Simple Reasons for the LCMS to Immediately and Permanently Terminate an RSO

Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains attends a homosexual festival and fails an audit. Why is it still an LCMS RSO in good standing?

A user on X has brought attention to Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains (legal name Lutheran Social Service of Colorado), promoting child foster care at a June 2025 sexual deviancy carnival in Greeley, CO. LFS RM is an LCMS RSO in good standing. It has also received some sizeable donations over the years from LCMS churches in the region.

The homosexual bacchanal was recent, but in March this year, LFS RM filed its annual tax return for the fiscal year ending June 2024, and it’s not good. The filing reveals that an audit found LFS RM guilty of “material noncompliance for failure to follow requirements established by law, regulations, contract or grant agreements.”

It’s not a trivial issue given the LFS RM’s revenue last year was $35,531,815. Its revenue and expenses have exploded in recent years, matched with the waves of illegal aliens dumped in Denver since 2021 and coddled with all manner of primarily taxpayer welfare pipelined through NGOs like LFS RM.

Extract from the Audit Report by Rubin Brown LLP

Page 6

A material weakness in internal control over compliance is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over compliance, such that there is a reasonable possibility that material noncompliance with a type of compliance requirement of a federal program will not be prevented, or detected and corrected, on a timely basis. We consider the deficiency in internal control over compliance described in the accompanying schedule of findings and questioned costs as item 2024-001 to be a material weakness.

In short, LFS RM paid money it received from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS, since accurately rebranded to “Global Refuge”) to ineligible vendors. The auditors say nothing about how the money will or must be recovered; they only say that future grants are at risk. LFS RM does not offer any apology or promise to recover the money it spent incorrectly, only to say it will do better next time.

For fiscal year 2023, the same individual responsible for the 2024 mess received another adverse audit finding:

Various schedules and reconciliations that were primarily prepared and approved by the same individual (Lease Accounting, Net Assets Reconciliation, Beneficial Interest Calculation and Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards) and other audit documentation was delayed, incomplete or inaccurate.

It is incomprehensible that a non-profit board would allow the same executive management to repeat a pattern of systemic deficiencies or incompetence a year later.

We have written about general governance and financial transparency in the LCMS several times, and this is another example of an inexcusable failure in a downstream area.

RSOs reflect on the LCMS, which is why the Synod claims to vet organizations to “ensure their programs are in harmony with Synod doctrine and practice.” So, LCMS doctrine and practice are aligned with promoting the placement of children into foster care with homosexuals? RSO’s receive multiple adverse audit reports and remain on the books? We trust this will not receive an antinomian speck and log treatment.

1. That’s the first permanent strike—LFS RM should have been instantaneously booted as an RSO, never to return. We yet pray for action this week.

2. In case the Synod really needs a second strike, here it is—an auditor reporting material non-compliance by an organization turning over $35 million a year despite being lavishly staffed and running a +$600,000 a year payroll for the top dogs.

3. All members of LCMS congregations that continue to donate to LFS RM after the Greeley Pride Festival revelation should be placed under the major ban, and pastors should be removed from the roster if their congregations make corporate donations.

At current count, there are 204 LCMS RSOs. Without automation based on structured digital financial reporting submitted at least annually, it is simply impossible to responsibly track that many entities. The LCMS must urgently sweep its RSOs, even if that means starting over with resubmissions. There are dozens of rotten apples in the barrel.

This is part of the urgent introspection the Synod needs to undertake to understand its possibly terminal collapse in membership and attendance. One core reason for defections and abandonment is the decades-long pretense that we have Christian partners doing Christian things. For example, search for “Jesus” on the LFS RM website; this is all you will find.

Imagine if the same resources below were expended on Rocky Mountain Lutherans rather than imported sojourners?

Addendum

A reader has alerted us to another LCMS RSO in good standing, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, promoting sexual deviancy and placing foster children at risk by offering them up to homosexuals. X user oldluth has some receipts, as did user Carol52538896.

Dear LCMS Board of Directors, these are not items to pencil into the next open slot on some future agenda. This unabashed deviancy that spits in the face of Christ comes from organizations you ultimately endorse and funnel money to as our highest governing authority. The situation must be dealt with as an emergency and handled very harshly (unlike the CU Portland Pride fiasco…). Please, no more equivocation or looking back longingly at what will be destroyed.

☩TW☩