I’m still unpacking from our move back to Collinsville. Yesterday I shelved some old theological journals from my great-uncle, Rev. Henry Meyer, pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church and School in Country Club Hills, Illinois, from 1929 to 1971. We used to call it “Coopers Grove.” Stuck in an old magazine was St. John’s financial report for the year 1963.
The church paid Cook’s Office Equipment $1.53 for staples and $21.29 for ink, stencils, and correction fluid. Bettenhausen Hardware got $25.75 for repairing a water leak at the school. Fred Nietfeldt got $13.48 for paint for the picnic building. Melvin Dehning got $7.07 to buy baseballs for the school. There’s more, but two things about this old report jump out. First, such changes in our lifetimes! And yesterday the news reported inflation is up 7% from last year. Second, something more concerning.
How we fund our congregations and schools has changed. In 1963 the general fund took in, round numbers, $22,500. Personnel expenses were about $16,000. Utilities: $1800. But here’s what concerns me. Of that general fund income, $22,500, almost $20,000 came from Sunday morning envelopes. Picnic receipts were almost $1000. Tuition: $600. Most congregations today can’t depend only on Sunday morning offerings. Historically our parochial schools didn’t charge tuition. The $600 tuition receipt was probably a non-member. Today the income from picnics, sausage suppers, rentals, bequests, etc. is a bigger source of income than back in 1963. If you face up to declining church membership and attendance today, look at the average age of churchgoers, analyze the percentage of donors providing the biggest percentage of gifts, and look at our increased reliance on earned income, like tuition, you should be concerned about the financial well-being of the institutional church after you and I have gone to heaven.
“Oh, you say, ‘God will provide?’” God does. He doesn’t always print money, but God always gives insight, just as He gave insight to Joseph about the economic future of Egypt. “There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them there will arise seven years of famine… Gather all the food of these good years that are coming and store up grain… That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine” (Genesis 41:14-36). What's the moral of this Minute?
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