Someone sent me this link:
http://www.charis.wlc.edu/publications/charis5-1/Braun.pdf
I am posting it for your amusement. I am not inclined to read it.
It is from Mark Braun, a certified Church Growth apostate. He follows the Yes, But line of thinking promoted by Paul Kelm. In The Northwestern Lutheran, Braun managed to mangle the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. First Braun quoted Luther, then he did an Amen Chorus for studying the soil, right out of Fuller Seminary bag of tricks - very Kelm-isch. The point of the Sower and the Seed is that we broadcast the Word and God does His work through the efficacious Word. But Braun and his marketing apostates twist that into helping God by demographic studies.
"What do people mean when they talk about effective church growth principles? Do we make God's kingdom come? 'God's kingdom certainly comes by itself,' Luther wrote. Ours is to sow the seed. We hamper the kingdom if we sow carelessly or if we do not sow at all. But we do not make it grow."
Mark Braun, The Growing Seed, What Do People Mean When They Talk about Effective Church Growth Principles? The Northwestern Lutheran, September 1, 1991, p. 300. Mark 4:26-29.
The whole Church Shrinker gang in WELS uses the same coy language: Kelm, Bruce Becker, Larry Olson, James Huebner, Valleskey. They give themselves away in a few words. One Doctrinal Pussycat said these people are difficult to pin down. That is an admission of being "not apt to teach."
I wonder, "Has FIC or anyone repudiated this anti-Biblical article?" The current editor dropped a stink bomb on everyone with a slobbering article about Latte Lutheran. I would not expect him to repudiate false doctrine.
Did the ELS object? Never mind. I remember someone giving an Amen paper in answer to Valleskey's Figs From Thistles paper. No wait - that was my own title when I answered him. His theme was Spoiling the Egyptians: Stealing the Garbage from Fuller's Dumpster.
