WELS was hotter than Georgia asphalt for the newest concept in Church Growth. They would build a nice building for once, not an ugly WEF unit. They would put a team together and dump all kinds of money on the project. Money is The Means of Grace for Church Growth fanatics.
The result was Coral Gables, Florida. The project was such a fiasco that the mission disbanded and WELS sold the building to the Church of Rome. "Look at that, Fred. WELS finally built a first unit that was not a carbuncle and they sold it to the Antichrist."
They put their best WELS Church Growth pastors on the project. One of them is still in the area - Randal Cutter. He is the senior pastor of a healing ministry congregation in the area.
Randal Cutter, M.Div., Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
See the Mary Coyle posting.
I knew Cutter and liked him. Rick Miller was another one in the same class (1987) who was trained in Church Growth and left the Lutheran Church altogether. Miller started Crossroads Community Church in Detroit, still thriving, still not Lutheran.
WELS approved of Crossroads, too.
ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Coral Gables Fiasco - WELS - Update
