A few observations concerning the statistics you will find in the 2015 report: Membership totals decreased by one percent from last year. The average per communicant giving in WELS is $1,180, a three percent increase from 2014. This amount represents approximately 2.5 percent of income based on 2015 U.S. per capita income. The average percent of income given per member among U.S. Christians, according to latest figures from 2013, is 2.2 percent. (If you would like to see how your church compares, search the web to find your state’s per capita income. Then divide your congregation’s per communicant giving figure from the Statistical Report by your state’s per capita income.) If you look at the breakdown of enrollment in our early childhood ministry programs across the U.S., you will notice the high number of non‐WELS children enrolled. This makes early childhood ministry a top outreach opportunity for our synod. We glorify God for that.
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GJ - The WELS statistics are always amusing. They have been on Church Growth steroids for decades, abandoning any hint of Lutheran doctrine and worship. They put a Fuller alumnus in charge of the Sausage Factory (Valleskey), another one as First VP (Wayne Mueller, the Jim Huebner), and another as head of Women's Ordination at Martin Luther College (Larry Olson, DMin, Fuller).
The agenda has always been radical anti-Christian dogma, UOJ, to bring WELS in line with ELCA and its LCA/ALC predecessors.
Growth? Growth in apostasy. Growth in criminal convictions against pastors and teachers. Growth in ueber-paid administrators. Growth in tax-supported schools for non-Lutherans. Growth in programs conducted with ELCA.
When a mainline denomination is failing, they point out how many non-members use this or that service. I heard that in the LCA Canada once when the Synod President said, "The residents of this youth home are 100% non-Lutheran. It is PURE mission."
The WELS diaper-changing business, disguised as Early Childhood Ministry, is sold as evangelism, etc. In truth, their little academies are a baby-sitting service for women who want to work outside the home. WELS has to compete for prices, so they keep the charge low. Meanwhile, they often have to fulfill state demands for staffing and salaries, so the congregation subsidizes the members who work at the day care and also the non-members who use the baby-sitting service. Combined, that is quite a demand on the budget.
Shepherd of Peace in Columbus claimed they were going to have a school, but they were really aiming at baby-sitting and never went beyond Kindergarten. They added a building just for baby-sitting and only the staff could access that building. No one else could use it. Benefit? They had to borrow money just to make it another year, and that was after closing down the diaper academy, which continued to be called The School until it shut down.
Money wasted on this debacle was hidden from the members and never separated out on the budget reports.
Scott Barefoot, Purple Reign
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| Ski posed with his wife. Thank you, Scott Barefoot. But still, Ski had net losses last year. He needs more Groeschel-Stanley oomph. |
