Fraud Search

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/ohio-judges-halt-foreclosure-proceedings_n_816182.html

bruce-church said...

Guess where Rev. Joel Jenswold gets a call after his C&C practices result in a fiscal crisis at Powell, Ohio? Just up the road from C&C central in Appleton. To be specific, Hortonville, WI:

Bethlehem Lutheran Church
http://www.bethlehem-wels.com/

In Sep 2010 Pastor Ski from the CORE gave his Sex Ed talk to the grade school students there. The next month, Jenswold accepted the call to Bethlehem (October 2010):

pastor ski site:bethlehem-wels.com

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1094&bih=787&q=pastor+ski+site%3Abethlehem-wels.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=