George Erdner
- ALPB Contribution Leader
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- Posts: 7910
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Re: The thread for info on churches voting to leave the ELCA & all follow-up.
« Reply #7714 on: Today at 09:52:36 PM »
I think dollars are leaving the ELCA faster than people, at this point, from what I've read and been told by informed sources.
There are no truly informed sources when it comes to people leaving ELCA churches. When people simply stop attending an ELCA and instead start worshipping at a church of a different denomination and/or faith tradition, chances are that their ELCA congregation won't remove them from their official reports to their local synod office for several years. And, if a family leaves but still visits once or twice a year for old times sake (which happens more often than you might think), they can remain on the official rolls for years.
On the other hand, anyone who tells you that dollars are leaving at an alarming rate is correct. He might only be guessing, but his guess is accurate. But comparing the rate of dollars leaving with the rate of people leaving with any degree of accuracy is simply impossible. Anyone who claims to have accurate membership data is not making an accurate statement.
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GJ - George is a good example of how the Internet works. I have found his statistical summaries useful, because he tracks how many congregations have left the ELCA. He was an ELCA pastor himself and left.
He uses the ALPB Online Forum as a convenient platform for reporting the facts and providing some insights. I appreciate his comments, which make the ELCA pod-pastors' heads explode.
We became FB friends. I posted his recent gum commercial on FB and his "Bye Bye ELCA" song from YouTube. Soon everyone was copying the song on FB, although it was already rather popular.
Meanwhile, the LutherQueasies are trying to sell UOJ by revealing their lack of comprehension about Intuitu Fidei and the Gospel itself.
Brett Meyer got me listening to the Wendland graduation sermon. I waited several minutes to get past the "hooray for us" sales pitch. Since there was no Gospel or even a reference to a text, I gave up.
