Inevitable Discovery

Since the leadership of the LCMS is sticking to their only modified twice story, it is my thought that we should all accept the explanation that Issues, Etc. was cancelled for business/stewardship/low support reasons. I think this might be a good thing.

Allow me to explain; for years now, in my capacity as a member of the leadership of my congregation, I have asked of district officials numerous times “you keep asking for more money from us, will you please tell my congregation where the money we currently send you is going and how’s it getting spent?”

The last time I made that request I received this reply:

The goal for District is a total of $6M which gets broken down using the Biblical model:
1 15% Jerusalem ($1M) for Circuit allocation
2. 15% Judea & 20% Samaria ($2M) for District allocation
3. 50% Ends of the World ($3M)

5% of the monies gathered are used for fund raising expenses.


When asked to give particulars, on how and where specifically the monies are going, the reply was “that information is not available.” The second and third attempts at seeing where our congregation’s money might end up were completely ignored. Apparently, they’ll take our checks but not our questions.

This brings me back to the title of this post, inevitable discovery. According to Lawyers.com the definition for inevitable discovery is as follows:

Definition - Noun:

a doctrine in criminal law: evidence obtained by methods that are unconstitutional may be admissible if it would have been inevitably discovered without the unlawful methods

If the leadership of the LCMS, wants to say that Issues, Etc. was a financial burden or was not making enough money as a profit center we should believe them. Then we need request that our beloved synod perform a comprehensive audit and find out the whys and hows so as that such a tragedy never happens again. If that is the door they wish to open, it is my contention that we help them get to the bottom of the problem by knocking that particular door down.

We already know there are very problematic explanations on the situation that bear scrutiny. For crying out loud, even my own congregation undergoes an audit every few years. Not that we don’t have complete faith in our treasurer but rather as a matter of a good business/stewardship practice we validate his abilities and thereby ensure trust in the congregation.

I certainly don’t think that every little grievance could or should be solved by audits. All I am saying is that for an outreach such as Issues, Etc. to canceled, there must have been some serious problems with both with the finances and the management. A complete audit might just be needed and inevitable for any discovery on why Issues, Etc. really had to be canceled.

Isn’t that just good stewardship?