The Church Growth Movement is really the Church Shrinkage Movement. The GCM hype has been rolling through all the Lutheran sects--from ELCA to the Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic--for the last 30 years. Look at the senior pastors in those church bodies. They have one thing in common: rolling over and playing dead while this happened.
- Did McCain-Barry oppose the CGM? No.
- Did Otten? Yes and no. Otten published anti-CGM articles, but he also endorsed Valleskey's Church Growth textbook for WELS (required reading for anyone with an IQ near room temperature).
- Did the Little Sect on the Prairie? Yes and no. They published a good article against the Shrinkage Movement. They also endorsed Valleskey's Spoiling the Egyptians argument, plagiarized from Larry Crab, one of brain-dead Shrinkage thinkers.
- The CLC (sic)? They published a couple of good things against the Shrinkage Movement, but their demi-pope supported the crafts and assaults of Tiefel/Koenig and added a few of his own, with mama's help. Fleischer was the only president in memory to enlist his mother in his gracious and godly governance.
- Did ELCA? Yes and no. Two of the Seminex heroes loudly denounced Shrinkage. John Tietjen, bishop-for-a-day in Chicago, then Texas pastor, led the charge against a CGM experiment in Texas. I heard Father Richard J. Neuhaus give an excellent presentation against Church Shrinkage at the Ad Fontes conference in Pennsylvania, where many of the ELCA pastors were married to ELCA pastors (who were women - ah the good, old days). Neuhaus soon converted to the Roman Catholic he always was (only God and Neuhaus can re-arrange the tenses).
- ELCA no longer has a genuine world missionary effort, but the other groups turned their world missions over to Church Shrinkage, with predictable results.
- In short, the most left-wing and lavender sect (ELCA) made the same institutional commitment to Church Shrinkage as the tiniest and tinniest, the CLC (sic).
Why are so many Lutheran sects finding reasons to work together? They are like Sears and K-Mart, gasping for life by merging. Anothe reason is they have the same doctrine, xeroxed from Zwingli and his more addled followers.
Why are so many congregations merging? The Lutherans sects listened to Kent Hunter, Waldo Werning, Paul Kelm, Lyle Schaller, and Church of Joy (ELCA, Phoenix). They deliberately alienated their older members to attract younger members, non-Lutherans from other denominations. The youth did not join the Movement, so the decline accelerated with the loss of older members.
A few congregations have become large by being as anti-Lutheran as possible. Parlow and Kelm did this so ardently that they even plagiarized non-Lutherans sermons as posted them as their own on their congregational website. Nothing says more about their doctrine, practice, and integrity. Pastors like that get worried when someone mentions the Means of Grace.
The Parlow/Kelm example has been duplicated a few times in the LCMS. Some of the biggest Missouri congregations are no different from generic Protestant ones like Willow Creek. And why not? Many LCMS congregations are covert members of the secretive Willow Creek Association. For some reason, the public list of LCMS/Willow Creek congregations became private after I published some names in Christian News.
The Church Shrinkage leaders probably think their sects would be better off if more of the pastors followed their example.
