Author Kim L. Beckmann (front, right) and friends illustrate how, in the economic upheaval, gifts are released for mission and ministry.
gregation or synod?
Where I live the story seems much less influenced by events at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. Quite the opposite, there is new energy around the missional good of deepening the welcome in congregations. However, scenarios like the open- ing illustration are playing out in Chicagoland congregations. And in my neighborhood, perhaps yours, almost one-half of the homes are underwater in their mortgages (prop- erties worth less than the mortgage on them), and church members con- tinue to be laid off.
The more worthwhile question is which, if any, of these factors might change anytime soon. Is there basis for assuming things will go back to normal? By normal we would mean a slower decline of denominational resources we were enjoying when all we had to deal with was the 30-year
22 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
trend of falling interest in churchgo- ing and a style of churchmanship that went hand-in-hand with undesig- nated tithing to support our common goods.
The New York Times has sug- gested that in this edge of my prime years I’ll never work again. For those who will, analysis of the 1980s recession suggests their income will forever be disadvantaged by about 20 percent. Plus, the millennial genera- tion faces the highest unemployment rates in 60 years, with college grads among them burdened with large debt. Investment income is still vola- tile. Time isn’t on our side with many of our faithful givers supporting min- istries from this stream.
The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod notably holds a conservative line among Lutherans. A special issue of its magazine, The Lutheran Witness, was published in May to
DIRK VAN DER DUIM
outline denominational restructuring. They, too, have had difficulties in raising undesignated mission sup- port to maintain basic and common functions—as they put it, “keeping the lights on” at the headquarters in suburban St. Louis. Graphics from ELCA Research and Evaluation show the substan- tial rise of per-baptized congrega- tional giving over the past decades: from $51 in 1965 to $482 in 2009 (page 24). This is close to a tenfold increase. But the amount that ended up forwarded as mission support was virtually a flat line—from $9 to $26.31 over those same 45 years. The balance has also shifted more locally in the way mission support (benevolence) is shared. In 1965, 70 percent of mission support went to the churchwide expression, while 30 percent stayed in synods (page 25). That split moved to 60/40 around the time of the ELCA’s formation in 1988. Today, the amount of mission
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