Sounds High Church To Me

For your information:

St. Andrew House - Center for Orthodox Christian Studies invites you to attend

"Faith of Our Fathers: A Colloquium on Orthodoxy for Lutherans"

An educational conference designed to present the basic precepts of
Orthodox Christianity to Lutheran clergy, spouses and lay leaders.

Monday - Tuesday, September 10 - 11, 2007
Detroit, Michigan


SPEAKERS:

Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit
Rev. Basil Aden - Rev. Calinic Berger - Rev. John W. Fenton
Rev. Gregory Hogg - Reader Christopher Orr
Rev. Gabriel Rochelle - Very Rev. Patrick Henry Reardon
Prof. A. Gregory Roeber

TOPICS:
Authority of Scripture - Trinitarian Theology
Nature of the Church - Virgin Mary and the Saints
Augustine's Influence on Lutheran Ecclesiology
Orthodox Confessions of faith - Justification

For complete information and registration,
visit us online at http//www.orthodoxdetroit.com.

Friends, look up that website.

Four of them are former Lutherans - two from ELCA and two from the LCMS.

Anonymous-Minder Blows Smoke

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Will SP Schroeder Be A Good Leader?":

The Kuske report never said tuition money was used for something other than the schools. If it did, he was wrong. All the tuition money goes to the schools. Unfortunately, this money is not enough to cover expenses. Synod subsidy was decreased from the schools.

Good work Mr. Jackson. Your fact checking makes we wonder if you work for the New Republic.

***

GJ - I suggest Anonymous-Minder reading what he pretends to cite. More money was collected in the name of the schools than forwarded to the schools. I am no accountant, and many things remain - shall we say - mysterious. The same can be said for many funds, which remain borrowed, as they used to say at Gurgel-Mueller's WELS-Enron.

Where did all that Schwan money go?

Verbatim from the Kuske Report:

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2007/05/kuske-report-on-wels-mismanagement.html

1. More work of the Synod was moved off-budget (e.g. evangelism and youth ministry, which are now funded by the Revolving Funds) so that the non-recurring income and its income were reduced even more.
2. The world missionary corps was reduced by 17, but there were still more world missionaries in 2003 than in 1995. (Appendix D)
· The Board for Ministerial Education (BME) bore a disproportionately large proportion of the cutbacks.
1. The budget cutting for the BME was approximately doubled in percentage because the money that parents/students paid for tuition/fees was commingled with CMO. Details and illustrations are on Page 7.
2. The funds that had been given directly to the schools and were therefore in the Revolving Funds, were used to balance the budget over the last couple of years. (See Appendix C.)
3. After $20,000,000+ of these non-recurring funds was spent, it has been suggested that the schools should solicit a $300,000,000.00 trust fund to keep themselves going.
· In its November meeting the SC was planning to spending $5.8 million more of non-recurring funds. Of that amount only $2.6 million will be used to fund the prep school for one more year. Prior to that, the recommendation was made to defund the prep schools almost immediately, even though they serve a very significant function of recruiting and training (especially) future pastors, teachers, and lay ministers. (See Appendix I.)
· After serious consideration was given to defunding the prep schools, the SC and the President of the Synod decided to explore alternate methods of recruiting workers. (See Appendix I.)


And...

COMMINGLED NET COST TO BUDGET
Expenditures, BME $30,581,481 Expenditure, BME $30,581,481
Subtract tuition and fees ($13,507,707)
Subtract Activity fees1 ($2,000,000)
Net cost $30,581,481 Net cost $15,073,774
x 25% x 25%
Budget cut at 25% 2$7,645,370 Budget cut at 25% 23,768,443
1 Since I know of nothing outside of the BME that has “activity fees,” I have assigned $2 million here of the $14+ million reported for “Activity Fees And Retail Sales.”
2 In this illustration the difference between $7.6 million and $3.7 million is the distortion that would have occurred because of imprudently commingling tuition with CMO.

As shown in the chart, when the budget cuts were applied, a highly disproportionate reduction in the support provided to the Synodical schools occurred. Some of the budget shortfall was covered by increasing tuition and fees. As a result parents were expected, not only to offer their children for strong encouragement toward full-time ministry, but also to increase payments to the schools sharply. Many apparently could not afford the increases. Enrollments have dropped. The dropping enrollment adversely impacted the funding of the school even further. Since the decreased enrollment was caused ultimately by the imprudent use of non-recurring funds, as explained above, it is disingenuous to now fault the schools for the drop and therefore withdraw even more support.

The revolving funds, especially of WLS and MLC, were used to support the budget
After the predicted drop in enrollment became reality, the SC turned to another direction. The schools of the BME (especially WLS and MLC) had over the years received donations that weren’t specifically designated. These non-recurring funds were next used to shore up the Synod’s budget. The amounts that were taken from these non-recurring funds crept up from about $4 million to $13 million. Details are in Appendix C. The term to accomplish this transfer of funds is “reclassification.” The mechanism that makes it difficult to follow this reclassification (which was done openly in the 2003 report) is that the amount from income used for BME is reported in the Operating Budget. That amount plus the amounted used from non-recurring funds is reported as the total expenditure for BME in the report of Consolidated Statement of Financial Position. (See Appendix C.)

I Believe in the Efficacy of God's Word

God's Word is the only foundation for the work of the Gospel. As Lenski and others once said, the Church is built upon one thing only - the Word of God.

The Word, preached and taught, brings the Gospel to people. The Word conveys the Savior to us. We call the Word a Means of Grace because God grants forgiveness only through the Word (visible and invisible, the Word and Sacraments).

When the Word is correctly taught, the positive affirmations are not left to hover in the air without contrasting them with the negatives (rejections).

If the Word is efficacious, then Reformed doctrine is wrong. Fuller be damned.

If the papacy is the Antichrist, a Roman Catholic bishop cannot march in a religious service with the faculty of Bethany Lutheran Seminary. A Roman Catholic archbishop (gay or straight) cannot teach the Word at Wisconsin Lutheran College. Those who arrange, cover up, and explain away such monstrous behavior must be disciplined or expelled.

If Holy Communion an expression of doctrinal unity, open communion is nothing less than a repudiation of Lutheran doctrine.

Two Ingredients for WELS Reform

Put down your coffee cups and listen up. There are precisely two steps in cleaning up WELS. If either one fails, WELS is doomed, and I mean...insolvent, schools all closing, begging to merge with anyone who will take them in.

Here they are:

Ingredient I

Power is given away, not taken away. The synod, the District Popes, the Synod Council - no one can do a thing unless people let them.

The laity especially must take charge in leading a revolt against:
1) Sexual predator church workers;
2) Fellowship with ELCA, Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, and the Church of Rome;
3) Pastors/teachers who publicly teach false doctrine;
4) Useless, overpaid synod-workers.
5) Misuse of funds.

At the same time, the laity must vocally and consistently support the new Synod President's correct decisions.

Ingredient II

Doctrinal purity is the only path to accomplishing God's will. The clergy have been brain-washed in Church Growth unionism for several decades. The careerists will continue to push this dead fad because Ron Roth, Henry Hagedorn, and Wayne Mueller will smile upon them.

If the laity insist on doctrinal reform and the expulsion of false teachers, money (the least of all concerns) will make its appearance in miraculous abundance. Another money drive - lacking the doctrinal reform - will be Dead On Arrival, prompting the CG leaders to work for new leadership, their pope, Wayne Mueller.

Will SP Schroeder Be A Good Leader?

Email volume is up considerably, from laity in WELS who are not being fooled. One person wondered about how well the new SP Schroeder would lead.

Schroeder will have to struggle against the entrenched Church Growth Curia established for 20 years at The Love Shack. President-in-Waiting Wayne Mueller remains in charge of that network. CG incompetents (and worse) find their careers are insinkable if they network with the right people.

Several things should be noted about the change in leadership in WELS:

1. Gurgel had no choice in leaving office, thanks to all the money that was used to prop up synod salaries, instead of going to the intended recipients. The Kuske report claimed that increased tuition was one such fund, where tuition and fees were jacked up but used by the synod for non-school purposes. This rapid 30% tution increase put both preps and the college in danger of closing. Also, the siphoned money remains borrowed - not paid back.
2. Thanks to grassroots support, Schroeder was the leader when he got to the convention. No one else had a chance. People worked hard to make sure Schroeder would get the votes. Ichabod pointed out how important family connections are in WELS elections. His family is respected as "the good Schroders."
3. I am guessing that the recent, enormous drop in mission offerings were due to an underground revolt against the Gurgel-Mueller team. For offerings to drop $8 million in one year, when the general trend is a 2% increase, something is happening synod-wide.

Everyone Is Noticing ELCA

From Townhall.com - http://www.townhall.com/columnists/FrankPastore/2007/08/19/sex_and_the_lutheran_youth_group

Sex and the Lutheran Youth Group
By Frank Pastore
Sunday, August 19, 2007

How do they do it?
I mean, how can the leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) tell their kids with a straight face not to be sexually active outside of marriage when they’ve just voted last Saturday to no longer enforce the celibacy requirement for their unmarried staff—both straight and gay?

Lutheran minister Robert Kreisat (R) is embraced by his partner of 37 years Edward Mather after hearing the New Jersey Supreme court decision on same-sex marriage in front of the Supreme court building in Trenton, New Jersey, October 25, 2006. Saying that times have changed, New Jersey's highest court on Wednesday guaranteed gay couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples but left it to state lawmakers to define how the state wants to define marriage. REUTERS/ Tim Shaffer (UNITED STATES)

The ELCA and other pro-gay denominations have been ordaining gays for decades. That’s nothing new. What’s new is that now staff can openly have lovers while on the job and there will be no disciplinary action for violating the celibacy requirement.

The message to the kids is loud and clear: We can have sex with our boyfriends and girlfriends, but you can’t.

What hypocrisy.

This is what happens when sin and the Bible collide: either the Bible will change the sin or the sin will change the Bible.
In this case, it’s homosexual passion that’s changing the Bible.
Not only have they decided, essentially, to rewrite the Bible and declare homosexuality no longer a sin, but now they’ve gone beyond that to include fornication too. Adultery can’t be far behind.

Look for other liberal denominations to follow suit.

So, this means an unmarried youth pastor can openly discuss the sex life he has with his boyfriend without fear of losing his job, while at the same time supposedly providing spiritual leadership to teenagers and counseling them to “wait until marriage?”