Three Vice Presidents of the Texas District were present for the lectures given in 1999
titled "Reclaiming the Gospel in the Texas District."
Vice President Joeckel was present at Arlington, Texas on Feb. 11th, 1999, Vice
President Linderman was present in San Antonio, Texas on Feb. 12th, 1999, and Vice
President Black was present in Houston on Feb. 15th, 1999.
Both Joeckel and Linderman vehemently proclaimed at the meetings that the financial
statistics of the Texas District from the Lutheran Annual were false. They insisted that
the amount of funds given to the Texas District by member congregations and the amount of
funds the District sent on to the Synod were incorrect.
They both had no idea what the correct numbers were. They had no advance warning of
what the numbers shown on the screen would be, but they immediately told everyone at the
meeting that the financial numbers published in the Lutheran Annual were false.
They also insisted that the number of people published in the Lutheran Annual working
"at the District Office" were completely in error. The following numbers were
taken from the Lutheran Annual and Statistical Year books.
Now more than a year later the latest statistics for the Texas District as found in
"The Lutheran Annual 2000" report an increase of $876,729.00 dollars from 1997
to 1998. This resulted in an increase of $45,000.00 to Synod from the previous year or
5.1%. Yet the Texas District past a resolution that it would give 40% of its budget to
Synod.
The numbers are so embarrassing and indefensible that
President Kieschnick's Vice Presidents had little choice but to publicly claim that the
Lutheran Annual numbers are wrong.
What they show is that Texas and many other Districts are steadily collecting more and
more funds and giving less and less funds to the Synod. The Texas District collected
approximately $1.7 million more mission funds in 1997 than in 1992 but reduced its giving
to the Synod by more than $400,000.00 in 1997.
The Texas District has a resolution that 40% of its funds will go to the Synod, but in
1997 it sent in only 23%. In 1998, it sent in 21.5%. Where do the extra funds go? Who can
tell? The Texas District added three deployed offices between '92 and '97.
The number of people listed "at the District Office" rose to 15. They have
now full time "Facilitators," whatever they are, at the District Office and in
three deployed offices around the state.
When confronted by the numbers from the Lutheran Annual, the Texas District Vice
Presidents deny, deny, deny, as if there was a conspiracy on the part of the Synod to
publish fraudulent statistics about the Texas District.
Local Texas pastors report that the Texas District may have opened no more than two new
mission congregations in the past 10 years. However, the Texas District President reports
that the District opened 33 mission congregations in the past 10 years.
When challenged to produce the names of these phantom mission congregations by Attorney
James D. Runzheimer of Arlington, Texas, District President Kieschnick has refused to
respond.
The entire mission philosophy has changed. Rather than finance "traditional
mission congregations" the Texas District is giving funds to Texas Mega-Churches to
start missions inside these congregations. They claim this method of support brings them
more results.
In essence, the small congregations are now financing the large congregations. The
"traditional" congregations thus finance their own extinction.
Meanwhile, the so-called "confessional pastors and congregations" have
started and financed two "confessional missions." A "confessional
mission" means they use Lutheran hymnbooks, catechisms, agenda, liturgy, creeds, the
name "Lutheran" etc. according to Article VI.4 of the LCMS Constitution.
The financial figures for the Texas District are typical of many LCMS districts. They
have increased their staffs, decreased their support for Synod at large, and opened fewer
mission congregations.
In other words, they have increased the bureaucracy and decreased their mission out
reach at home and through the Synod. There is little wonder that the larger districts are
growing more slowly and the Synod as whole shrank by more than 18,000 baptized in 1998.