Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "More Proof That Lutherans in Large Groups Are Dumb...":
Nice job, Minn. South. Enjoy your $3.2-million while Missouri runs around and bad-mouths ELCA and ECUSA for kicking parishioners out of their churches.
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GJ - I was thinking today - Concordia Publishing House has $26 million in the bank from their hymnal sales. (Remember someone scoffing about my claim that new hymnals are like minting money? It is.) CPH could have bought the building and leased it back to the campus ministry. Many different agencies could have done that. It would be hard to lose out, since the location alone made it valuable.
But readers, this is why all the Lutheran sects love to close congregations. They make the congregation pay for the mission building and land, even if the mission board did a horrible job of picking the land, the location, and the building. The members pay and pay. When the sect forecloses, the sect keeps all the money. Sometimes they let the congregation vote on which entity gets how much money.
At one point the closing of parishes was keeping many LCA districts in the black. In other words, they could pay outrageous staff salaries because they were spending the equity gained from the congregations trying to pay for their white elephants for 20 years and finally giving up.
The LCA in Michigan built an underground (earth-sheltered) building, which cost a lot of money but used very little energy. The community laughed at it and called it Holy Moley.
Wally Oelhaven's mission committee got some good land, allowed a zoning restriction on it, and erected one of the strangest and ugliest WEFs ever - and the competition was stiff. Shepherd of Peace. They moved and knocked the WEF down. The bulldozer took one jab at it and poof, down it went.
All the Lutheran groups waste millions of dollars, calling it reaching out with the Gospel. The leaders know how much each pastor makes, but no one dares to ask what the SP makes in salary and benefits.
