"This Little Light of Mine - They're Going To Help It Shine." What I Learned from the Net

District VP Patterson, Holy Word, Austin, Texas, led a group pilgrimage to hear Baptist Ed Stetzer at the Exponential unionistic pastoral conference. His staff minister also went. Larry Olson, DMin Fuller, is in charge of manufacturing staff ministers
at Martin Luther College.



Patterson's member Robert Timmerman is on the WELS Synodical Council. Timmerman is an elder at Holy Word.



Patterson's church council president, Ron Stelljes, is the father of Pastor John Stelljes, one of the pilgrims to see Baptist Ed Stetzer, who will speak at the 2009 Church and Change conference.

The Board for Home Missions has two representatives from the South Central District: one is a former vicar of Patterson's (Pastor Caleb Schoeneck, in Texas)...the other is a member of Patterson's church (Paul Mattek).

Baptist minister Ed Stetzer is already booked to speak at the WELS Church and Change conference in 2009.
However, Church and Change is withholding that fact from its website.

No one needs to wonder how VP Patterson could get a free vicar to do the pastoral work while he runs for higher office and chases after false teachers to adulterate the Holy Word of God. The juicy vicarage grant was not intended for an established congregation like Patterson's.

Anyone can see from the Internet information I gleaned - Patterson has allies at every level of the WELS structure. That is how the money flows. Kingdom Workers here (Doebler's Rock and Roll Church), BHM there, Synodical Conference here, Sausage Factory there.

Church and Change gurus like Rev. Bruce Becker are fed, clothed, and housed with staff salaries from the offerings of faithful WELS members. The laity imagine they are exporting the efficacious Gospel of the Lutheran Reformation, not importing Baptist false doctrine, which opposed Luther at every turn.

On Reformation Sunday, remember that VP Patterson and Paul Kelm both gave papers at The Sausage Factory about how to improve seminary education.* The last time doctrinal apostates took over a Lutheran seminary, the laity woke up and made some changes.

WELS already has voted in a new Synodical President, Mark Schroeder, so the most difficult part is over. What must follow is a dedication to sound doctrine, an insistence on the Confessions, at every level of the synod.

*The last vicar at Holy Word was Seminary Professor Tiefel's son.

The Laity Are Waking Up, - And - DPs Are Reading This Blog

From Bailing Water:

Anonymous said...
I talked with my pastor who is and has been outraged with what has been going on. He is not strong enough (or perhaps outraged enough) to publicly take a public stand ALONE. He would like to see a large group of pastors take a stand TOGETHER against all this stuff. The beginnings of taking a stand together was happening in the Issues in WELS group...but they have disbanded or suspended for some reason. It makes it appear that all is well in WELS. Our District President does not seem opposed to the Church and Change stuff. I will try to talk with him once more.

Can we all get our pastors together so they can take a public stand?

QUESTION: If a pastor leaves WELS before retirement age, does he lose his entire pension? Is it $$$ that is preventing some from leaving or taking a chance that taking a firm stand against things will get them ousted?

Ichabod Election Predictions

Based on reading extensive reports, my predictions for 2008:

McCain/Palin will win the presidential race. They are ahead in Missouri, which is traditionally a bellwether state.

Some other reasons are:
1. The Ayres-Obama connection is peaking at the right time, but far behind the reporting of Ichabod. O'Reilly (Harvard J-school) was weeks behind my humble blog, which has a research staff of one.
2. ACORN is pursuing their fraudulent schemes, but they should be counter-balanced by the conservative vote they will scare into the polls on election day.
3. Michelle Obama and Biden did not help the ticket, but Palin revived the McCain campaign.
4. Hispanics do not vote for Blacks, and Obama has made this a racial campaign.
5. Catholics and Evangelicals are energized to vote pro-life, and the GOP ticket is strong where Obama-Biden are genocidal. Biden is worse than pro-abortion. He is Catholic pro-abortion.
6. There are minor (for the media) doubts out there. Obama has no real history and many mysteries in his past. Some think he was born in Africa and not eligible for the presidency. All his associations are either Black communist (mentor in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis; Jeremiah Wright in Chicago) or white communist (Ayres and Dorn in Chicago) or radical Islam (endless list, including Rezko).
7. Hillary and Bill know that an Obama win will end her hopes for the White House. There is not enough Botox to make her a viable candidate 8 years from now. Hillary needs a McCain win to keep her hopes alive for 2012.

The economy works against McCain, and no one has tried to lose more than McCain. Still, the Bradley effect matters. Many liberals will say they are for Obama in the polls but vote otherwise in secret. Union money is for Obama. The unions have backed losers in most of the presidential elections.

House and Senate
The House and Senate will gain Democrat seats. America does not like giving the presidency and Congress to the same party. It seldom happens and it is seldom a good outcome, including GOP dominance.

I hope Coleman defeats Al Franken in Minnesota. Norman Teigen could just tip the scales there. Franken winning would prove that a lying tax-cheat bigot can beat a liberal Republican with a record. Minnesota had a professional wrestler for a governor, so anything is possible there.

Insurance Companies in Distress

EastCoast asked me about insurance companies the other day. I have some connections. I am still licensed in life and health insurance. I am not involved in selling because there are so many teaching jobs available I turn down the excess.

A few months ago I could have signed up to sell annuities from AIG. I knew it was a big company, but no one knew at the time that they were ready to go belly up from mortgage investments. I was not so sure that any given company was a good bet. I want my insurance company to live longer than I do.

Now the feds are going to prop up insurance companies, too. They already shoveled $100 billion toward AIG alone. This is madness. The piglets will rush to the sow.

All insurance companies sit on a pile of assets. In the Great Depression they had a lot of mortgages, which were distressed and kept down earnings for many years. The Empire State Building was finished just before the Depression, and it was built with insurance money. That was another lead balloon.

Property and health insurance companies also stash their cash in various investments. I recall a time when the property insurance companies bought all the way up during a stock market boom. Then it popped and they raised rates to cover their losses in the market.

Some of the market crashing is probably due to fears of Obama winning. Much of it is from massive fear, getting out of positions to gather cash or cash equivalents (federal obligations).

Everyone is going to lose from the meltdown. Universities have lost endowment totals. Insurance companies will be as strapped as banks. General Electric is both a finance and manufacturing company. Some think GE is more dangerous than a bunch of AIGs at once. I do not know enough to say.

Annuities are a good idea in certain cases. I arranged for some for my mother, and they turned out very well. Ben Stein said they worked well for his father. It is possible to get a good, secure return and leave the remainder for the estate (refund annuity, or options like the 10 year certain).

The main thing is starting with a secure insurance company. I would not even consider one lower in ratings than Northwestern Mutual or Mass Mutual. Huge insurance companies can tank as fast as a large bank. There are rumors about Met, for instance. What a salesman promises is second to a company's financial future.

Many insurance companies will consolidate, following the example of banks. In the past I have seen enormous companies get merged into credit-worth ones: Executive Life, Mutual Benefits, Equitable, General Life. Executive Life paid big dividends based on junk bonds alone, until they nose-dived.

Investments are down. Home prices are down. Prices will stay down. Look at oil. Probably the big speculators were all tied up in futures contracts betting on oil going up. Once demand went down globally, those contracts were losers. So oil prices are going down, down, down. Mrs. Ichabod asked about "the danger of inflation." We are in deflation, which is really more dangerous.

Another Sad Tale from WELS

I remember a student at Mequon who propped up his Triglotta on his desk and slept with his chin resting on it each day. He is now a Church Growth pastor in the ELS.

This story is from someone I have known for about 20 years.

He joined WELS and encouraged his entire family to leave the Lefty Lutherans.

At one point my doctrinal bulletins became too much for his true-blue WELS wife, so I took him off my list at his request. I understood the reaction. I knew friendly WELS pastors who stopped talking to me because I kept addressing the same doctrinal issues they avoided.

Later this layman wrote me to say their WELS congregation's staff went off to Willow Creek to be trained.

A fortune was spent on the building.

Everything changed at the church, which was now 100% church growthy.

I am not sure, but I think he was indicating in his note that he was leaving the Lutheran Church for good, perhaps going to an Eastern Orthodox church

Attendance had increased at their former congregation.

True, some congregations have driven away their Lutheran members and attracted some generic Reformed members. Nevertheless, the denomination's statistics look like Wall Street's on a bad day.

Thank God For Church-and-Change Being Exposed

The triangles going up to the fish's mouth represent offering money
devoured by Church and Change buddies
(free vicars for Patterson, grant for Doebler, etc).
The triangles leaving the fish's rear end
symbolize Church and Change pooping on the synod
at every opportunity, fouling the water.

From Bailing Water:

Anonymous said...
Thank God people are finally rising up and speaking out against C&C. We need more and more people- and especially pastors- to speak up and denounce these errant ways. Insist that none of your church offerings be used to fund this group who is using our own money to fund their apostasy. Have courage and let your pastor and church leaders know how you feel about this. Go over their heads and let your synod leaders know how wrong this is and that you won't have it. They need to hear it from we, the people. Don't let the C&C crowd think they can slowly seep into your church. You'll wake up one Sunday morning and not recognize the church you've belonged to for years. Be strong and courageous. Don't sit idly by.

October 25, 2008 2:00 AM

Must It Always Be Lutheran Only? - Of Course!

The Minnesota Lutheran

Thursday, June 28, 2007
Must it always be "Lutheran only?" Of course!
Today I was asked by a local pastor in our community (of a different denomination) if I would be interested in getting together with his congregation for a joint worship service later this summer.

Some people might think to themselves, "What a great idea!" It sounds like it would be great for our congregation's visibility in the community. It sounds like it would be a wonderful chance to come together with other Christians. It sounds like it would be a chance to get together on opening the doors to the unchurched in the area.

You probably know where this is going. I politely thanked the pastor for the offer, but said I would have to decline.

Yes, it is true that I would be attacked by other pastors in our denomination for such participation--but truth be told, I would expect them to take me to task.

"But why?" you say. "Why is there all this insistence on doctrine and purity?" "Why do we have to be so full of ourselves?" I once heard the church compared to a painting, and every denomination has a brush with which the picture is painted. In fact, if the church were the painting, God would be the artist--and we would do nothing. Other churches outside the Evangelical Lutheran Church are sadly defacing the artwork of God.

How could a preacher give his people hope on Sunday morning without being able to share the wonderful news of their Baptism? There are denominations who cut out that beautiful section of the canvas. How could a preacher speak of the wonders of faith, when faith is all about your commitment? Rather, the beauty of the Church is the object of faith, Christ, which receive only as a gift of the Holy Spirit. How could a preacher promise to feed God's sheep, when bread and wine is merely bread and wine? In fact, the church is painted in the very real blood of Christ, which we drink as we eat his body in the Lord's Supper.

If we start to look for the ways that we intersect with other denominations, and cast aside the rest as leftovers, then we diminish the beauty of the Church and empty it of its gifts. In other words, as the title of this post asks, "Must it always be Lutheran?" My answer: Why would we ever not want it to be Lutheran!

Posted by RevRuesch at 6/28/2007 07:55:00 PM



2 comments:
Pastor Rance said...
Good post, Matt. It's one of the issues that other denominations (and some Lutherans) don't understand. I get really tired of hearing how we need Lutheranism to be "relevant" for today's world (which really means to compromise our doctrine for the sake of adding numbers). What could be more relevant than the truth of Word and Sacrament? Keep 'holding the line', brother!

10:11 AM, July 02, 2007
Anonymous said...
Pastor, you really hit the nail on the head. This is my pet peeve that it's important to even many Lutheran churches these days to leave 'Lutheran' out of the name. Note the increasing 'community', or 'this or that Ministries, or even just plain ol' Christain in leu of EV. LUTHERAN. You may read the website of one of these churches and have to dig deep before you may find something like.. they are 'affiliated' with such and such synod. As a member of WELS, I see the same thing in our synod as well. I encourage you to continue fighting the good fight, Pastor. More people appreciate it than will ever say it.

10:05 AM, September 30, 2007

***

GJ - Oh my, all the tall-tales I heard from WELS leaders about fellowship principles. I guess they are best viewed from a distance. District Pope Mueller explained, without laughing out loud, that WELS taught these to ELCA leaders, who said, "We could use some of those." That was at the conference where WELS Synodical Pope Mischke posed with Bohlmann and ELCA Archbishop Herb Chilstrom.

In the Wisconsin sect I heard five years of explanations - why every variety of unionism was good, proper, healthy, and Ev-an-gel-i-cal. That word is stretched out in WELS to make it more efficacious. The stretch version means - "Do whatever you want, boys." And they did.

But the Church of the Lutherean Confession (sic) was better? No, far worse. The other Tiefel, Paul, cousin of James, wet his pants in excitement, every time he praised someone Deformed, Roman Catholic, or worse. His double, Dave Koenig, was worse. The CLC (sic) protected them, excused their boorish behavior, and rewarded them in every possible way. The CLC layman Dave Menton declared it was a mortal sin to write for Herman Otten, until he wrote for Herman Otten. Then he posed for pictures with Otten. Anyone who knows the sect would say, "That is so-CLC."

This blogger wrote well about the central issue. Worshiping with non-Lutherans is the same as despising the Promises of the Gospel.

Young Church Growther --> Old Atheist.

Young Church-and-Changer-->Old Atheist.