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| Gender fluidity follows truth fluidity. |
Good morning Pastor Jackson,
The WELS Titanic may be sinking but the band plays on. Most members probably believe that it is business as usual in the WELS but decreasing membership equals decreasing offerings. You have to wonder if the leaders are using fuzzy math like poor economists. Back in the mid 80's when our child began attending a WELS elementary school, about 60% of the congregational budget went to the school. The members were given priority over non-member families for the enrollment of their children. There was no tuition for members' children. There was a book rental fee of $125 annually per student and a few other minor expenses. The school existed primarily to serve the members.
I understand that coincidence does not produce causation. But I also realize that many actions can produce unintended consequences. The paradigm shift occurred when the talk started about the school being a mission arm of the congregation. The LES was often no more than a one room schoolhouse, especially in rural settings like Trinity.
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| "Everyone is jealous of our outstanding educational program." |
Then the school choice/voucher program was set up in Wisconsin. It was designed to give parents an alternative to failing public schools. In 2009, I left one WELS parish because of the manner in which they were fleecing their members to get their multi-million dollar expansion. Shortly thereafter, that church and Shoreland Lutheran High School became participants in the voucher program. Before all of this, the church's enrollment was typically between 100 to 125 students, mostly from member families. Presently, the church has about 200 students with well over half coming from the school choice program. This translates as non-member enrollees.
In the mid 90's when our oldest began at the high school, the tuition was about $2500 per year per student. Additional support came in from the 20 congregations in the federation. The area Roman Catholic high schools had a price tag that was double that amount. Now, the cost is approaching $7000 annually per student at Shoreland.
The enrollment is close to the same number with over half of the Shoreland students being school choice participants. If a parochial school wants to participate in the choice program, they must allow student to opt out of religious instruction if they want to. What about the Lutheran school being a "mission arm" of the congregation? What happened to that idea?
Wisconsin's new governor, Democrat Tony Evers has issued several executive orders recently. This is one of them:
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GJ - My expert in this field saw it coming decades ago. Once WELS coveted gubmint funds, the path to perdition was paved with a thick layer of Fool's Gold.
SP John Brenner would not take a dime from the gubmint, not even for the milk program.
Where is WELS now? Martin Luther College is training dumb kids in how to run Diaper Changing "Christian" Academies. No, really. They have a building just for that.
