Posted on 09/23/2009 2:12:10 PM PDT by george76
Hey Bishop Hanson, and your point is?
Pastor, you forgot the “Hurl Alert”!
Be careful. The Catholics have a special relationship on this forum. I was cautioned by a moderator for making a personal comment towards a Mackerel-Snapper who was trying to convert me to “the true church”.
This is your second warning from a moderator. Use the term "Mackerel-Snapper" again and you'll be banned. AM
Bless you.
Always in membership decline, the ELCA has been losing members most rapidly since 2002 ; it lost 76,000 members in 2008, and its budget shrank to $67 million this year, down from $81 million in 2005.
A 2005 ELCA report found that only 22 percent of ELCA members favored blessing gay unions or ordaining practicing homosexuals, and 57 percent opposed the changes.
Hosanna Lutheran of Lakeville (6,084 members; largest of all ELCA churches in operating budget at $6.9 million) is one church whose dollars Bishop Hanson will sorely miss. Its pastor wrote to the St. Paul area bishop:
". . .We strongly disagree with the decisions made.
We do not feel that the actions taken represent the beliefs and desires of the majority of the ELCA, but rather a small fraction of the denomination, politically well organized and driven by personal agenda. We feel these actions are biblically indefensible. Now, we are forced to deal with the aftermath. Many are asking "when are we leaving the ELCA?" Part of my response has been "they have left us." It feels like we have been abandoned. But we are not alone.
The leadership at Hosanna! is putting into place a "Plan for Decision and Discernment." Ours will not be a knee-jerk reaction and I suspect these events and opportunities will unfold over the next 6-8 months. This letter is a first step. It will be posted on our website and read to the congregation this coming weekend. Second, I will also be speaking to the congregation about our relationship with the ELCA this weekend. Third, I will be speaking next week with the leadership team of The Lighthouse Covenant. We will affirm common ground, talk about next steps, and consider a mid-winter Lighthouse Covenant Conference to encourage and care for other pastors and congregations that are hurting, angry, or confused. Fourth, we invite you to meet with our Vision Board sometime this fall. We meet the third Tuesday evening each month. Fifth, we will schedule a town hall forum for Hosanna! members to attend to voice their concerns. Finally, we will explore affiliation with numerous groups, both within and outside the ELCA: CORE, LCMC, ARC, Word Alone, and others.
Finally, I need to tell you that we are going to suspend immediately all financial support to the Saint Paul Area Synod and the ELCA. Our giving beyond Hosanna! will remain strong, but we cannot give our benevolence dollars to a denomination that has moved in a direction so contrary to some of our core beliefs."
Rev. Chavez sees Hanson's pathetic posturing for what it is:
The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, said the gay clergy vote was the devastating event — "a departure from God's clear word." He called Hanson's letter "an attempt to shift the responsibility of this devastation and crisis within the ELCA away from the people who presided over it and are responsible for it."
"Lutheran CORE says 1,200 people have registered for this weekend's conference, which organizers say will start the process of forming an "alternative church fellowship" for traditionalists within the ELCA."
How heartening: 1,200 people. That's a larger number than the total of ELCA convention delegates (and much larger than the 550-odd revisionists who voted to jettison the Bible).
Sow the wind, Bishop Hanson, and reap the whirlwind. That's in the same Bible your denomination just relegated to its synodical junk heap.
Lutheran Ping!
Lutheran Ping!
Already issued at post # 50.
Defund the problem.
You may be on the wrong thread, friend. "Umbilical decisions" have to do with abortion, which I suspect the ELCA gets wrong, too. "[U]nbiblical decisions" having to do with homosexuality are at issue here. But I'm sure you're on the correct side of both issues, so I support you either way. Keep posting and fighting the good fight--I am for you, sir!
Kindly remove my account.
Thank you.
. . .The movement has drawn such great interest that the conference, originally expecting 400 attendees, cut off registration at 1,400 people from more than 40 states.
There was such a groundswell that organizers moved the meetings from Christ the Savior Lutheran Church in Fishers to the much larger Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Geist.
"This meeting is basically the first step in a process that we hope will lead to a reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism," said Chavez, a member of Lutheran CORE's steering committee. . . .
Chavez disputes the fairness of the process that selected the voting membership of the churchwide assembly, which he said was "stacked in favor" of those supporting gay clergy.
Lutheran CORE reformers have drawn up a proposed constitution that could separate them from the denomination.
"The bottom line is that the ELCA churchwide organization thinks it can place itself in authority over God's word rather than the classical Lutheran position where we are simply human beings and we submit to God's word," Chavez said.
Thanks for the ping - we are very glad to be Missouri Synod after leaving ELCA 8 years ago. Still have family/friends int he ELCA, some of whom now are ready to leave as well.
1. The Cross
2.The Gospel
Any other questions, Bishop?
If the liberal wing of the Lutheran Church loses a large number of members that means less money to spend on all sorts of mischief whether promoting deviance or flooding our country with millions of people who shouldn't be here.
This is just one way of defunding the left. The left has become so powerful because they have gotten their hands on a fortune in money. And you know what? It is usually other peoples money. The liberal churches have taken the donations of their congregations to promote their leftist causes. The secular ngos and foundations have spread their leftist agenda with other people's fortunes and as we have seen this recently when it was discovered that ACORN was getting millions of dollars from the tax payers of the United States. The left are nothing more than parasites. Take away their money sources and they will crumble. This is what we have to concentrate on.
Typical of a liberal, they take words and totally turn their meanings inside out. Who could stand even being in the presence of this man? It is enough to make a person crazy.
Who is going to get the property? What happened in the Anglican Church? Didn’t the apostate clergy end up with the church property and the traditional Anglicans had to find other churches?
What does the law say about this when there is a disagreement in a church? Which side gets to keep the church? Which side gets to keep the church’s name?
There is an excellent pdf file on the LutheranCORE web site outlining the legal procedures for ELCA congregations that leave.
Short answers:
If the ELCA congregation dissolves, property goes to the Synod.
If the ELCA congregation votes to go independent or anything other to another Lutheran body (ie, UCC, ECC, etc) the property remains with that faction of the congregation which voted to remain Lutheran, even if that is only ONE person.
If the ELCA congregation votes to affiliate with another Lutheran body (LCMC, LC-MS, etc) it may keep its property but the Synod Council must approve. The constitutions don't say what happens if the Synod Council fails to approve...see ya in court.
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