Preview of the May 2, 2016 Issue of Christian News. Not Much. David Becker Should Do More Research about His ELCA News

• Julie B. Sevig
• Managing Editor
• Julie.Sevig@elca.org
• Bio:
• I joined the magazine staff in 2000 as a section editor, and since then have written and edited hundreds of stories–many about congregations of the ELCA. 
• My family belongs to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chicago.

https://www.reconcilingworks.org/images/stories/downloads/concords/concord%2032_4_winter%202011.pdf

Michelle Miller & Julie Sevig

In honor of the Holy Union of Michelle Miller & Julie Sevig - Thad Fisher\\

Rev. Michelle Sevig (nee Miller)

http://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/5139

The ELCA's 10,721 congregations staff their ministries in
about as many ways, making it difficult to identify clergywomen
who head the congregations' staffs purely by their titles, said
the Rev. Michelle Miller, director, women for leadership in
ministry, ELCA Commission for Women.
     Miller asked the bishops of ELCA synods to identify "women
who lead large congregations with multiple staff and who
supervise at least one other person in professional ministry."
Miller gathered the names of 120 clergywomen and invited them to
the academy.

Under the Cardboard - News for Earthworm Fanciers

Last fall we began to cover half of the backyard with cardboard on the bottom and leaves on top. We used perhaps 80 bags of leaves.

Now that whole area has a soft waterbed feel to it, wherever I step. As I wrote not long ago, the grackles have stopped to feast on the food in the leaves, since moisture and organic matter produce a bumper crop of decomposers.

I had a couple of plants to start forming a screen, so I went to the western corner of the yard and began to dig, prying up some cardboard and pushing aside the leaves. The cardboard was still in one piece and the sod was blackened below. Earthworms were abundant in and below the cardboard, not one per shovel (the commonly cited proof of good soil) but dozens of them.

The sod was semi-decomposed after a warm winter, some snow, and rain. It was very easy to dig in the soil, and easy to place the new plants.

Jessica Walliser uses cardboard for her mulch too,
setting it up in the fall and punching through in the spring.

I once put all the sod from a dig into a compost pit I created in Midland for this purpose.. I was young and prone to use my construction sized wheelbarrow, donated. Large wheelbarrows tempt one into bigger projects.

Upside-down sod shrinks down as it decomposing. A large amount in a pit decomposes more quickly, with all the built-in nitrogen, soil animals, and various soil components pushed together in a mass. That sod compost pit became the parsley patch and produced well with black swallowtail butterflies enjoying their favorite food.

From that time on, the sod compost area remained bouncy like gelatin. That fascinated me. The original prairie soil that settlers found in the Great Plains, supercharged with centuries of deep prairie grass roots and buffalo dung, would create waves when people jumped off their wagons.

Mulch alone will normally feed the weed growth quickly, with the taller weeds like crabgrass shooting through the barrier, enhanced by having the punier growth shaded. For that reason I first began using layers of newspapers.

Larger areas are much easier to mulch with cardboard, and used boxes are everywhere for free. At first the cardboard plus mulch combination is odd, with that dry hollow underpinning sound. After some rains the mass settles down and continues its work of rotting the grass and empowering the soil creatures.

Mountain mint loves beneficial insects -
and butterflies.

Show Me the Money - On Guidestar.org. Schwan Foundation, Concordia Publishing House, Christian News

The closer you look,
the worse they look.

Guidestar.org and some other sites publish how non-profit and foundation money is spent. From time to time I look for updates. At the moment, Concordia Publishing House is very lax or late, with figures from 2012 being the latest. The princely salaries of Paul McCain and his boss are listed for CPH, but 2012 is a bit dated, dontcha think?

Christian News is the most up-to-date, and it is also the funniest. At the end is a handwritten note about people coming in to see the figures, expecting them to be published, as they have been in the past. The figures are not shocking and good for 2014, which is commendable.

The Schwan Foundation is in-between with 2013 figures. Cprrection - not long ago that was true. Now they have their 2014 Form 990 posted.

1. Search Schwan Foundation.
2. Pick the Missouri location.
3. Click on the title. Then click on the Form 990 link. That is the form filled out by non-profits for the IRS.  
4. Thrivent has a pile of reports - all very shocking if time is taken to see where the money goes. There are various funds in various states for Thrivent. My favorite idiotic gift was $5,000 to the Minneapolis Orchestra. But if you are dumb enough to fund Thrivent, why not?

Back to the Schwan Foundation, which is being taken to court to have its enormous losses explained.

I was unable to pick up the URL in Chrome for this story, published last night, so I went to another browser to get it listed. Apparently Schwan money pays Google to block searches on their name. 

The problem is that the foundation has lost almost a half-billion dollars, $250 million in one year alone. I am no financial expert, but I doubt whether I could lose that much money, even if I did my utmost.

Let us look at who is running the store at the Schwan Foundation. 

The principal officer listed is Rev. Keith Boheim.

Folks, do not make a clergy-person the head of a foundation. The Walther sects have a bad reputation for coveting money and running off with it. Then they lie about it.

This peacock (on the left) gets a salary and plush benefits
for teaching against Biblical, Lutheran doctrine.
I teach their dogmas for free - and then refute them - gladly.

Wowser Salaries

Rev Keith Boheim is listed as executive director with $286,000+ for salary plus almost $47,000 besides. I hasten to add that the extra money, probably for benefits, is more than the salaries of most ELS/WELS pastors.

Rev. Lawrence Burgdorf is listed for a $1,000. He used to get around $400,000 a year - a figure which made Herman Otten go through the roof. 

Keith Raabe gets $1,000

Erik Burgdorf gets $171,000 plus another $35,000.

Consultants Earn Their Dough

Capital Partners gets $1.3 million for advice on how to lose hundreds of millions. I would do that for, say, only $100,000 a year. There are other consultants, too.

Follow the Money, More or Less

1. $2,560,000 - Bethany Lutheran College
2. $500,000 - Little Sect on the Prairie
3. $150,000 - Lutheran Laymen's League (I thought they died.)
4. $2,100,000 - LCMS.
5. $0,815,000 - WELS
6. $2,110,000 - WELS again.
7. $3,800,000 - Wisconsin Lutheran College - they did name a library after St. Marvin.
8. $0,460,000 - Missions Advance

The Walther precedent.
Let's not forget the jeweled chalice they stole from Stephan
and used for Holy Communion.
Cops call things like that "trophies" the robbers love to look at.

The Big Bump in the Road

When St. Marvin died prematurely and met his maker, he doubtless had a bundle of indulgences in his hands, certified by indulgence salesmen from WELS, the Little Sect, and the LCMS. I remember Wayne Laitenen preaching St. Marvin into heaven while the man was still alive. 

Little did they care about what a cad Marvin was. So the money has bruised and broken every one it has touched. WELS and Missouri spent money like Congressmen, because it was not theirs to begin with. The final result was a sudden decrease in Schwan gifts from $50 million plus to only $12 million now. 

Unspoken - how much money is spent paying off lawsuits before they reach the court. One lawsuit alone, against Fred Adrian (WELS), his congregation, and WELS got a judgment of $400,000. Naturally, greedy WELS appealed that. The Milcraft lawsuit netted the cheated widow $1,000,000 - not including the legal fees involved.

Rev. Paul McCain, the pastor without a pulpit, said to me, "Missouri had to check up on ministers more carefully because the lawsuits were costing so much money." Note the lack of interest in the victims, only in the monetary cost to Holy Mother Synod. One lawsuit threat was quenched when a Missouri official said, "If this goes to court, it will cost us $10 million, and there goes the Siberian mission." Pastor Otten sent me the papers on that disgusting case.

Biggest Gift - Biggest Woes

When Marvin Schwan reached the temperature of his frozen foods, he left the LCMS-WELS-ELS the large charitable gift ever.

That gusher gave immunity to a large group of parasitic synodical creatures, those who wear their gold crucifix chains over their black clergy vests and pretend to be pastors. Like typical trust fund kids, they have proven to be lazy, shiftless, dishonest, addicted to various substances, and spendthrifts. Their glory days are over. Judgement Day has met many of them already.

When Schwan dive happened, I predicted it would break the back of the three synods by making them even more irresponsible. I was right.