Mission Support Request for 2025
Synod Council, at its 13 September 2024 meeting, adopted
the following,
To renew the Mission Support Formula for CY2024 as
the Mission Support Formula for CY2025: That the
congregations not yet remitting as mission support
10.75% of their total unrestricted congregational
giving (offering) be asked to increase their mission
support 10.75%, while asking congregations that are at
or exceeding this level to not decrease the greater of
their proportional share or nominal contribution.
This represents no change in the formula.
Unrestricted congregational giving (offering) is
giving by congregants and other attendees that is not
otherwise restricted by the donor. It does not include
special offerings and gifts, bequests, designated giving,
etc.
The Mission
Support Request Letter for 2025 is downloadable in
pdf. It includes the pledge form.
For a discussion of the recent mission support rate history, scroll
down.
Making your Remittance
When remitting mission support, please include a
completed copy of this downloadable Mission Support
Remittance Form (PDF | MS-Word) with each
remittance.
Making Your Commitment
The Mission Support Commitment (Pledge) Form for 2025 (PDF | MS-Word) is available for
download.
Please also download the Mission Support Request Letter (PDF)
as it contains important information on the proportional
share figure.
History of Mission Support in
WV-WMD
For 2024
Synod Council, at its 19 August meeting, after debate and
a failed amendment, adopted the following,
That the congregations not yet remitting as mission
support 10.75% of their total unrestricted
congregational giving (offering) be asked to increase
their mission support 10.75%, while asking congregations
that are at or exceeding this level to not decrease the
greater of their proportional share or nominal
contribution.
The 10.75% rate for 2024 was an increase from the 10% rate
for 2023. It was, however, well below the 13% rate for both
2016 and 2017 and the 15% rate of the 2000s.
For 2023
Synod Council, at its 6 August 2022 meeting, adopted the
mission support request for 2023 as follows:
Council approved the amended motion that the
Synod Council ask congregations that are not yet giving
10% of their total unrestricted congregational giving to
the Synod to increase their giving to this level, while
asking congregations that are at or exceeding this level
to not decrease the greater of their proportional share or
nominal contribution.
For 2022
For 2022, mission support was set at 9.39%, the same
level as was set for 2021.
For 2021
When mission support was set at 9.39% for 2021, it
represented a decrease from 10.83% level set for 2020. The
Synod Finance Committee, in its report to Synod Council at
that time, explained its rationale for the decrease:
This is the number, and the wording, the Finance
Committee agreed to after reviewing different methods of
projecting future total congregational giving. This is a
decrease from our request last year, but not because total
congregational giving is going up, but because our
spending is projected to go down.
For 2020
Mission support was set at 10.83%.
For 2019
Mission support was set at 11.5%.
For 2018
Mission support was set at 11.05%.
For 2017
Mission support was set at 13%.
For 2016
For 2016, the following was asked in mission support:
If congregational mission support is currently at 13%
of unrestricted giving line 20.a of your parochial
report, please increase your mission support by 2.5% of
your projected total mission support for calendar year
2016.
If your mission support is currently less than 13% of
unrestricted giving, please increase your mission
support by .5% of total projected unrestricted giving
for 2016. Furthermore, congregations remitting at less
than 13% of total unrestricted giving are asked, if at
all possible, to work toward the 13% target.
Going back a long way
When the synod first formed (1987/8), Bishop Black was
asked by congregations what they should remit in mission
support. At the time, he said that congregations should
remit what they had remitted to their LCA synod or ALC
district before the merger. For more than the first decade
of the synod's life, each year congregations were asked to
increase what they had given in nominal dollars by 1% with
a challenge of 2%. Basing mission support on nominal
dollars with increases as instructed did not keep pace
with inflation. Furthermore, the ALC and the LCA had very
different ways of doing mission support. In the LCA, a
unified model similar to the ELCA was used. To explain,
giving was remitted by the congregation to the synod; from
those receipts, funds were remitted to the national
church. In the ALC separate checks were cut by the
congregation, one to the district, another to the national
church. Beyond this, the ALC tended to fund its
institutional ministries (seminaries, colleges, campus
ministries, etc.) through appeals and special
collections. The LCA largely funded these ministries from
mission support receipts. By not taking into account the
differences between the two predecessor bodies, a
significant difference in remittances emerged immediately.
By the late '90s, the mean giving was around 8% of
unrestricted giving to congregations, but there were two
very clear clusters and a significant standard deviation.
At the end of the '90s, the synod transitioned to a
proportional share basis, the basis upon which ELCA mission
support is supposed to function by design. Instead of a
nominal dollar value being remitted, congregations were
asked to remit a percentage of revenue from unrestricted
regular giving. The percentage was set at 15% advancing on
25%, the same precentages required by ELCA policy at the
time for mission congregations to come off of mission
support and be recognized as standard congregations. As
expected, very few were at 15%, some few were above, but
many were within striking distance. A significant number
were well below, having mission support levels well below
the synod mean. Those that felt they could not increase to
15% immediately were asked to incrementally work toward that
number over the years.
By the time of the Great Recession, mean mission support had
exceeded 13%. In response to the Great Recession, the synod
abandoned the 15% target and the encouraged advancement to
25%. Mission support levels were reduced and fluctuated in
the years following the Great Recession.
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West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod, ℅
St. Paul Lutheran Church, 309 Baldwin Stee, Morgantown, WV
26505
304-363-4030 + Porter@WV-WMD.org
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