From Bailing Water:
Here is a post from the C&C discussion board. This WELS C&C presenter wants to be sure "effective" and "efficacious" are not confused.
Don't confuse "effective" with "efficacious". The Gospel is timelessly efficacious, the church and its representatives may or may not be effective. I pray we are all seeking better methods of delivering God's truth. The Means of Grace demand an audience.
We do want to seek to be effective as we share THE efficacious. To fail to differentiate these two will likely cause one to either fall into the liberal left ditch of "Church Growth Theology" or into the loveless right ditch of "Us Four, No More, Shut the Door" or "All I Have To Be Is Faithful" mentality. If it is not important for us to be effective communicators and ambassadors of THE efficacious in our 21st Century culture, then the Seminary needs to stop requiring homiletics and education classes (I have a hunch that's also why we switched from German to English and today translate our materials into Spanish).
The WillowCreek study was to examine how to help people better mature in their faith -- the very thing Scripture wants all of us to do. I believe we would all agree with this same need for self-examination in our own churches and church body.
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GJ - Clearly, Holy Mother Willow Creek must be defended against any criticism, so now WELS clergy are prickly about WC rather than their own sect. Here is what people say about unionists:
"They love every church except their own."
