After the ASC posted it’s notice of hearing against the ABC District’s CEF / DIL leadership, it was only a matter of time before the major news media got hold of the story and ran with it. This evening CTV News posted an article Lutheran Church accused of securities violations. The article covers the same points I covered in a prior article – and also includes a quote from President Tim Teuscher:
“It’s caused a lot of hurt and bitterness, anger,” Rev. Tim Teuscher, president of the Lutheran Church of Canada, said in an interview from the Winnipeg head office.
“This precipitated a decision of restructuring at our synod last year, actually. Instead of having separate corporate groups within the church body that kind of do their own thing corporately, we decided we’re going to get rid of that.”
He said the church has never previously had problems with its extension funds, which have been used for decades to provide a return to investors while raising money for capital projects such as churches and schools.
The Ontario Lutheran district has such a fund that has operated without problems, but it is in the process of being retired, he said.
One problem with this.
I’ve read East District’s plans for life after Synod, and retiring the CEF Fund isn’t on the agenda. In fact, if memory serves, since East District is federally incorporated an East District 2.0 might even be able to expand it’s CEF operations to other areas of Canada.
Church Extension Funds – properly run – are a great way for church members to support the care and growth of the church.
That ABC CEF / DIL was a continuing development over the course of nearly two decades speaks to an abysmal lack of leadership and accountability within the church, and eliminating all of LCC’s CEF Funds will not fix this deficiency. That the people implicated in this catastrophe are still on the clergy roster clearly shows that the leadership and accountability vacuum still exists.
This means that eliminating CEF funds – which are still working well by all accounts – is cutting off your nose to spite your face. It serves no purpose but to make it look like the leadership is “doing something.”
What’s funny is that if leadership applied the same line of thinking to the rest of Synod’s operations, it’d probably have to close its own doors.
Shortly after this was written a google search returned similar articles in a wide variety of publications and Facebook.
ANO / Lutheran Watch 
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