ALPB - George Erdner
The "current turmoil" is the single, biggest, overriding thing taking place in the ELCA. It goes to the survival of the ELCA as an institution. Perhaps you'd like to ignore the rate at which the ELCA is taking on water and sinking and instead would like to blithely discuss how to rearrange the deck chairs as if there is nothing else happening.
As Pastor Keener pointed out to you in another thread, based on an average ELCA congregation size of 440 Baptized Members, the ELCA lost enough individual people to make 1,361 congregations since 2001. As I pointed out to you, it has lost or is in the process of losing over 550 congregations since the 2009 CWA, and the pace of new votes is showing no signs of abating. As large congregations lose members to the point where they are forced to reduce the number of pastors they have called, and smaller ones are going to have to learn to make do with only a part-time pastor who supports himself as a tent maker, the ELCA's need for new pastors is going to be diminished.
In light of that, what can anyone make of any suggestion that the ELCA seminaries should crank out even more unemployable graduates with student loan millstones around their necks and no congregations for them to find a call that can pay them enough to pay off that debt? In light of the reductions in available positions for ordained pastors to be called to vocational specialties where they can earn a living, is it good stewardship or good churchmanship to spread the over-optimistic rumors that common sense indicates are probably little more than wishful thinking?
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More from George Erdner
For the record, the ELCA has lost congregations with a combined total of 276,300 since the August 2009 CWA. That figure does not include the thousands of people who were in the "losing majority" of congregations that voted to stay who started 168 new congregations in the LCMC, NALC, and other Lutheran Church bodies. Nor does it count the people who left ELCA congregations to join already existing congregations in the LC-MS, AALC, ALFC, and all of the other alternative Lutheran Church bodies.
The ELCA lost 600,000 members between 2001 and 2009, before the effects of the errant vote at the August 2009 CWA were felt.
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Scott Yakimow:
FWIW, our local congregation has gained former ELCA members while the 2 local ELCA congregations remain in the ELCA. I.e., that loss shows up on no statistics re: lay departures. Neat folks, too. Again, FWIW.
George Erdner:
What it is worth, though anecdotal, is a great deal. Multiply that times every LC-MS, LCMC, WELS, AFLC, and every other Lutheran church body out there, and you end up with a lot of people who will remain listed on the ELCA's membership statistics, but who aren't really in the ELCA any more.
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GJ - Erdner has been keeping track of ELCA defections. He drives the ELCA loyalists crazy by pointing out basic facts. The loyalists come back with the latest talking points, such as "Missouri is suffering losses too, without the gay agenda issue." But ELCA has people running out of the doors, screaming and starting new entities. The numbers are already staggering.
Take note, Ichabodians. WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect on the Prairie have been studying and worshiping with ELCA for decades, doing all kinds of joint work with them, all planned at the NoTell Conference Center, funded by Thrivent, blessed by their Father Below.
The so-called conservatives have learned to mimic the worst of ELCA: controlling and eliminating the dissenters, indulging in institutional suicide, wasting vast sums of money.
