pretty good lutherans

20 Responses to “Where the cuts were made”

1. Chad Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 1:17 pm

   A few thoughts from this and your fantastic (great job!) radio interview:

   1) Despite the leveling off of ‘reductions in donations’, I would guess that this recession has had a rather dramatic impact on giving to the national body. For example, in looking at church budgets there is a significant amount of ‘fixed costs’ that are involved in just keeping the building open and staff paid. (The mortgage payments haven’t gone away, health costs keep going up, etc.) Sometimes the synod ‘tithe’ is looked at as the flexible part of the budget. (i.e. we can cut synod benevolence in half to keep the church secretary full time, or pay for increased insurance costs, etc.)

   2) I’d love to see a breakdown of giving by church location/demographic. The ELCA has been dealing for a long time with the issues related to the decline in rural America that were (and might still be without knowing the numbers) the ‘backbone’ of American Lutheranism. From what I can speak about from anecdotal experience, the ELCA just hasn’t done a great job since the merger in keeping the kids that left the rural churches in the ELCA family. (Or “churched” in general.)

   3) The CWA appears to have most greatly impacted the ministries in the ELCA that were growing (or we were attempting to grow), namely the larger churches and multicultural ministries. (For example, in the SE Iowa Synod Hope Lutheran – the largest Lutheran church in the U.S. – voted to redirect mission support from the ELCA. That one line in the budget is likely disastrous – just out of the sheer number of offerings this represents compared to the rural/smaller churches whose giving is proportionally less – the size difference makes it hard to process the numbers by ‘congregations’. It would be a better measure of the impact of the CWA to measure giving ‘by member’, but the ability to track these numbers is something that happens over years, not months.)

   4) I do struggle with the idea that our problem with attracting multicultural ministries is associated with some form of inherent racism or race policies. Unfortunately “Lutheranism” as a whole was introduced into the United States as a religion that was wrapped in a pretty specific cultural context (German, Norwegian, etc.) and the cultural trappings often become as important as the theological ones. It doesn’t help that Lutheranism just doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ into the fabric of American public religion (the Calvinist ethos, “God Bless America”, etc.) as a whole.

   The growing minority populations in the U.S. also come from cultural contexts that are least likely to have “Lutheranism” as an existing (or familiar) context. (i.e. the religious contexts of Latin America appear to be either Catholic or Pentecostal.) I’m not sure we’ve figured out a great way to either communicate doctrine in those contexts or to appeal past the cultural ‘groove’ of American Lutheranism. As much as I appreciate Garrison Keillor, that sense of cultural Lutheranism just doesn’t appeal to the non-Midwestern audience.

   5) I think we’ve also been impacted because we think more of the “ELCA” (or the specific context of American Lutheranism) and less of ourselves as a part of a global Lutheran communion. The religious movements that do grow and take root in minority cultures appear to think in one of two ways: either as a ‘global church’ like Catholicism (or even Mormonism) or something that is very specific to a context or congregation, like Pentecostalism or the various forms of Baptist churches.

   There’s some good things going on with global partnerships and an encouragement to think of the ‘global communion’, but we’ve got a lot of history and our own context to work through. (Including the abrupt divorce of American Lutheranism from our native global context when Lutheran pastors preaching in German were threatened with jail sentences in the period of the First World War.)

   6) I do agree with you in our ‘communication’ issues, but I see most of these as being the result of being such a large church with a varied background and different outlook on ‘the church’. The issues of communicating positions have less to do with the ability of the institutional ELCA than it does with the ability of the membership to openly discuss these issues in public without a ‘filter’. The sexual debate has been going on since the inception of the ELCA and consensus on the issue among the membership (or those speaking in public) has not developed in the 20 years since the merger.

   I don’t know how in a modern age one can define a debate in the way that leaders (like Franklin Clark Fry) were able to control and promote.

2. Just a CWO worker Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 1:33 pm

   Anti-racism and racial justice are not programs that build a more diverse membership base. You seem to suggest that it is racism within the churchwide office that is a root cause of the ELCA as a church not reaching its goal of 10 percent people of color and with these positions eliminated that somehow we will not be able to build this member segment. I would argue that it is a combination of poor outreach within these communities and lack of a relevant “product.” Why WOULD people of color want to join the ELCA with its paternalistic approach to dealing with minorities. What does it offer that other denominations with more historic connections to their cultures and histories do not? Lutefisk? Sauerkraut? Pipe organs and choral recitals?

   No, my feeling is that the elimination of these two positions represent more housekeeping than budget control. If these two staff were successful at their jobs their positions would have been somehow saved.

3. Susan Hogan Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   Dear CWO Worker,

   In no way did I mean to suggest that two people at the national office could eliminate racism on her own. If it came across that way, I’m happy to clarify.

   Yes, a few people in ELCA congregations feel the cuts represent a lack of commitment to dealing with this issue. Frankly, I don’t know. I’m still hoping that the Executive for Administration will explain the plan.

   When people don’t know what the plan is they tend to draw conclusions. Negative ones. The ELCA execs would go a long way in addressing this issue with all members of the church and not simply the clergy.

4. Brian Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

   When back in Northern California, a Korean pastor and I were in talks with a dozen other Korean pastors of independent congregations.

   They were considering joining the ELCA en-mass. It was the Sierra Pacific Synod’s yearly synodical conversation around sexuality that changed their minds. Hidden in the debate of “why is our church so white,” is the more subtle issue of “why has our church been do offensive to first generation immigrants?”

5. Mary Tabata Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 3:45 pm

   So, Chad, is this the Hope Lutheran in Cedar Rapids? In fact, since 2006, they have given less than $1K to Mission Support for the ELCA. While they have given to other benevolences, it’s not clear to me that the loss of $520 makes that much of an impact in the overall ELCA budget.

   Every congregation’s giving is listed on the ELCA web page, if you use the Find a Congregation tool, then when the report comes up, you select the link “full trend report for this congregation,” it will list what the congregation submitted to their Synod in their annual parochial report.

   And, I do agree that, as charming as Lake Wobegon is, as an Asian-American I had little relation to the Sven and Ole jokes, understanding Lutefisk, etc… But I’ve also had the privilege to see the Lutheran church in the larger world, particularly in Hong Kong.

   And, though it was not ELCA, it was a special privilege to travel there with an ELCA bishop and delegation, and celebrate our partnership.

   And yes, CWO worker, to be a lay woman of color at the table was some of the hardest work I’ve ever had to do. My friend, an African-American pastor, said that as long as it’s an issues, it will be an issue. Seems obvious.

6. Chad Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 4:37 pm

   Mary:

   My apologies – I meant “Lutheran Church of Hope” in West Des Moines whose contributions (thanks for the tip!) are listed for 2008 as ~$100,000 to the ELCA and ~$1,000,000 to “Other Benevolence”. (They’ve gradually shifted from giving to the ELCA with a high of about ~$500,000 in 2004 apparently.)

   … and I appreciate the notion that you can understand the “ELCA” and Lutheranism in a global context; I think a great many of us (including myself) often cannot.

7. Ladymadonna Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

   Another integral position that was also eliminated was Director for Poverty Ministries Networking, Church in Society.

8. Susan Hogan Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

   Thank you, Lady Madonna. Very, very sorry to hear this.

9. Chris Says:
   November 18th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

   Any sense of what proportion of these positions were lay, and what proportion ordained? And if the cuts were largely from laity, how does that change the lay/ordained ratio at churchwide?

10. Susan Hogan Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    Can anyone out there answer this?

11. Randy (survivor of 3 secular layoffs) Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    2 cents from the secular world (that MAY or MAY NOT apply to this situation):

    A) Senior staff are typically offered ‘early retirement’ as there are some age-discrimination-test things that can happen if folks over a magic age (55?) are laid off.

    B) Don’t forget ‘crossed the boss’ on the list of reasons that some people are selected to lay off. Hopefully that is not the case in this deal.

12. Doug Kings Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    I think the ELCA has been in a financial fantasyland from Day 1 (remember its first 9 figure budget?) Many former ALC congregation never bought into the LCA model, essentially adopted by the ELCA, to let the national church be the primary distributor of benevolence/mission support dollars. They preferred to support their favorite camp, college, seminary, missionary, etc… In any case, local ministry costs have been increasingly trumping mission support, including the ever growing BOP bill. I knew we were in trouble when the ELCA began having an annual direct appeal, essentially admitting the system wasn’t working.

    The churchwide office has been through one round of budget & staff cuts after another. It’s time to admit that we need a whole new model for the ELCA’s structure which will be much smaller and cheaper. (Eventually this probably will include saying bye-bye to the Higgins Rd tower but this isn’t time to be selling commercial real estate.)

    Wyvetta Bullock may have been more prophetic than she realized when she said the ELCA will be doing less with less. Our denominational membership loss has been slow but steady (well, maybe not all that slow) and there is no reason to think that will change. (Susan, I think the improved finances of the past few years was due primarily to our fake national prosperity which is now so deflated.) We need to drastically rethink what can be realistically expected of the ELCA’s churchwide and even synodical expressions.

    The ELCA’s multi-cultural ministry strategy is a good example of the consequences of its “magical thinking.” At its inception the ELCA set a goal of 10% minority membership yet never had any real idea how to achieve this or what resources it would take.

    Here in the Chicago area this resulted in many minority congregations being started but without commiting the money to support them over the longhaul. It was just assumed they would transition into financial independence like any other mission start. There have been some successes but more have been “flaming out” as their mission subsidies come to an end, with understandable frustration and disappointment.

    A similarly impossible model is our method of pastor preparation. Seminary graduates enter ministry with ever larger student debt loads while fewer and fewer congregations are paying the so-called synod “miminum” salary. A growing number are not even pretending anymore that they can support a full-time pastor. A 4-yr graduate degree and 5-figure debt load for a part-time job? I don’t think so. On top of that, we continue to maintain EIGHT seminaries.

    The times they are a changin’ but the ELCA isn’t changing nearly fast enough to keep up.

13. Susan Hogan Says:
    November 18th, 2009 at 11:46 pm

    Thanks, Randy. I put “cross the boss” in the “church politics” category.

14. Doug Kings Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 7:01 am

    Right Susan, sorry for the in-house lingo. Board of Pensions administers the ELCA’s health and pension plans. Wyvetta’s quote was from the ELCA press release you provided a link to earlier: http://www.wfn.org/2009/11/msg00106.html.

15. Susan Hogan Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 8:03 am

    Hey there, Doug. No need for apologizing. It’s my job to monitor these things. I wanted to make sure BOP meant what I thought it meant. Thanks for the clarification.

16. Michael Church Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Look, this is painful all around, and I have no insight into the details of each layoff. But it is worth mentioning that, numerically, it looks as though Global Mission is the program area hit hardest.

    If we’re committed to building a diverse church, as well as to thinking of ourselves as part of a global communion, our global mission is a big part of that picture.

    In New York, at least, we have only been able to reach some immigrant communities because of pastors from the Chinese, Indonesian, and Latin American Lutheran churches (among many others).

    Continued support for our partnership in ministry with those churches abroad has a direct payoff for our church at home.

17. Chad Says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 8:38 am

    Continued support for our partnership in ministry with those churches abroad has a direct payoff for our church at home.

    One of the neat things that we’ve done lately (I’m not for sure when this started) is the ‘partnership church’ program – our congregation is “partnered” with a companion church in Tanzania as are other congregations in the synod. We’re not providing support “through” the ELCA offices – we’ve been dealing with them in a very one-on-one kind of relationship.

    Lutheran World Relief is also doing some really amazing work out there – I’m always a bit confused as to why the ELCA appears to duplicate efforts with LWR (such as “ELCA World Hunger” or the “ELCA Good Gifts” catalog sent with copies of the Lutheran) when we could be focusing more on our partnerships with other Lutheran churches and parachurch organizations.

    An aside: I listened to an interview with Pr. Matt Harrison – the director of “LCMS World Relief and Human Care” where he described the model they use for relief: instead of working “as the LCMS” they work more to support churches in areas around the world effected by disaster. His primary example was using Indonesian and Indian Lutheran churches as the ‘conduit’ for the relief efforts they could provide, which allowed the local congregations and churches to direct aid to where it was needed “locally to them”. That struck me as a good model in the way that LWR/Oxfam is providing aid – instead of the old model of shipping all relief goods and services, use the local providers where you can to provide those goods while rebuilding (and not crushing) their local economies, hopefully averting an economic disaster as well as a natural one.

    In summary, I wonder if in the midst of the turmoil there isn’t an opportunity to create a ‘better model’ for the work we want to do. I think that sometimes we get the role of the things that should be ‘top down’ confused with the things that should be ‘bottom up’ and what we should use ecclesiastical and national structures *for*.

    (An example: I sat in a session where one of the ELCA mission developers was talking about his work in the developing world, etc. – and was somewhat baffled that he as a trained clergyman was giving a talk on agriculture in the developing world…. to a congregation that included several professional agricultural economists and planners who understood the nuts and bolts of agricultural planning and operation far better than the presenter was communicating. It seems we might be better off if we find ways to support our laity to do some of this kind of mission work rather than having trained clergy “playing out of position”.)

18. Michael Church Says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Chad: I think that the better model you are describing largely exists, and has existed for a few years. The number of foreign missionaries sent abroad by mainline churches is at a record low, since which testifies to the success of earlier generations in establishing strong national churches which now need other kinds of support and companionship. The Global Mission unit has already restructured accordingly, and was stretched pretty thin even before losing a big portion of its staff this week.

    As background, I’m an ELCA pastor, just recently deployed through a companion synod program to do pastoral ministry in another country. This means that I’m paid by my synod, and I’m not a GM staff member; until this summer, I barely knew any of them, and had the same impression that you do.

    But because we are rostered personnel, and our call has to come through the ELCA Church Council, my wife and I were required to spend several weeks in Chicago, for GM “orientation.” Most of it was pretty good — much better than I expected — and it included some reasonably frank discussion about these issues. Here are some of the things I learned:

    1. There are surprisingly few pastors doing non-pastoral work, like the guy you describe. That used to be more common, but has become less so. I did meet a pastor who was going to work in an exotic place as a church accountant, which sounded odd until you realized that he was also a CPA. Most GM field staff seemed to be either skilled specialists in long-term positions, or eager volunteers in the short-term ones.

    2. Companion parish and synod relationships are clearly understood to be the growing edge of ELCA global mission. There is certainly some internal resistance to this — the old pros who prefer a centralized model — but less than you might think.

    3. But those companion synod/parish relationships are not all equally well-thought-through. In some cases, they result from a brief spurt of unsustainable generosity, and raise expectations of a continuing relationship which doesn’t materialize. In others, they create ministries which actually compete with existing ELCA or other Lutheran work in the same region. And in many cases, because the GM unit doesn’t know about them, and in some cases even synod bishops don’t know about them, they are difficult to track, report and coordinate.

    4. Needless to say, the burden of straightening this out falls on the national church — meaning GM. And to do that, as well as to support the now fairly small number of foreign missionaries, the ELCA really needs a staff of skilled professionals in Chicago, who can handle the paperwork and logistics.

    I’m very concerned about who on the staff may have been let go, because nearly every one seemed to have a distinct and important role.

19. Mark C. Christianson Says:
    November 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 am

    It is never a good thing to see layoffs. The loss of jobs and discontinuity for the organization in question are not good, to put it mildly.

    On the other hand, this might force the ELCA (although perhaps for the wrong reasons) to really engage in some reevaluation of what it does as on a churchwide basis and how it does it. We’ve long had too many staff positions and programs, many with too little impact on the local congregations of our church. All this while, the support for the seminaries, for example, continued to decline over the years, and has been much too low. But keeping certain programs alive seems to have been a greater priority among ELCA leaders. (Seminary support from the ELCA should be 100% of each seminary’s budget, ideally. This is most unfortunately probably not currently realistic, but it still should be a our goal, probably combined with having fewer seminaries.)

    Perhaps it is time to move more and more to actually using the membership of our church to actually do the work of the church. That is to say, things like coordinating certain kinds of ministry do not need to be done by paid staff in Chicago, but by those being coordinated or by volunteer leader groups of (lay or clergy) church members. Task forces should be able to work electronically and by telephone, and need little or no staff support except when they need to communicate their work to the church at large. This might mean some things take longer, and we will need to change how some things are done, but it should also move things closer to what the church is supposed to be (i.e. much less a corporation type entity and more a body of believers working in God’s kingdom).

20. Chad Says:
    November 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pm

    Pr. Church:

    Thank you for the followup – the insider information is useful!