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ELCA Foundation Legacies November 2003

Synods and congregations partner with ELCA Foundation to benefit ministry

People are discovering what one pastor called the treasure in their midst as synods and congregations partner with the ELCA Foundation to build resources for ministry, both now and in the future. Using the resources and expertise of the ELCA Foundation staff, who are available to all ELCA congregations and synods, people are discovering models of partnership that make it possible to realize stewardship goals in creative ways that benefit local and churchwide ministries.

Lord of Life Lutheran Church

Lord of Life has begun their “Room to Grow” campaign to expand support for the congregation’s ministries while giving a percentage of the dollars raised to outreach and churchwide ministries, including the Fund for Leaders in Mission. “We want to lift up the whole ministry of the church and to leave a legacy that will help keep the church vital for future generations,” says Pastor John Kautz.

The ELCA Foundation has been helpful in encouraging people to think about including the church’s ministries in their legacy planning. “When one of the Foundation staff made a presentation at our church, he encouraged people to think of the church as another child and to make provision to leave part of their legacy to the church,” says Pastor Kautz. “He helped people think of both ongoing and long-term ways to plan for their stewardship goals.”

In addition, the Foundation has been helpful in assisting people with the technical aspects of making gifts. For instance, members of the congregation have been learning about the advantages of making gifts through Charitable Gift Annuities, in which individuals make a gift of cash or securities to the ELCA Foundation for ELCA ministries, including their local congregation, and the gift provides them with a guaranteed annual payment for life. The ELCA ministries receive the remaining portion of the annuity at the end of the individual’s life. Members can make gifts to Lord of Life or other ministries and the Foundation handles drawing up the annuity agreements and processes the annuity payments. “People are learning that they can make gifts that benefit them now and then ultimately benefit the church and ministries they care about,” says Pastor Kautz.

Rocky Mountain Synod

In 2002, the Rocky Mountain Synod unanimously voted to establish a synod endowment fund to help support new and redeveloping congregations. Income from the endowment will be used in three primary areas: to help strengthen the partnership with the churchwide Division for Outreach in starting mission congregations; to provide assistance to congregations that have recently been organized; and to help existing congregations that are engaged in a process of renewal and redevelopment, says Pastor James Hytjan, assistant to the bishop for outreach.

The Synod has set a goal of raising $7 million for the endowment fund, and individuals and congregations have begun making gifts. While the effort is still in its early stages, the ELCA Foundation has helped people see the strength and advantages of establishing an endowment. In addition, the Foundation has helped people see the wide variety of opportunities to give in ways that benefit both the individual making the gift and the church’s ministry.

“The Foundation staff have been of great assistance in helping us plan and generate conversations about giving—they have helped us see the many creative possibilities for giving,” says Pastor Hytjan.

Calvary Lutheran Church

When Calvary Lutheran Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota invited their ELCA Foundation Regional Gift Planner, Julie Johnson, to do a presentation on charitable gift annuities, a whole new array of possibilities opened up.

Calvary has its own foundation to ensure the vitality of its ministries and outreach. While there was some initial hesitation about inviting the ELCA Foundation for fear that gifts might be funneled away from the local congregation, “the opposite happened,” says Pastor Steve Wold. “The congregation has found this to be a marvelous partnership and we’ve established some groundwork that in the future will bear great fruit.”

The congregation began by inviting 30 of its members to a luncheon to hear a presentation by the ELCA Foundation’s Johnson about the advantages of charitable gift annuities. “There are many people—even those who are quite knowledgeable about investments—who are unsure about what a charitable gift annuity is,” says Pastor Wold. “Julie did an excellent job of helping them understand that, through a charitable gift annuity, they benefit from annuity payments during their lifetime based on rates far better than the standard interest rates on investments these days, and also make a gift to the church and ministries that have been important to them.”

In addition, the Foundation takes care of the business side of the charitable gift annuities, drafting the annuity agreements and taking care of issuing annuity payments. It’s wonderful that the ELCA Foundation provides local churches with this kind of technical expertise and the business systems to establish and maintain such agreements, says Pastor Wold. By partnering with the ELCA Foundation, the local church is freed to focus on promoting gifts and building up its endowment, he adds.

“We’ve had an excellent response to this initiative,” Pastor Wold says. Charitable gift annuities are a way for members to make a responsible investment of their resources and to benefit the church through a gift. “The benefits of partnering with the ELCA Foundation are extremely helpful to local congregations and we look forward to expanding our partnership,” he adds. People with a great heart for the church are excited about the creative ways in which they can give.

ELCA Foundation resources for you: Your congregation or synod can also benefit from the resources of the ELCA Foundation. For information on ways in which the Foundation can assist you in your gift planning efforts, please call the ELCA Regional Gift Planner nearest you or visit the website at www.elca.org/fo for the name of the Regional Gift Planner nearest you.

Synods and Congregations Rising to the Thrivent Challenge: Raising up a new generation of leaders

Raising up a new generation of leaders is a task of the whole church. Future leaders are nurtured in congregations and synods that help them identify gifts of public ministry, and provide encouragement and support as they prepare for leadership.

Now, through the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation $1 Million Challenge to the Fund for Leaders in Mission, synods, congregations and individuals have a special opportunity to maximize their support for future leaders by having every $2 they give matched with $1 from the Thrivent Foundation.

A number of synods throughout the country are participating in the Challenge in creative and thoughtful ways as they seek to encourage faithful and promising men and women to answer the call to ministry and to insure that financial resources are available for their preparation.

Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod

The Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod began an endowed scholarship fund within the Fund for Leaders in Mission two years ago. This year, the synod awarded its first scholarship to Linda Webster, who is pursuing an M.Div at Luther Seminary.

In addition, the Synod is taking advantage of the Challenge matching gift program through continued gifts to the scholarship fund. At its assembly this summer, the Synod honored Patsy Gottschalk for her leadership in synod and churchwide positions through an offering that contributed $13,000 to the synod’s scholarship fund. Gottschalk is a committed champion of the synodical scholarship fund and was instrumental in its beginnings.

North Carolina Synod

In celebration of its 200^th anniversary, the North Carolina Synod is hosting a year-long celebration with four major components: a written history; a traveling replica of a historic silver communion set to be shared among congregations of the synod; a celebratory service this November with Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson and the ELCA Church Council; and a gift to the larger church with a goal of $1,000 for every year of the synod’s existence.

Virginia Stackel, who chairs the celebration committee, said the committee strongly felt that the gift should be for ministries beyond the synod—“we want to stretch out to ministries beyond us,” she said. With that goal in mind, the synod will give a gift to ELCA World Hunger, the evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and the Fund for Leaders in Mission.

Members of the committee quickly came to consensus about giving to the preparation of future leaders, says Stackel. “We wanted to encourage them in every way to make ministry their life’s work and to do away with barriers that would stand in their way or present a heavy burden as they enter their first calls,” she said. “We all felt that by giving to the Fund for Leaders in Mission we are giving to the future.”

Grand Canyon Synod

To meet the increasing needs of the Spanish-speaking population, the Grand Canyon Synod has created a named scholarship endowment within the Fund for Leaders in Mission. Income from the endowed fund will provide a scholarship that benefits a Spanish-speaking seminary student, with first preference given to those within the Grand Canyon Synod. With the impetus coming from the Santa Cruz and Sunrise Conferences, the endowed scholarship is focused on empowering young Spanish-speaking people for ministry. “The Fund for Leaders in Mission is invested in growing and calling forth leaders and we wanted to help plant seeds for that initiative here in this synod,” says Dale Moe, pastor of Lord of Grace Lutheran Church in Sun City West and conference dean.

The synod is also focusing on ways to help congregations encourage youth to consider a call to public ministry. “Encouraging our youth to identify their gifts and consider public ministry is a voice that’s become a dim whisper and we need to reclaim that voice,” Moe said.

Gifts added to the endowed scholarship during the Thrivent Foundation Challenge to the Fund for Leaders in Mission are eligible to receive the $1 for $2 match and will maximize the Synod’s ability to reach its goal of encouraging more Spanish-speaking men and women to follow their call.

Oregon Synod

The Oregon Allert Fund for Leaders in Mission is named to honor the late Pastor Allert, whose passion was helping faithful and promising men and women respond to the call in public ministry.

The scholarship was established to aid those who are attending ELCA seminaries with the intent of entering full-time ministry in the ELCA, says Patricia Larsen, ELCA Regional Gift Planner. Many first call pastors in the synod are burdened with in excess of $40,000 in debt and in many cases that indebtedness directly affects the ability of the synod to place first-call pastors where they are needed most.

The Allert family gave the initial gift in hopes that Bill’s legacy of helping people to respond to their call would continue, says Larsen. The Allert Fund is now the focus of a synodical campaign with a goal of $500,000 for the scholarship fund as one way of encouraging young people to enter ministry and to serve how and where God calls them.

Participate in the Challenge

All of these congregation and synod initiatives will be matched by the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation. You too can participate in the Thrivent Challenge to help the ELCA raise up a new generation of leaders.

Your synod and congregation can participate in the Thrivent Challenge. To learn more about supporting the Fund for Leaders in Mission by having your gift matched through the Thrivent Challenge contact: Fund for Leaders in Mission; 8765 W. Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631-4179. www.elca.org/fo

Leaving a Legacy for Ministry…Finding Creative ways to say “thanks.”

Matthew 25:40…I tell you, whenever you have done this for one of your brothers or sisters you have done it for me.

How do you say thank you for the miracle of God’s love at work in your life? For retired Pastor Lester Karschner, you say thanks by giving of yourself to others.

Life as a parish pastor offered many opportunities to give, and now in retirement, Pastor Karschner uses his hobby of caning chairs as a creative way to continue supporting those ministries that have been so important to him and his late wife Betty, to whom he was married for 60 years. Any income from caning furniture, his salary from a position as visitation pastor at St. Matthew Church in Hanover and income from supply preaching go to support the Karschner’s endowed scholarship fund within the ELCA Foundation. The scholarship fund supports students at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and Susquehanna University, which Pastor Karschner attended.

The scholarship fund is another expression of Pastor Karschner’s gratitude for those who helped him through seminary. When he graduated from high school in 1932, the country was deep into the Great Depression. There was no money for college and Pastor Karschner says “I was amazed when our pastor began to talk with me about the ministry. It seemed so out of reach that I thought it foolhardy to consider it.”

But Pastor Harold Doebler took him to Susquehanna University and introduced him to the president, the dean and others who began to arrange for financial assistance. “Pastor Doebler took me, with just one suitcase, for the opening of school. The school had granted me scholarships and working grants and finally the opportunity to borrow some funds.”

Pastor Karschner’s gratitude increased when, just after starting at the university, a doctor insisted he go for tests of his lungs. His older brother recently died of tuberculosis and the doctor found a spot on Lester’s lung that needed watching. The doctor checked him frequently at first and then at more extended intervals for several years; he never charged Lester anything for the care.

The financial burden eased as time went on and life began to look brighter. Lester met Betty when she was a student at Bucknell during their sophomore year and they decided to marry when Lester received his first call to Newry Parish in Blair County, four small town churches. Betty gave up her job as a teacher at a prestigious all girls’ school and the couple began a life of parish ministry that spanned 37 years in which parishes grew and flourished under the Karschner’s care and leadership.

“I consider myself a miracle,” Pastor Karschner says. “The amount of encouragement and help necessary to get me to be a pastor was just amazing. And ever since then, what God has been able to get done through me is just overwhelming. I felt we had to find a way to say ‘thanks.’” Over the years, he and Betty supported World Hunger, Vision for Mission, Domestic Disaster Relief and social service ministries in Pennsylvania. In addition, they established the Karschner endowed scholarship fund, which has been joined by the scholarship fund that son Richard and his wife Grace, both graduates of Susquehanna, established for their alma mater.

Retired now for 26 years, Pastor Karschner canes chairs and teaches courses in caning among a number of activities. “It gives me great satisfaction when people bring to me precious heirloom furniture that has been stored away somewhere waiting to be restored. I often use it as a parable of how God touches our lives—restores, rejuvenates, enhances these lives of ours. I haven’t yet come to the place where I feel just saying or writing ‘thanks’ is enough for what God has done in and through me.”

The Third Chair…A Different Kind of Christmas Gift

How do three couples and monthly outings to dinner or the theatre add up to gifts for ministry? Keith and Ann Nelson, Ray and Lola Thiel, and Vic and Ardi Schoonover have been meeting monthly for dinner or an outing for many years. At Christmas, the couples typically exchanged gifts. But last year, they decided they were giving gifts none of them really needed, and Vic suggested they give in a different way—a charitable way.

Now, though what they call “the Third Ticket” or “the Third Chair,” each couple places the cost of a third ticket to the show or play or the cost of a third dinner in a jar each keeps at home. “If we go out to dinner and the cost is $20 per person, each couple puts $20 in their jar at home,” says Vic. “If we go to a play and the ticket price is $30 or $40, each couple puts that amount in the jar. We buy a third dinner or a third ticket wherever we go.”

“We understand that while we’re enjoying a meal or an outing together, there are so many people in the world who are in need,” Vic says. “In a way, by doing this, it’s as if we’re taking them along with us, reminding ourselves of our unseen brothers and sisters around the world.” While the charitable outcome was the impetus for the “Third Chair” idea, participating in the initiative throughout the year provides an opportunity for reflection about the unseen recipients of the empty chair.

Contributing to the jar also “makes you think,” Vic says. “If the cost of the theatre ticket is $30 or $50, you do stop and consider whether it’s something you really want to see. Of course we do go, and we put the money in the jar and don’t really miss it.”

In addition, the jar sits in a prominent spot in the middle of the Schoonover’s dining room table with a label that says “Third Ticket.” “When people visit our home, they ask us what the jar is about and we have the opportunity to tell them about it and the ministries that are important to us.”

At the end of the year, they bring the jars, along with ideas about what ministries to support, to their Christmas celebration. They count the money and jointly decide what ministries will receive their gift. Last year, the couples’ “Third Chair” initiative provided $3,000 and they used the money to support the digging of a partial well in Africa, a Native American organization in there area, and the ELCA Special Needs Retirement Fund.

“It was the best Christmas gathering the six of us have ever had,” says Vic. The couples took their jars back home and have been collecting money again this year. As they meet for Christmas this year, the couples look forward to once again being able to give to others out of their own friendship.

Giving Through Stock

Do you or members of your congregation have stocks or other appreciated securities that have grown in value? Are you looking for ways to remember ministries of the church with a charitable gift…and receive tax benefits?

Consider a gift of stock, mutual funds or other securities. Through this type of gift, you can give more to ministries of the church than you originally invested and take a deduction for the current market value on the date of the gift.

To take a deduction for gifts of securities at their current value, you must have owned them for at least one year and a day. Such gifts are deductible up to 30 percent of your adjusted gross income in the year of the gift.

The ELCA Foundation can assist with gifts of stock for all ministries of the church. You can transfer securities into an ELCA account and we will distribute to ministries you name. So, in one transfer you can make gifts to your local congregation, your synod, and churchwide ministries such as World Hunger Appeal and the Fund for Leaders in Mission.

For more information on how you can give stock for the benefit of ELCA ministries, contact the ELCA Foundation at 800/638-3522, ext. 2970, or e-mail email.

End of Legacies November, 2003  issue