Was Our Staff Infection There?

Willow Creek Community Church said, Experience the Contagious Church:

Staff Infection Leads to Contagion.

This raging infection is at least seven years old. Has anyone contacted the Center for Disease Control?

Swim in the Polluted Waters of Willow Creek

Pay to become contagious! Here's how:

Buy a Gift Copy for Larry Oh! and Pastor Jeff

Did Pastor Jeff buy this or was it bought with synodical offering money?

This Gunn for Hire.

Relax, o partisans of contagion. Pastor Jeff knows that this revolution will face determined opposition, not to mention puns and some laughter. He wrote about his pioneering efforts in Forward in Contagion, FIC.

They have a training team? Is Jay Leno writing this stuff?

Why Are These People Grinning?

Members and pastors: Do you see how the WELS leaders are thumbing their noses at you? More than that, they are pushing their thumbs into your eye sockets. Church Growth did not die a natural death when Pilgrim Community Church (Paul Kuske) deflated, when Crossroads Community Church (Rick Miller, Mark Freier, Kelly Voigt) turned honestly non-Lutheran. The Long March through the synod continues.

Area High Schools versus Prep Schools

Ichabod is being read in all the synods, so I am getting questions. Today I was asked about the difference between a prep school and an area Lutheran high school.

I think WELS made a big mistake in its failure to make a number of area high schools into prep schools. That would have provided a more unified system and a way of short-circuiting the us vs. them funding that will arise when an area school must be financially supported by individuals and congregations. For example, when WELS stupidly bought the failed Prairie du Chien school from the Roman Catholics, they moved the New Ulm prep school away from a dense population of members to an area where the WELS membership was not so dense. The first thing the New Ulm area did was create an area Lutheran high school, taking away the most likely students who would have attended Prairie. Besides, there is an aversion to having high school children so far from home. Prairie was merged into Northwestern Prep to become Luther Prep, but Prairie built a $500,000 music building during the shut-down. Pure genius.

One question involved the cost per student of a prep school education (synod subsidy). My brothers are CPAs, but that gene bounced right past me. I would have to look over all the reports, assume they are accure, and interpret them. That is not my forte, but more like my pianissimo.

I can talk about a prep school education since our son went to Michigan Lutheran Seminary.

Missouri once had a prep school system. Long ago, the Lutheran leaders knew that a proper college and seminary education would require a good high school. The European model provided students with a balance of all the disciplines with an emphasis on languages. Children learn languages easily and adults seldom have the time, energy, or inclination to learn them later. WELS and Missouri had similar schools but Missouri closed them down in the name of saving money and spending it on missions. Sound familiar? That is the argument in WELS today. Parts of the LCA had prep schools. My college, Augustana (sic), had a prep school.

As I understand it, Missouri started at the sixth grade. They would take a little boy off the farm and turn him into a Latin and Greek scholar. In Walther's day, all dogmatics lectures at St. Louis were delivered in Latin, with the questions and answers in Latin. That was really necessary because the good doctrinal books were in Latin. Much of Luther was still in Latin. And doctrinal discussions always used Latin terms. If the faculty is trained at Fuller, all one needs to do is wave arms in the air and pray, "Balla-llaala-sissa-bommba-achi-wawa."

A modern prep school means that a boy in the 9th grade will enter college with ability in German and Latin, able to start Greek and Hebrew. The college will do the Greek and Hebrew work so the young man can start seminary and follow Lenski and the other good commentaries, instead of reading Calvin and Handfuls on Purpose.

The LCA liberals argued against the value of Greek and Hebrew. They could not see the value of those ancient languages. As a result, the pastors are universally ignorant.

According to my reader, Martin Luther College faculty members could not tell the difference between area Lutheran high graduates and prep graduates. They soon will. Most of the MLC students come from prep schools. Once the preps are gone, MLC will become the Nursing Home on the Hill, next to the statue of Herman the German. "Used to be a college, I hear tell." MLC bought a nursing home to create an instant dorm. God has a way of recycling property.

Area high schools vary in their faculties and size. I have never visited one and have nothing against them. Their local nature makes them vulnerable to student population problems, finances, and quality of faculty. Teaching at a prep is an honor. Michigan Lutheran Seminary had an outstanding faculty when our son was there. The school had a great spirit. Dorms for young men and women meant that distant families could have their children stay there. We could not get our son home on weekends at first, when we lived only 25 miles away. He enjoyed MLS that much.

An education begins with the parents. I tutored Martin in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He helped upper classmen with their Latin, got passed out of intro Latin, and later aced the German test (his mother's contribution). Being good in languages was a plus at MLS, not an object of scorn. The school provided an atmosphere of learning. Math was tough. Science was challenging. Piano was required! The school constantly encouraged church vocations. No one was obliged to sign on for a hitch, but they were encouraged to consider it. Area Lutheran high schools, for some reason, do not have that motivating force.

Many Missouri and WELS pastors will say that they entered the ministry as a direct result of their prep school experience. At MLS pastors were respected and their work was considered the highest possible calling. Young women headed far away to Martin Luther College because they wanted to teach in parochial schools when a local state school was easier to attend and promised more opportunity. Not surprisingly, prep schools also promoted marriage and a distinct possibility of very bright but near-sighted kids in the parsonage.

I enjoyed going to MLS with my wife. The atmosphere was great. The school had a wonderful spirit. Dinners meant that all the parents wore red sweaters, since they were Cardinals. The choirs would show off their great talent in music, each group separated by levels of ability. Our son was in the group nicknamed The Bonehead Chorus for their lack of singing ability. Nevertheless, we always got goose-flesh when the choir walked in singing, "God Word in Our Great Heritage" in perfect harmony, a cappella.

The MLS campus was very impressive at the time. The preps got money so that everything was attractive and well maintained. Tuition was a bite out of our tiny budget but not impossible. Another prep school concept is that no one is sent away for lack of funds. Some impoverished students are very bright. The Pieper boys were the sons of a poor widow who had a housekeeper's job at Northwestern College.

I see the prep system as a natural outgrowth of the value placed on the efficacy of the Word in the old days. WELS and Missouri were dirt poor in previous years but rich in their Lutheran heritage. MLS was once called the Plywood Palace because of its lack of funds. Now WELS and Missouri are incredibly rich in funds (really - more on that later) but impoverished in doctrine.

I am not in favor of prep schools as institutions. People worship every brick in some buildings because of their sentimental value. They often become white-washed sepulchres full of dead men's bones, like the soaring quasi-gothic structures of the Episcopal Church. If WELS faces its doctrinal problems and begins with a multi-year study of the Book of Concord, the money and school situation will straighten itself out. The Michiganders need to fight for doctrine rather than the school.

Northwestern College made the same mistake with a feeble effort to save the school. The faculty did not have the spine to make a doctrinal argument. They weakly argued that keeping two colleges was cheaper. That was like telling a murderer that bullets cost money. Church Growth was out to snuff NWC and everyone knew it. Silence was golden and NWC merged into DMLC to become MLC. (Another Northwestern name silenced.)

The first thing the new college did was water down the curriculum of the pre-seminary students by having one track for all students, whether future teachers or future pastors. And for once, the future pastors were taught by women. No wonder they are so sensitive about which coffee beans are used in their Church Growth cafes!

How To Be Contagious - Like Fuller Seminary

After flopping with Pilgrim Community Church in Columbus (sponsored by Paul Kuske) and Crossroads Community Church in South Lyon (three WELS pastors - Rick Miller, Mark Freier, Kelly Voigt - supported by DP Mueller), WELS has once again proven that its learning curve is flat.

WELS has blessed Phoenix with CrossWalk (get it? Cross Walk). I do not think they ever call it CrossWalk Lutheran Church. I looked up their website and had serious trouble finding what denomination it was. More on that slop later.

Phoenix already has a huge Church Growth Stealth Lutheran Congregation - Community of Joy, ELCA. Thousands of members. The senior pastor has a D.Min from Fuller, just like Lawrence Otto Olson, nicknamed Larry O! and Our Staff Infection. He has been contagious for years.

Back to this whole issue of being contagious. I read Jeff's column in FIC. Some of you public school graduates are wondering, "What is FIC?" The magazine used to be The Northwestern Lutheran, a fine name with a decided handicap - the name Lutheran. Boo hiss. How can we grow with Lutheran in our magazine title? And Northwestern? The reality is - half of WELS is in Wisconsin, the old Northwestern Territory, more or less. The other half of WELS is in Michigan and Minnesota, with pockets in Nebraska, which has the population of Rhode Island. WELS is no more a national denomination than is the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Now that I have explained FIC, it seems entirely appropriate that a magazine ashamed of being Lutheran would feature a congregation ashamed of being Lutheran. That is one definition of contagious.

As soon as I saw Jeff's article in the June issue of FIC, I thought, "This smells like the latest craze at Fuller Seminary." That beehive is so predictable that I can ignore the place for 10 years and still have my Dreck-Detector (TM) go off. I googled "contagious Fuller Seminary" and got this link:

I Think I Am Going To Be Sick!

Good old Bill Hybels, WELS' favorite theologian and pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, is selling a kit on how to be contagious. They sell the kit at the Fuller Seminary bookstore, a sure sign of approval. The WELS leaders send their sheep-like shepherds to Willow Creek to be trained in being non-denominational.

So Jeff is contagious and has a contagious church. His article will amaze anyone interested in exploring the vanity of Church Growth wannabees. His authority is a book on Primal Leadership, Yale School of Management. Some emotions are contagious, he declares with authority.

Jeff, if I stand in front of an audience and begin throwing up, some people will gag and toss their cookies. If I laugh, they will laugh. If I repent of my criticism of Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek, dabbing my red-rimmed eyes, some women will start crying and say, "I think he means it, poor boy." I did not have to go to Yale University to learn that much.

Primal Church Growth Tactics

Why do these people love everything except the Word of God? Why do they trust every secular fad but reject the Means of Grace?

Now I will explain why I call a pastor Jeff and do not even use his last name. That takes us to the latest Church Growth experiment, CrossWalk. You must have a strong stomach to view their website:

WELS Double Cross.

Jeff is the pastor there. If we look up "Jeff's Weekly Hello," we find out he has a last name, Gunn, a wife, and five children whose names all begin with "A." But there is no indication of his denomination. The message about Virginia Tech is Reformed in nature, quoting the favorite bad translation of the unionists, the NIV. People are invited to church Sunday for "a great message" (no sermon?) and "terrific music from Jonathan" (no worship?). There are many commands to pray, which the Reformed love. Prayer is their one and only Means of Grace.

CrossWalk is going to have a vision event (another Fuller and corporate management tool) to envision the next 15 years. Most of us do not know what our cell phone carrier will be in the next six months, but these vision things are handy ways to manipulate while seeming to listen. "Fritz, you want to return to the historic liturgy and the Book of Concord? Does anyone have an idea that won't scare away our prospects? Yes, Velvet, how is that dance job working out? Great. You want to teaching dancing at CrossWalk? What a vision!"

The statement above is satire, purely for the amusement of our pan-Lutheran readership.

In reality, the website is another sad, sick manifestation of the Fuller plague.

KJV 2 Timothy 2:17 And their word will eat as doth a canker (transliteration - gangrene, also translated as cancer).

I once visited a woman with gangrene. She was very close to losing her leg. She was so contagious that I had to visit her wearing a gown and a mask.

Look at how contagious Fuller and Willow Creek have been. The WELS magazine ejected Lutheran from its title. The hymnal does not have Lutheran in its name. Hymns in CW are often the old Baptist warblers that TLH never allowed. Doctrinal verses have been cut out of Lutheran hymns. Feminists have reworded the Creeds. Sheep-like shepherds are told to appear as Reformed as possible to embrace the vast hordes trembling to join WELS as soon as Luther's doctrine is neutered. What a disgrace to Christianity.

Wednesday - Why Men Hate Going to Church. (My answer - Because sensitive Church Growth fanatics have sissified church with pandering messages and VBS ditties passed off as hymns.)

Hiking Group - I cannot imagine Christ dying on the cross to set up hiking groups.

Guitar workshop - Ditto.

Online giving - "God has a claim on you!" Rubric: "We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and Amex."

And you thought I was being cruel about the vision workshop? Reality is far more piercing than anything I could make up.

Food - "Join us early and bring an appetite! Our CrossWalk Cafe serves bagels, donuts, fruit and our own special blend of coffee (we use only "fair-trade" coffee beans!) or fresh juice. The CrossWalk Café opens at 8:30 a.m. on Sundays. We'd love to get to know you!" (I am glad they are sensitive about fair-trade coffee.)

Common Questions - "We're friendly! We strive to create a warm, friendly environment for you. We won't surprise you by asking you to stand up or stick out in any way. We also won't ask you to give us any money. We want you to be able to check us out without feeling singled out. No pressure!

We're relevant! Our messages are meant to apply to your everyday life. They're practical and filled with comfort. We believe that everyone needs to know what God expects of us, and what God offers us in his love. If you come to CrossWalk, you'll hear just what God has to say about this - straight from his Word, the Bible! With our upbeat music and our fun and creative worship, you'll go home encouraged and equipped each week!"

Willow Creek pioneered "We won't ask you for money." But the website asks for online giving. Hmm.

I finally found a definite affiliation with WELS on the Common Questions page. The cafe is mentioned on TWO pages and affiliation on only one.

This contagious leadership and contagious church baloney are supposed to be new and revolutionary, but this is the same old Dreck served up 20 years ago and failing everywhere. C. Peter Wagner, the Pentecostal Baptist, admitted that Church Growth principles do not work.

The Yale School of Management will not help. Perhaps this might:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither,
but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace:
the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isaiah 55:8-12