Improbability Drive on Max

One long-time friend wrote, "Have you seen the blog Bailing Water?" I suppose so. I mention it frequently. I asked him if he had seen mine.

I talked to some blog readers today. There is definitely an effort to tell me that Church Growth is no longer the cat's meow in WELS. We all seem to agree with C. Peter Wagner, whose only correct statement has long been ignored by WELS, Missouri, and ELCA: "Church Growth principles do not work."

Who is going to say now that I never agreed with a single Church Growth expert? David Valleskey used to say in a huff, "They are Christians. We can learn from them, too." I learned this one pearl of wisdom from C. Peter Wager: "Church Growth principles do not work." He was quoted saying that in Christianity Today, that journal of middle-of-the-road generic Protestantism.

The question is - what works? The Biblical answer is - preaching and teaching the Word work, because the Holy Spirit is never divorced from the Word. The Greek word for effective or efficacious could easily be translated as - it works.

A businessman says, "What are your numbers?"

The Word of God asks, "Do you trust God's Word enough to be faithful and let Him work His will in His time?"

My favorite satire book, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, has a space ship with an improbability drive. Every so often, something completely improbable happens, such as being injected into the vacuum of space and being picked up at the exact same moment by a spaceship, The Heart of Gold. All the expected things do not happen because of this improbability.