$7500 for two days. Don't fail to miss this one.
Leadership Live
May 6-7, 2009
Granger Community Church
Ever wanted a front row seat to how Granger’s Senior Management Team leads the church? How they plan for the future? How they decide which series to present and what direction to go? This event will give 24 leaders a chance to spend two full days with the Senior Management Team at Granger Community Church.
WHO:
If you’re a church planter, a pastor or senior-level ministry leader, you won’t want to miss this chance to get an inside look at the day-to-day happenings at Granger.
WHAT:
Spend two full days with the Senior Management Team at Granger Community Church. Talk about any ministry area and find out what happens behind-the-scenes.
You’ll drill down on…
How they do life together
Administrative issues and decision-making
First Impressions and guest services
Creative brainstorming and planning
Spiritual development and training
Missions impact and partnership models
Cost includes all meals and lodging.
Product Code: WSLEAD
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Twitter Tattle-Tale: Ski and the Orlando Speakers":
$1500 is not that atypical for a two day conference.
You must be pretty insulated from the real world to be shocked by that figure.
(Liked the DeForest Kelly shot, though).
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GJ - Insulated? I fail to see the value. If I wanted to see how frambulators were made at AAA Auto Parts, or learn how they converted the Twinkies division from LIFO to FIFO accounting, that would be a bargain.
Denominational conferences are usually about $100, but these CG guys think they are far more valuable. They want 24 people to give them $1500 each. I doubt whether most congregations are that loaded this year.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Drill Down with the Senior Management Team at Gran...":
A fool and their money will soon be parted. Better yet if it is someone elses (sic) money.
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GJ - No kidding. Look at ex-SP Gurgel. He had the MilCraft estate, the Schwan loot, and Thrivent grants - and WELS still tumbled into insolvency during a time of prosperity. Gurgel has laid his consecrated and consecrating hands on Kudu Don Patterson, anointing him as the SP-in-Waiting.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Drill Down with the Senior Management Team at Gran...":
Pastors would straighten up and fly right very quickly if they had to really work a real job for a living. Sheltered from the realities of life they make no mistakes. They shift the responsibility to church members time and again. Instilling business acumen in them at a two day conference is sheer fantasy.
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GJ - Here is a comment from a retiring bishop who believed in the efficacy of the Word - "Those who enter the ministry late in life often leave again because of the way ministers are treated."
Members of a church can get away with worse behavior in their congregation than they can in higher education or work. As one funeral director mentioned to me, "Men who are miserable at work and miserable at home can take it out on the pastor, because he is a safe target."
I believe most ministers start out wanting to work hard, do well, and be faithful. However, members have a way of giving 1.5% and asking why the bills are not paid, overlooking the 8-10% giving by the pastor's family. And - if a pastor is active in doing those things people say are important, the bills actually increase, so they are picked over at each council meeting. I heard a group of men discuss how much chicken to order for 45 minutes straight.
The CG conference addicts are another story. WELS starts to brainwash the men in college, if not before. All the wrong people are held up as examples at the annual Church and Change bash at MLC. Faithful pastors and laity have been pilloried for decades by the loving Church Shrinkers.
The Sausage Factory is even worse, completely dominated by Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Deerfield alumni. An ambitious young pastor is going to continue in the path set by his teachers for 8 years. Those suspected of conservatism have not been given vicars. Three WELS boards are 100% trained in Enthusiasm, so a significant chunk of pastors, officials, and professors point the new pastors in the wrong direction and get them money for addition career-enhancing brainwashing at Granger, Exponential, Church and Change, Willow Creek, Fuller, and Trinity Deerfield.
Ski is no different from a lot of WELS pastors. He is just too candid about it. The Shrinkers do blame all their problems on methods because trust in the Word has been trained out of them. Can anyone imagine going to Stanley's Baptist Church, Granger Community Church, and Catalyst (Stanley-Groeschel) and having a single Biblical thought left? Those guys are all show-biz, a topic I know nothing about, according to Katie.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Drill Down with the Senior Management Team at Gran...":
Pastor Jackson, your points are well taken. For the first time I begin to understand why WELS is such a mess.
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GJ - Enthusiasm in WELS is not new and definitely not hidden. Fred Adrian and Wally Oelhafen popped their corks when I criticized Church Growth and Fuller back in the 1980s.
The Church Shrinkers would gush about their ideology but deny it three times when pressed about details. The supreme example is David Valleskey in the Northwestern Lutheran and in the Quarterly, slobbering over Church Growth while denying he went to Fuller Seminary. So they made him the seminary president. When a sect is small and ultra-conformist, that creates a Reformation (on the bad side) without a vote, a meeting, or a study.
Sad to say, the typical WELs pastor is not trained to deal with doctrinal issues. The Doctrinal Pussycats represent that failing...flawlessly.
