Funding and Accountability

So, not a long post, but something that came up when I asked folk what they’d like me to write about. Two things that came up that I think are interrelated, Accountability and Stewardship. This is going to lean more heavily on the latter, but don’t worry I’ll bop out a post on accountability at a later date.

There is some confusion about how the ELCA is funded, and it is related to our church being three expressions. Some folk assume we’re funded in a top down model—there is a collective pot of money that the National Church doles out to Synods and congregations. That’s not how the ELCA works. There are other denominations and other expressions of Lutheranism that do this kind of thing, but currently that isn’t the ELCA’s model.

Instead, our ideal looks like this:

-Parishioners give a portion of their income to their congregation. The ideal is a “tithe”, which is 10%.

-Then every congregation sends 10% of that on as a gift to the Synod.

-The Synod then in turn sends 50% of what they receive from congregations on to the Churchwide expression of this church.

What does this have to do with accountability, you may ask. One of the pet peeves of a certain segment of clergy is that from time-to-time Churchwide solicits donations from individual congregants (I’ve participated in this without giving it a second thought). Decoupling funding streams from the relationships between expressions can make the expressions of the church less accountable to one another. 

For example, if Chris Halverson loves Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM) and sends money to Churchwide for that ministry, that bypasses congregations and synods voicing what they see as important. At an extreme, the national church could become a subsidiary of YAGM, while congregations and Synods cry out, “we need to take care of the elderly,” and it just doesn’t get done.

The Renewed Lutheran Church, if it shifts the number or duties of expressions of the church, might also have to shift how ministries are funded and how the various expressions of the church relate financially. Additionally, if it does so, what those shifts do to communication and accountability between expressions needs to be considered carefully.