Thursday, April 18, 2013

WELS Wasting Money by the Millions

WELS stewardship principles -
No, that is not Tiefel's car.


Benjamin Wink has left a new comment on your post "Benjamin Wink Schools Fox Valley Pastor Joel Lillo...":

Just as a follow up, I am sorry if I implied that the CORE was shutting down after these events. It wasn't my intent. Actually if they did shut it down, it would go even further to prove the point of this being a titanic waste of funds.

My main point was about the frittering of money away and there is no accountability. I just think about established congregations that have real need that could have used a portion of that half a million dollars. Or perhaps a foreign mission. Or perhaps a home mission in an area that isn't saturated with WELS churches as much as the Fox Valley is of course. You can't swing a dead cat from Outagamie county to Winnebago county to Fond du Lac county without hitting a synod church and/or school and this was determined to be a great mission field?

Perhaps synod leadership loves that they don't have to answer to anyone about distribution of funds because they were tired of dealing with pesky church councils in their own congregations for years. Places where lay leaders would (hopefully) be realistic with budgets and would restrict flights of fancy that require elaborate funding.

I recall a synod employee's attitude to offerings as well and it might give some insight as to how things operate. When asked about whether or not there was more funding for a project, they replied "No, not enough old ladies have died yet." And then he chuckled, stopping only when he saw my reaction.

So when you see that kind of mercenary attitude to someone's best intended and faith motivated monetary gifts, it sticks in your craw a bit. And seeing this dog and pony light show in the middle of an area teeming with churches is just completely grating.

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GJ - I wondered why the Schwan money seemed so effective in making the Synodical Conference insolvent, especially WELS.

It was only recently that I learned about their fury that I sent the Forbes magazine article to Christian News to be printed. But the SynCons recovered fast and mined Marvin Schwan's guilt over the death of  his first wife.

Don't tell me that indulgences are dead. WELS/ELS will sell them over and over.

But nothing good comes from unfaith. A corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.