Thrivent Has Money for Racing, So Why Ask the ELCA Lapsitters for Pro-Life Funds?

My racing career ended early.

Thrivent Financial jumps into Nascar sponsorship, strikes five-race sponsorship deal with Leavine Family Racing

http://www.startribune.com/business/269311541.html?page=all&prepage=2&c=y#continue

As it looks to turbocharge its outreach to the broader Christian community, Thrivent Financial is dabbling for the first time in national sponsorships, starting with a NASCAR race team and some Christian music festivals.

The Minneapolis-based Fortune 500 company announced Wednesday that it will sponsor Leavine Family Racing and its driver Michael McDowell for five races on the circuit this year, including the much-anticipated Bristol Motor Speedway event next month.

The move comes as the financial services company looks to expand its awareness within the larger Christian community since it opened its membership ranks last year to all Christians — not just Lutherans.

“We are definitely on a growth trajectory,” said Craig Stacey, Thrivent’s director of content marketing. “The common bond vote in opening up our membership to the broader Christian community was the first step. Now we’re doing things to tell our story more broadly.”

NASCAR seemed like a good fit because about 76 percent of its fans — or 57 million people — identify as Christians, he said. And half of them have a financial investment and half of them have incomes of more than $50,000, he added, citing figures from NASCAR.

It helped, too, that McDowell, the 29-year-old driver, often speaks about his Christian faith, sometimes tweeting verses from the Bible to his more than 60,000 Twitter followers.

Thrivent’s new heart logo, which was unveiled earlier this year and is prominently emblazoned on its downtown Minneapolis headquarters, will be plastered on McDowell’s car at the Bristol race in eastern Tennessee. In addition, McDowell and the pit crew will be decked out in Thrivent-logo’d gear. The company is also an associate sponsor for four races where its logo will not get as much prime real estate on the car.

As part of the agreement, Thrivent will also get some mentions on K-Love, a Christian radio network, which also sponsors Leavine Family Racing. The racing team, which fields the No. 95 Ford Fusion in the Sprint Cup Series, has its race shop in Concord, N.C.

Jeremy Lange, a vice president for Leavine Family Racing, said he reached out to Thrivent as the team was looking for sponsors. He didn’t know at the time that Thrivent was also interested in broadcasting its message.

“It was a perfect storm,” he said. “We were reaching out to companies that we feel fit our mold. We felt we could provide them a lot of exposure.”

Thrivent’s NASCAR spon­sorship drew a mixed response on its Facebook page. Some thought it was a great idea, but others wondered whether Thrivent’s money could be better spent in other ways.

“This is distressing,” wrote Mary Shaima. “We were told earlier this summer that Thrivent does not have as much money to distribute to congregations for mission — specifically, “God’s Work Our Hands” — because more congregations are asking for support.”

But Stacey said no other programs were cut to pay for this sponsorship. He added that Thrivent’s employees were “overwhelmingly positive” when the news was announced to them earlier this week.

Thrivent did not disclose how much it was spending on the NASCAR partnership.

A tax-exempt fraternal benefits society, Thrivent sells insurance, annuities and other financial services to its nearly 2.4 million members. The firm wrestled for years about whether to open its membership to those beyond just the Lutheran faith as the number of practicing Lutherans has shrunk amid declining loyalty to church denominations. But a majority of members who voted last year finally agreed to open up its ranks.

So earlier this year, the company introduced a new logo that dropped the “for Lutherans” reference from its name.

Stacey said that since the firm began welcoming all Christians last year, about half of its new members have come from the broader Christian community.

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Thrivent has been funding Jeske's projects with ELCA for years,
so what is the beef?
Write a letter.
Hahahahaha.

Board of Directors

Under the Articles of Incorporation(Link opens in new window) (PDF, 545K), the board of directors is Thrivent Financial's supreme governing body.

The board directs the management of the fraternal benefit society's affairs and has oversight responsibility in all matters involving Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Board Members

Brad Hewitt President and Chief Executive Officer
N. Cornell Boggs Board Member	Frank H. Moeller Chair of the Board
Kenneth A. Carow Board Member	Bonnie E. Raquet Board Member
Kirk Farney Board Member	Alice M. Richter Board Member
Mark A. Jeske Board Member	James H. Scott Board Member
Frederick G. Kraegel Board Member	Allan R. Spies Board Member
F. Mark Kuhlmann Board Member	Adrian M. Tocklin Board Member

Contact our Board of Directors

Busta Rhyme Has the Answer for All Synods - Just One Answer. Please Pay Your $10,000 Fee

Long, Slow Rain in the Gardens

Borage produces plenty of seed, food for the bees,
medicine for the discerning.

My weed in the rose garden has bloomed, and it is the borage that I planted earlier. I will make sure our helper looks over this weed, so he is not tempted to remove it in the future. The plant started out ugly, and insects chewed on it, but it failed normal weed identification tests - not grassy (witch, duck, saw), not broad-leafed (dandelion), not coarse and dedicated to seeding (plantain, crab), not a ground cover (jill-over-ground and various low growing weeds).

"By their fruits ye shall know them." Various blogs have been dedicated to posting frowns about the fruit of false doctrine without addressing the false teachers themselves. No, this timidity is not due to the delicate feelings of the bloggers, who take unwarranted swipes at me. They fear retribution  from those false teachers, the ones who cause their anguish. Their fears make me think they never heard of -  "What man meant for evil, God intended for the good."

Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 21Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

Luther wrote too, that the Holy Spirit is so powerful that He can use the greatest evil for the greatest good, as He did at Calvary.

I continue to marvel at the people who lock themselves in the synodical jail by accepting the abuse handed out to them. They sit in their CRM status and whine about CRM status, which means they will never get a call from the popes who administer the CRM status. They could associate with one another, form new worshiping opportunities (no established synod) and experience life outside the synodical prison system. 

They also grieve over the fruits without addressing the noxious weeds. "But Pastor Weed and I were in the same seminary class. VP Crabgrass was two years ahead of me, and my wife is related to his wife, Poison Ivy."

I will invoke the horticultural subjunctive - "Lettuce begin anew. The Word is far more powerful than the decaying institutions of man."

The Rain
The long, slow rainfall gave us about 1/2 inch, which has greened up the grass, the crabgrass, and the gardens. As you remember from previous post, rain brings fixed (usable) nitrogen to plants and lightning adds to that.

I took out the Epsom Salt bag and sprinkled the inexpensive soil amendment on all the gardens and on the crepe myrtle bush.

Large crabgrass can produce 150,000 seeds per plant in one season.
The family is called digitaria, for the finger-like joints.

I keep crabgrass cut low and spray whatever begins in the cracks of the sidewalk and driveway. My neighbor on the corner let his crabgrass get away from him  in his raised rosebeds, so now he has ugly, green plants - instead of mulch - around the roses. All my neighbors are good about mowing, but many leave crabgrass growing and seeding in their sidewalks and in the cracks in our paved roads.

That should not surprise the theologues, who have left the weeds undisturbed in their gardens while eyeballing ones 200 miles away, screaming invectives at the non-threats. Besides, from that distance they often identify weeds as flowers and flowers as weeds. 

The virtue of weeds is their ability to fend for themselves in good and bad weather, spreading quickly to provide for the next generation. False teachers do that too, so they grow if they are not stopped early and often.

The best remedy for lawn weeds is regular cutting and letting the grass push out the weeds, allowing weeds  no room to grow, fighting the fecundity of weeds with the fecundity of grass. The roots  of lawngrass are closely entwined and eager to send out new shoots via stolons. I mulch the grass as it is cut, so the grass fertilizes itself and the red wigglers do the digging, tunneling, digesting, chewing, and casting (manuring). 

Yesterday, most of my gardening work consisted of watching the rain and planning more jobs. My  Fiskar manual pruning saw came, so we will add new prunes to the pile of branches that fell during our windstorm (70 mph). The backyard has changed from dungeon doom to large areas of sunlight, due to the removal of overhanging, dead, wind-tossed, and crossing branches.

"I am, you are.
We are Australians."
Hugh Jackman, Australian, added to his fan base 
when he spoke at Walmart and sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

Sassy's Trip
We had a number of brief medical stops, so Sassy went along. She was alarmed by one drugstore, which was a new stop for her. She does not like to see her Mom leave the car, so she was restless the whole time. However, at the Neighborhood Walmart, she was calm, since we stop there so often and I run into the store. 

This time I stayed in the car with Sassy to teach her Waltzing Matilda. The key verse has the itinerant (swagman) killing a sheep and putting it in his tuckerbag ( knapsack) for food. The owner (squatter) arrives on his fancy horse (thoroughbred - showoff) and has three policemen arrest the swagman.

"OK Sassy. Up rode the squatter, riding on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two three, Bark three times  - bark, bark, bark."

We practiced a little and she came in on the three barks. That verse is ironic because why put three officers on one itinerant for grabbing a sheep?

Where's that jolly jumbach you've got in your tuckerbag?

You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me.

The jumbach is a sheep, and the Matilda is an all-purpose blanket.

Dr. Lito Cruz and his wife Lyne - Australians.
http://extranos.blogspot.com/

I told Mrs. I, "Sassy has to learn her culture, since she is half Australian." 

The Seekers are the ultimate Australian group, the first to become famous and easily the best pop group ever.