http://wels.net/working-together-in-home-missions/
Former WELS member:
The CEF giving out bucks to four missions. Hoping to seize assets
in two to four years.
Not funny but seems normal.
***
GJ - That would be instructive, to look at the flow of money and the lack of progress over decades of so-called missions.
Schroeder promotes the diaper-changing academies in the same language as LCA missions once did. I was at an Ontario convention when the president of the Eastern Canada Synod said, "Our agency for boys takes care of five in ________. Not one is a Lutheran, so this is pure mission." Pure mission was said in that stained-glass voice that once was popular.
Schroeder: "The congregation originally worshiped in a storefront but built a church so that it could start a preschool. That preschool has grown and serves 28 children, only one of whom is a member. Builders For Christ, a division of Kingdom Workers, built the original church and constructed the addition." (Living Word, Montrose, Colorado)
Shepherd of Peace in Columbus, Ohio had the same "mission" numbers. The pre-school stayed a pre-school, as they usually do, consumed a lot of capital, and finally exhausted the resources of the congregation and shut down.
The congregation bears the brunt of financing congregation property. Members can pay interest to the synod for the longest time. If things do not work out, the synod sells the property and keeps the equity, after years of collecting interest on the loans.
As they say in Europe, "Not my circus, not my monkeys." Church Growth is all about numbers, but no one casts a gimlet eye on them.
