Monday, December 2, 2013

Bruce Church on WELS Missions

"Missions."

Two WELS churches in the WI-IL border area are seriously considering closing, all thanks to WELS missions placing mission starts nearby. Those churches are Good Shepherd in Beloit, 3.5 miles north of the border, and Hope in Belividere, 17 miles south of the border. The pastors of those congregations complained to WELS missions that their vicinity could only support a sole congregation, and now after a decade or more of decline, their assertions are being proved right.

WELS churches in small cities draw their congregation from the city and the whole surrounding rural area. Thus, when WELS missions plants a mission start five miles away, usually on the main highway corridor where the news housing developments and new jobs are, it siphons off a good share of the WELS members in the area, and most of the new would-be WELS members coming into the area. The established church was viable with the members it had, but quickly becomes inviable when its membership is halved or better within a decade, and the loyal members age and become homebound or die off . (Not so many WELS members retire to Florida or Arizona anymore like they used to, BTW) A church that's mostly empty during services hurt morale and church spirit--or dare I say, enthusiasm.
Most cities will only support one WELS church, and as soon as two WELS churches are within ten miles of each other, one starts to go down hill, if not both of them. Since WELS members will travel up to forty miles to wherever the church is, it is not important that it be on the interstate or on an arterial highway. However, WELS missions seems to think that if they plant a church on the interstate, it will grow by bringing in new members rather than just dividing up the existing WELS members. This assumption is debunked by the fact that the WELS has had around 300,000 members since the 1950s, yet it now has maybe three times as many churches thanks to missions. Hence, the average church has three times fewer members than it did in the 1950s. The churches in the 1950s were strong and vital, but now many WELS churches are barely viable.

Any established WELS church in a city proper is vulnerable to being undercut by WELS missions, since some WELS members will band together and convince WELS missions that a church is needed near the main highway or interstate, often not more than five miles away from the established church. Missions ought to just ask them why they won't drive five miles to the nearest church rather than shower them with money.

Once a mission plant goes in, the duel with the established church begins. Both churches know in their heart of hearts that their town or city is not big enough for the two of them. On one side the mission plant has their decade-long synod subsidy to count on, enthusiasm that comes with being a new church with a new building, and WELS will send Kingdom Workers (mostly WELS students) to canvass the neighborhoods. They also mail out lots of fliers. The old church's main advantage is its having its mortgage being paid off long ago.

Often enough, synod missions can somehow cajole the mission pastor into evangelizing, but the established church in town finds that their pastor will always major in the minors, and find other things to occupy his time. When the board finally puts the pressure on him to evangelize, the established church finds that their pastor is worse than a hireling in that he's also a free agent (a la baseball), and takes a call elsewhere. He'll repeatedly use the free agent option until retirement. But while they wait around for that next call, which sometimes tarries, some WELS pastors under pressure to evangelize find the task of evangelism so unpleasant, their whole disposition sours, and they may turn to drink, or more drink, as the case may be.

When the South Beloit mission did arive in the late 1990s, then current pastor at Beloit, Rev. James Adomeit, wrote a letter to synod missions saying that the mission start should have been a few miles further south, in Rockton or Roscoe, since Good Shepherd was only 3 miles removed from S Beloit, and Roscoe and Rockton are still a dozen miles from Peace in Loves Park, IL. The area is definitely not WELS-dom, and not even LCMS-dom. Why doesn't WELS missions plague, say, Janesville or some other city, with a mission start?

Bruce Church

8 hours ago  -  Shared publicly
 
Here's the rest of the comment:

In Beloit, all three LCMS churches are down close to 125 average Sunday attendance, and down to one pastor, and there's no LCMS church in South Beloit. There's one in Rockton though, and the collection plate in all these LCMS churches brings in only about $1400 a Sunday at best. LCMS has all those stats on their church locator, BTW.

Rev. Paustian, now professor at MLC, headed up a mission start that was supposed to be for the south of Rockford. However, they decided on a location on the interstate on the east side of Rockford that was only six miles from Peace in Loves Park, which is on the north side of Rockford. Paustian's New Life plant was also just six miles away from Hope in Belvidere.

Peace, however, wasn't willing to die silently like most churches that have been undermined by synod missions, and moved its location to the interstate, too, just five miles north of New Life. This, however, hurt Hope in Belvidere even more, now that it had TWO nice new WELS churches several miles away. Rev. Carl Henkel even comiserates on the church website about how the church is now "quite small", and "Hope has transferred many members to newer congregations in Rockford and Loves Park, but has not gained new members from Belvidere to replace all those who have moved on."

Rev. Henkel was drawing a pension when he arrived in Belvidere in 2009, which is the only way Belvidere could afford a pastor. Now he's told the congregation that he's planning to retire for good in 2014. Belvidere recently approached New Life asking to become a dual parish, but New Life said "no dice," but if Belvidere sold their church and the members came to New Life, New Life said they'd add a staff pastor for youth, or evangelism, or some such.

In 2008 when the Great Recession hit, New Life axed their vicar program which was costing the congregation $32,000 per year. I'm not sure how having a vicar became so pricey, but it must be that many vicars come with wives and family now, and they need decent health insurance et al. Not too long ago vicars (who were always single males) had to bring their own cars, and they'd get paid a mere $300 per month, plus car allowance, plus cheap rent in some dive, if not a member's home. Health insurance cost only $300 for the year. That meant the congregation's budget for a vicar was only about $5,700 for the nine months. Apparently, those days are long gone.

Now Beloit is about to call a new pastor but is wondering what its options are. The synod mission subsidy for S Beloit's Amazing Grace runs out in July, so they must evaluate whether they can make it on their own, or form a dual parish. They don't have a church or parsonage yet, but they do have property bought for the church, though it may need some fill to make it suitable for building. Hopefully it's not swampy or located by a creek since creeks are known for flooding. Basement groundwater flooding is not an issue anymore, since most new churches have no basement, and have a ground level fellowship hall that's used for Bible school, K-4, preschool, etc. Beloit is even considering folding since if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em.
This brings me to my final observation: if a city can't realisticly support two churches, and if one church will fail inevitably, instead of planting a mission on the interstate, it would be much cheaper for the synod to just pay the established congregation to move its location to the interstate rather than go through a decade or two of turmoil. Does anyone at synodical missions HQ do any viability studies before they waste a ton of money and cause plenty of heartache?
links:
Rev. Carl Henkel:

http://www.hopebelvidere.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=26 
"Over the years, Hope has transferred many members to newer congregations in Rockford and Loves Park, but has not gained new members from Belvidere to replace all those who have moved on."
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http://welslocator.locatorsearch.com/ 
http://welslocator.locatorsearch.com/ 
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Peace, 502 Orth Rd, Loves Park, IL to: New Life, Rockford, IL (5 miles): http://goo.gl/maps/NFUYM