An Appeal for Improved Governance & Financial Transparency Across the LCMS
An informal and brief survey reflects poorly on the Synod.
Governance and financial transparency are very uneven across the LCMS, and it is urgent to bring the auxiliaries, seminaries, and partners to a standardized, high-quality level of disclosure. Then the Districts must be addressed, followed by all RSOs.
The survey results below are based on a simple exercise attempting to obtain basic information and reports:
Is the information available from the organization's primary website?
Is the information easily accessible from a dedicated menu or page?
Is the information available via searching the website?
Is prior year or period information available in depth and easily accessible?
Is the information well presented and consistent from year to year and/or period to period?
Exceptional governance and financial transparency are non-negotiable for church bodies and their various entities. Money is solicited in God's name for Word and Sacrament Ministry, and acts of mercy in this world. Consequently, all the people contributing mites or millions to the effort deserve to know, in detail, how their offerings are stewarded.
Shockingly, some LCMS entities score zero for disclosure. In some cases, the information is available in printed form on request, but there is no good reason for essential stewardship information not to be made available online - it is 2025. The age of secrecy and backroom dealing must end if the Synod is to turn the corner on its overlapping crises.
At the same time, we must recognize the material difference between organizations like Concordia Historical Institute (CHI) and Concordia Publishing House (CPH).
CHI has a tiny annual budget of $977,000, while CPH, a functional monopoly that has profited handsomely off LCMS members and parishioners, has a budget of $33 million for 2025.1 CHI has unrestricted net assets of just $2.6 million, CPH has $86.5 million, of which an estimated ~$55 million is parked in cash and investments.2 There are a lot of questions for CPH’s board about a non-profit monopoly publisher needing “reserves” of that magnitude. Still, the questions are speculative without regular, detailed financial reports being made public. Indeed, without those, elections of directors to the Board cannot be fully informed.
CPH is not the only culprit. Lutheran Church Extension Fund (LCEF) runs a slightly less secret shop despite a $98 million budget and $220 million in unrestricted net assets. At least you can get some snippets about LCEF’s activities via the Reporter.
CHI should not be more transparent than the Synodical publishing enterprise, making critical decisions involving doctrine and practice daily. Likewise, LCEF, a lender at interest3, should not be so invisible.
The Synod President, senior executives, and chairmen of the respective boards are responsible for mandated, consistent, and standardized transparency. Please bring all governance and financial reporting into the light this year.
The Yoke of Financial Transparency is Light
America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, offers several parables about financial disclosure to all church bodies. Its flagship institution, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, accumulated a $140.1 million operating deficit from 2002 to 2022. Reduced to the level of a street junk…
If any survey data is incorrect, please let us know immediately so we can correct it. The data was retested as of June 17, 2025.
Use your mouse to scroll to the right of the table, or see a full-screen version here.
☩TW☩
Note: Tim is a CSL regent.
For FY 2012, CPH reported $50 million in net assets, of which almost $40 million was cash and investments. The 2012 Form 990 filing appears to have been accidental, having never been repeated, but it is the gold standard for public disclosure by non-profit corporations.
Yikes that is bad in terms of transparency. Thanks for the info!
For LWML, even within the districts, some are better at having their information and governance documents online than others. Collectively, we can do better.