by Jim Shields
For more than 20 years, Christ the King Church has led the synod in per capita and total giving to the World Hunger Appeal of the ELCA. We are also in the top 50 of all ELCA congregations and if you discount the fact that some churches send all benevolence to the World Hunger Appeal instead of the synod because they are angry at something the ELCA has or has not done, then we would probably rank even higher on a national scale.
For many years I spoke to churches in our synod about the Appeal and how the money is spent. It's really quite simple but the alphabet soup of the agencies involved makes it seem complicated. What follows is a short primer on this jumble of letters.
ELCA Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The largest body of Lutheran churches in our country with some 5 million members. We belong to the ELCA.
LC-MS Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The second largest body of Lutherans in the U.S. with about 2 million members.
LWR Lutheran World Relief Headquartered in Baltimore, MD.
LWF Lutheran World Federation - Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson is the president. 136 member churches in 76 countries representing 62 of the 65 million Lutherans worldwide. Lutherans are the world's largest protestant denomination.
WCC World Council of Churches - Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. A fellowship of 342 churches in 120 countries. The LWF is located in the same complex as the WCC in Geneva and is a member of the WCC.
More than 60% of your world hunger money goes to LWR and LWF. A major reason LWR exists is that the LC-MS does not like the LWF or the WCC and refuses to belong to either body. Both the LWR and the LWF were formed after WWII and each has a great reputation for fighting world hunger. The LWR is the most significant agency in which the ELCA and the LC-MS cooperate. Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services (LIRS), Lutheran Disaster Relief (LDR), Lutheran Services in America (LSA) are three others. We used to cooperate in campus ministry with the LC-MS. When the ELCA chose to ordain women, that union dissolved because the LC-MS will not allow women to vote in church matters let alone be pastors.
The LWR and the LWF decide independently how to spend your money and both are part of a larger network of NGO's (non governmental organizations) who do development and relief work. Over the years, these NGO's have built strong alliances so they work in concert to maximize efficiency. For example, LWR has a reputation of getting aid to victims isolated by dangerous governments. When that need arises, LWR is asked to meet it. Church World Services (CWS) may have a special expertise in water drilling projects in a certain region so the LWF would cooperate with CWS and provide irrigation projects to complement the drilling.
The list of NGO's is large and like all lists, some agencies are better than others. When I have been asked about a certain project like the Heiffer Project I would explain that while most projects are worthy and the Heiffer Project is certainly a great project the church related agencies like LWR/LWF, CWS (Crop Walk), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the Mennonites, the Quakers, and so forth are in no danger of receiving too much money and they depend on their churches for support.
So just as it would not be appropriate for LWR or LWF to raise money in a catholic church, I always recommend to church folks that they focus their world hunger money to their larger church body and trust that their own church leaders make the right decisions on how to spend it.
As I said above, more than 60% of World Hunger Appeal money goes overseas and is spent by LWR and LWF. Another 13% goes to other international agencies like Church World Services. The remaining goes to U.S. disaster relief, education, and advocacy through our own ELCA lobbying office in Washington, and also through Bread for the World.
Finally, the ELCA World Hunger Appeal "prides itself" on very low administration expenses. I have always questioned the wisdom of this strategy. Sure it makes us feel good to have low overhead but we now raise about $18 million a year with about 7% admin expense. What if we could spend 14% on admin (fundraising) and raise $40 million. Wouldn't that be better? Just a question.