How Cheap!

A WELS pastor worked 35 years and retired with no Social Security. His pension check is $280 a month. That is a disgrace.

Yet the drones at the Beehive, aka The Love Shack, have run through millions and millions of dollars, paid themselves huge salaries, hired their pals to join the throng, and closed schools. Will they retire on so little?

Why not make the pay and retirement fit the work? Those who applied the Word through the Means of Grace should get the most and retire with the most. Those who drink coffee all day, lost track of millions of dollars, wreck Milcraft, promote false doctrine, and close schools - they deserve nothing.

God will reward His faithful servants. As Walther wrote, you were despised on earth, but you will shine like stars in heaven.

Is Contemporary Charismatic Music Anti-Christian?

I was charged with confusing my musical tastes with Biblical standards.

I would be entirely wrong, if:
1. Worship did not reflect doctrine.
2. Worship did not influence doctrine.

KJV Deuteronomy 8:19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. 20 As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.

What do we find in the classic Reformed church building? There will be a pulpit, a minimal altar, a pool for the Baptists and Disciples of Christ. A Roman Catholic church has a minimal pulpit and a maximum altar.

Lutherans emphasize both the Word and the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

"Error loves ambiguity," as Krauth wrote, and unionists like Valleskey like to confuse people with ambiguity by saying the Reformed downplay the Means of Grace. That is how someone becomes president of WLS. No, the Reformed ridicule the Means of Grace and reject the efficacy of the Word.

Now let's look at Church Growth congregations. I have been in them. Oh yes. I write what I know. Willow Creek, where I visited the Sunday Seeker Service, has no cross at all. I walked around the building looking for one, finally found a picture of a cross in a basement Sunday School room.

Willow Creek has no organ and really no worship service on Sunday. The purpose of the Sunday gathering is to entertain. WELS leaders, slobbering at the size and glamor of Willow Creek, paid good money to have pastors study the same baloney emanating from Hybels. Therefore, WELS has instituted Seeker Services, hidden the Sacraments, and imitated - as maladroitly as possible - the entertainment side of evangelism.

The ELS has fallen for the same things, not as obviously. The LCMS and ELCA have tried all these silly methods as well. When I attended the Ad Fontes conference in Pennsylvania, one ELCA pastor got up to defend user-friendly services. I love the cute terms these people adopt.

One contagious pastor has not celebrated Holy Communion in years. Does his doctrine affect the worship at CrossWalk? Definitely.

Where does CCM come from? Not from the same doctrine as the Doxology, Old Hundreth. Some Calvinist hymns are so Biblical that they are Lutheran standards as well. CCM is from the Pentecostals first of all.

When Fuller began promoting the myth that they were converting people to Christ through marketing methods, they dumbed down everything they could pollute. Pentecostal music and non-threatening, passive Seeker Services became the norm. One Fundamentalist said, "Fuller graduates ruin every church they touch."

Church Growth leaders are pragmatic and non-theistic. Some may believe in God, but that is really irrelevant to them. They despise traditional Christianity in any form. Church Growth doctrine dictates Church Growth worship, only CG worship is the worship of man, his potential, his emotions. Leonard Sweet is the perfect Church Growth leader - that is why WELS loves him and pays him money to pollute their minds.

If a song in church is designed to make me emotional and sentimental, the song is not a hymn and does not convey worship of God. Read the lyrics of these songs as prose, with a straight face, and ask whether the same words could be read from the pulpit.

How many Reformed hymns have been written about Holy Communion? None. How many Baptist hymnals have a single hymn about Holy Baptism, especially about infant faith and the efficacy of the sacrament. None.

When the non-Lutheran Protestants speak about, preach about, and sing about the Holy Spirit, they separate the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word and Sacraments (the Visible Word). So how can a Lutheran sing -

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me,
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. (To be sung properly, FALL has to have a real thump to it, like jumping down from a dining room chair.)

The author of the song above, Daniel Iverson, is associated with the Billy Graham crusades and their hymnal. From their viewpoint, how does the Holy Spirit come to people? Not through the Word. Not through preaching - not exactly. Not ever through the Sacraments. The Holy Spirit pounces on people when and where He chooses, but more often when they dream dreams, persuade people with logic, and market the Gospel by studying and applying statistics.

Baptist worship is designed to move people to make a decision for Christ. They should get good and weepy, then come forward for a decision or rededication. I have been a Graham crusades and at his School of Evangelism in Wheaton. I have been everywhere, so listen up.

Josh McDowell (Lord, Liar, Lunatic - Kelm's favorite) is Graham on steroids and meth. If we can just throw enough facts and logic at people, we can argue them into the Kingdom.

All these variations are perversions of the Gospel and will necessarily change the worship service. Also, no one can worship that way (tongue-speaking, falling down in a trance, dancing in the aisle, arm waving, bawling or laughing inappropriately) and remain a Means of Grace Christian.

Willow Creek is far calmer. There is no real hymn singing, but there is pop music. The message is Law with no Gospel, a familiar characteristic of Reformed homiletics. Often the Law portion is followed by the prescription - more Law!

CCM is opposed to Lutheran doctrine and Lutheran worship. Just listen to the CG guys make fun of traditional worship. They get people to laugh in mockery with them. It sounds like the demons in Hell listening to stand-up comedy.

KJV Deuteronomy 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17 And then the LORD'S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.

Slick Brenner used to say that judgment was coming upon WELS. Many think that day has now arrived.