REPORT OF THE DISTRICT PRESIDENT

Transcription

1 South Central District Pastoral Conference Shiloh Lutheran Retreat Center October 2, 2008 REPORT OF THE DISTRICT PRESIDENT CALL STATUS IN THE DISTRICT: Pastor Bill Tackmier has declined the divine call to Our Savior, Arlington. Pastor Fred Schleg has been led to accept the divine call to serve Beautiful Savior in Everett, Washington. Pastor Joel Sauer has received the divine call to serve as Pastor at Salem, Scottsdale, AZ. Pastor Andrew Retberg has accepted the associate pastor call to Good Shepherd, The Woodlands and has been installed. According to the information I have received Pastor James Krause is scheduled to go to Hong Kong to teach in January. He will be there for four to six months. Pastor Karl Gurgel will be serving at Gethsemane, Corpus Christi during Brother Krause s leave of absence. NEW MEN IN THE DISTRICT: We welcome Brother Steve Dorn back to our midst. We welcome candidates Craig Born-Gethsemane, OK City; Seth Dorn-Shepherd of the Hills, Fredericksburg, TX and Paul Kuehn-Risen Savior, Austin, TX. God bless your ministries in His church. HURRICANE ASSESSMENT: We are grateful that no greater damage was done to our churches and the homes of our people than has been reported. For those who have had homes damaged or destroyed we plead for God s love to sustain those people and the help of fellow believers to come to their aid with whatever help they can give. Kingdom Workers and the Committee on Relief have been in touch with King of Kings in Alexandria and have given initial help. Vice President Patterson and I are scheduled to be in Alexandria King of Kings next week. The congregation has some significant decisions to make and we hope to help them sift through the issues as well as assure them of the concerns of their brothers and sisters during their time of need. CMO COMMITMENTS: The 10/10 plan is still a good one. This means that grateful efforts should be given to increase each congregation s CMO by 10% of previous year s commitments. Each of your congregations should have received a letter from President Schroeder outlining the importance of staying the course set after the last synod convention. You and or your treasurer should also have received a reminder from Rev. J.D. Liggett, Administrator of the Ministry for Christian Giving, briefing you on sending in your 09 commitments via and to do this in a timely manner. This is Page1

2 important for the Synodical Council to have the information available in order to make sound decisions for the budget approvals which will be before them when they meet to determine budget proposals. I am sure that Mr. Robert Timmerman will have more to say about this in his report. The opportunity to raise the name of our Savior in our support for the mission of our church is significant during times of economic stress. Let us not live in the fears that grip so many hearts but let us live in the promises that our dear Lord gives us to bless every gift for the spread of His Word and to bless every giver with the windows of heaven opened and the treasures of His love flowing down. We have Gideon s three hundred men and we have God s directive to go. Trust His promises! As you sit down with your budget planning committee at this time of the year in preparation for you 2009 budget, it might be a good time to also check where your congregation is at in achieving its CMO for this calendar year coming to a close. If you have fallen behind, there are still three months to catch up and make good the commitment made earlier. CONTINUING EDUCATION FOR CALLED WORKERS: Maybe you don t feel comfortable in asking the congregation to include a line item in the budget for continuing education for their called workers. However, it is an important issue for their consideration. Encourage the Board of Elders to discuss such a line item at least with the thought of putting something in the budget to get a start on such an endeavor. The board could include it as part of their portion of the budget. If your called staff is larger than one or two, perhaps a regular rotation could be worked out having each take a turn in going to WLS Summer Quarter or to MLC for summer classes. Talk about funding attendance at our pastoral institutes. Encourage teacher to check on local seminars or courses at local colleges which offer classes in areas of special interest to them. Have you spoken with your teachers about investigating the Masters Degree program at MLC? There also may be travel assistance or scholarship money available from the schools. Check it out. JUBILEE CELEBRATION: This came from Adam Goede at the SAB. W i t h J u b i l e e M o n t h, s t a r t i n g N o v e m b e r 2 3 r d, q u i c k l y a p p r o a c h i n g i t m e a n s p r e p a r a t i o n t i m e f o r w o r s h i p / B i b l e s t u d y i s q u i c k l y w i n d i n g d o w n. W e r e c e n t l y h e a r d f r o m a c o n g r e g a t i o n s a y i n g t h e y w e r e w a i t i n g u n t i l t h e y r e c e i v e d m a t e r i a l s. W h e n w e t o l d t h e m t h a t t h e s e m a t e r i a l s h a d b e e n s e n t i n J u n e a n d w h a t t o l o o k f o r, t h e y q u i c k l y f o u n d t h e m. W e a r e s e n d i n g u p d a t e s t h r o u g h a l l W E L S m e d i a y e t i t s e e m s s o m e c o n g r e g a t i o n s a r e s t i l l m i s s i n g t h e i n f o. I t d o e s n t h u r t t o r e p e a t t h e e n c o u r a g e m e n t a g a i n a n d a g a i n. S o a t t h i s p o i n t p l e a s e m a k e s u r e a l l y o u r d i s t r i c t s c o n g r e g a t i o n s r e a l i z e t h e y s h o u l d h a v e r e c e i v e d t h e p a c k a g e w i t h i n s t r u c t i o n s b u t a l s o t h a t i n s t r u c t i o n s a n d m o s t o f t h e m a t e r i a l s a r e Page2

3 a l s o a v a i l a b l e a t w w w. w e l s. n e t / j u b i l e e w o r s h i p. ( N o t e t h i s i s n o t t h e l i n k p r o v i d e d o n t h e h o m e p a g e, w h i c h i s w w w. w e l s. n e t / j u m p / j u b i l e e. ) Let s just review Background: The synod wide celebration was authorized by the 2007 synod convention. It is running now through the 2009 convention. The message of the Year of Jubilee is a rich gospel proclamation. The focus is on celebrating the abundance of God s grace given to the WELS fellowship of believers over the past years. The celebration provides an opportunity for all the membership to participate in a thank-offeringgathering to be used to liquidate the synod debt. ($22.4 million) Participation: The materials have been sent to all of you. Note that you have options as how you will go about the celebration in your congregation. Jubilee month Nov. 23 to Dec. 24. Jubilee Sunday is Dec. 14. Remember that we all agreed to start gathering the offering last October. If you missed that jump start in your congregation, please be sure to climb aboard this fall. Be sure that your treasurer sends in the offering in the separate yellow Jubilee envelopes! This will insure that the offering will go to the right place. Utilize the resources available to you. Here are the district by district results of the Jubilee offering as of today. $37, <None Specified> Total $52, AZ-CA Total $44, D-M Total $104, MID Total $64, MN Total $16, NE Total $30, NW $28, PNW $87, SEW $126, WW $3, SAD $86, SCD $9, NAD $692, GRAND TOTAL Page3

4 Synod Finances: Marquette Associates has spent the past week monitoring each situation and evaluating its impact on the WELS Funds portfolios. We have been in continuous contact with investment managers to determine their exposure to these companies in their funds and to gather their views on the markets. We ve looked into each of the underlying holdings in the WELS portfolios to determine what the impact of these events has been on the funds. Looking through the WELS portfolios, the Equity Fund had a total exposure of 0.57% to AIG, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. The exposure primarily came from the passively-managed Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund. In the Income Fund, the total exposure to the three companies was 0.75% as of the most recent holdings disclosures. As with the Equity Fund, the majority of the exposure came from the passively-managed Vanguard Intermediate Bond Index. Across both portfolios, investment managers have been shifting away from the financial sector in response to concerns with many of the firms in the industry. While the managers work to protect the investments in their portfolios, there are several other safeguards in place to ensure the security of the overall WELS Funds. In each of the underlying funds in the WELS portfolios, there is a great deal of diversification among many individual securities. As of June 30 th, there were 828 different individual stocks in the Equity Fund. The largest individual holding in the fund only represents 1.7% of the overall portfolio. This portfolio structure prevents any single company stock from having a significant negative impact on the portfolio. The returns of the portfolio will be subject to the movement of the overall market but will not be appreciably hurt by individual company performance. Secondly, the WELS Funds are invested in daily traded mutual funds that purchase liquid equity and fixed income securities. The funds do not engage in any leverage or borrowing for enhancement of returns that could increase the overall risk of the portfolio. The WELS Funds avoid the risks of leverage and illiquidity and are only subject to the market risks of the mutual funds in which they invest. Finally, the assets of the WELS Funds invested in the underlying mutual funds are held by custodians. The assets held by each custodian remain owned by the WELS Funds and are not assets of each fund s custodial bank. In the event of a bankruptcy at a custodial bank, the assets of the WELS Funds are protected and cannot be claimed by creditors. The WELS Funds will be unaffected by corporate action at their mutual fund s custodial banks. In light of the events of this past week in the financial markets, it is important to maintain a long-term perspective on the WELS Equity and Income Funds. The short-term volatility in the markets will create opportunities for quality investment managers over time. The diversification of both the Equity and Income Funds will provide protection for the portfolios in these challenging markets. AD HOC COMMISSON: The commission has met one time since this summer s district conventions. The responses from the districts were discussed and plans were made to incorporate those responses in the final document going to the 09 convention. The deadline set for responses had not been reached at the time of our meeting with the result that when we meet again more comments and critiques will be available for us to consider. I just received a copy of the seminary faculty s response this week. Page4

5 This whole process has been a beneficial effort to bring the thinking of the constituency together and focus on the ministry of our church body. Perhaps the heaviest concern has been the retooling of the Board for Parish Services. A good number of people believe that at a time when so many congregations are struggling in developing their focus for outreach as well as developing their ministries to nurture their membership and increase their activities in Bible study, this is not the time to curtail the supportive work of Parish Services. The commission s goal is not to curtail the work but simply to reallocate the responsibilities and accountabilities for the work with greater efficiency in mind. We will evaluate all the comments on this part of the report to be sure we have been responsive to the membership. Final Note: Usually this meeting follows our fall COP meeting and you get news right off the press. Because our conference this year is early and the COP has not yet met, I am short on the latest and the best from Milwaukee. If there are pieces of information you should have coming out of our meeting in a week, I will sent it to you. President Glaeske Page5