Posted at Pastor Rick's WELS CG Blog
Anonymous said...
Pr. Johnson,
Thanks for your insights and work. There are more who support your position than you know. I am thankful that our church (offers both styles) continues to reach more and more people with the Means. More and more babies baptized, adult confirmations continue to increase, Bible classes multiply, the Lord's Supper offered every weekend. To God be the glory!
Blessed at St. Mark - De Pere
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GJ - It must be that yakkity-yak sax at Crown of Life, Corona, California.
Pennsylvania asked me to predict the future of WELS.
I said, "In five years, if nothing is done, there won't be a WELS. The Church Growth congregations are training people to be Baptist-Pentecostal. Eventually the members and pastors who like Church Growth will join the sects that do it better. Meanwhile, the ones fleeing Church Growth will join Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy."
I also said, "If anyone pushes Kelm or Parlow about being Lutheran, they can pack up and join Missouri, where Kieschnick would welcome them."
The Deformed-Lutheran union congregations of the 19th century all went Deformed eventually. They are United Church of Christ (all the religions the same) today. A few congregations let the Deformed and Masons leave. Some of them welcomed the Deformed back via the Church Growth Movement. The LCA (now ELCA) did that in another way, breaking up the old union congregations in Pennsylvania (in the name of the Confessions), then creating new ones much later in the name of ecumenism.
Church Growth pastors are not Lutheran, except sometimes by accident of membership. They are Deformed. Many end up like Marryin' Sam, Mark Freier, who gladly performs the marriages of Hindus and Atheists. (Question: Does Mark bless the suttee ceremony, when the dead husband is cremated and the wife is tossed on the flames, to honor him?)
The cutting edge of Church Growth in WELS bows to the image of Leonard Sweet. They love his books, study his malarkey, and invite him to teach them the Word.
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A Word from Our Sponsor:
91] For the Word of God is the sanctuary above all sanctuaries, yea, the only one which we Christians know and have. For though we had the bones of all the saints or all holy and consecrated garments upon a heap, still that would help us nothing; for all that is a dead thing which can sanctify nobody. But God's Word is the treasure which sanctifies everything, and by which even all the saints themselves were sanctified. At whatever hour, then, God's Word is taught, preached, heard, read or meditated upon, there the person, day, and work are sanctified thereby, not because of the external work, but because of the Word, which makes saints of us all. 92] Therefore I constantly say that all our life and work must be ordered according to God's Word, if it is to be God-pleasing or holy. Where this is done, this commandment is in force and being fulfilled.
100] For let me tell you this, even though you know it perfectly and be already master in all things, still you are daily in the dominion of the devil, who ceases neither day nor night to steal unawares upon you, to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the foregoing and all the commandments. Therefore you must always have God's Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears. But where the heart is idle, and the Word does not sound, he breaks in and has done the damage before we are aware. 101] On the other hand, such is the efficacy of the Word, whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, that it is bound never to be without fruit, but always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness, and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these words are not inoperative or dead, but creative, living words. 102] And even though no other interest or necessity impel us, yet this ought to urge every one thereunto, because thereby the devil is put to Right and driven away, and, besides, this commandment is fulfilled, and [this exercise in the Word] is more pleasing to God than any work of hypocrisy, however brilliant.
Martin Luther, Large Catechism, Third Commandment, The Book of Concord
