ELCA Council Reduces Churchwide Staff, Budgets for 2009

The ELCA has announced that it is cutting $5.6 million dollars from its budget in reaction to declining funds. While there is considerable debate about reality of a post-denominational age, it does appear that the big box denominations are suffering. The reductions will impact ministry efforts such as: campus ministry, communications, outreach, social ministry, vocational efforts, rural ministry, and new church starts. Approximately 24 positions have been eliminated as well. There was even one cutback that seemed very familiar …

“ELCA Communication Services eliminated Grace Matters, a radio ministry which has aired each week since 1947.  The action eliminated three full-time staff and two contract staff. The program’s final broadcast will be Easter, April 12.  The broadcast aired each week on nearly 180 radio stations in the United States, several European countries, plus Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico.  Programs could also be heard online, and will continue to be available on the Web.”

From my perspective, I don’t mind a little denominational downsizing. I believe that corporate-based denominational structures have been too readily embraced and that the Church as the Body of Christ has become little more than a Christian corporation, but that’s just me. In many ways, I see the financial downturn as a blessing. It forces denominations to reconsider what the mission of the Church is really about. Cutting the fat, while painful for the ones who are displaced, might be what we need to remember who and whose we are before we become another corporate skeleton. I once preached a sermon in which I lamented that the Church looks more like the bride of Frankenstein than the Bride of Christ. Maybe the economic downturn is our opportunity to reclaim our God given identity and repent of our man-made corporate one.