gave him his first guitar.
The corrosive effects of Church and Change become especially clear when anyone discusses the Sunday service.
The Church Growth Movement among Lutherans (ELCA, WELS, LCMS, ELS, CLC) began and continues as an exercise in copying. Waldo Werning was famous for copying, verbatim, pages from his CG mentors. Kent Hunter, another Missouri pastor, simply channeled the idiocy from Fuller Seminary, where he picked up a DMin.
The elderly Church Shrinkers in WELS--Valleskey, Bivens, Kelm--often copied directly from Fuller and acted as if they were "creative" and filled with new insights. One WELS pastor said to me, "We used to think Kelm had all these great new ideas. We found out they were all copied from Fuller."
Enthusisasts separate the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word, so they do not attribute efficacy to the Word. Kelm, Huebner, Bruce Becker, Bivens, and Valleskey all say that in varying degrees of mockery.
Because Enthusiasts give no credit to the Word, they frantically try to generate efficacy in their own style, personality cult, drama, or aura of entertainment. The Lutherans see huge crowds, but they fail to discern that these crowds are mostly jaded members who want to be tickled and appeased. The charismatic speakers aped by the Lutheran false teachers provide a fake intimacy for their audiences, telling people about their personal woes and shortcomings. They preach themselves and not Christ crucified.
This fakery works so well in the Age of Apostasy that the Lutheran wolves copy Hybels, Groeschel, Stanley, Driscoll, and the Granger gang. People can find ELCA pastors saying exactly what WELS and Missouri pastors are preaching, to stretch the meaning of the term, because they are also trooping off to Exponential in Orlando, Florida. They are also buying or copying sermons. The apish pastors are all too busy making members needlessly busy to do the one thing needful. (Luke 10:42)
That is also why the most ardent CG pastors turn into burn-out atheists. Satan eventually takes away the scales and lets them see his side of the story. The false teachers could repent and believe again, but often they become evangelistic about what they no longer believe. The various District Presidents and circuit pastors are guilty for doing nothing about this. So are the seminaries for teaching this garbage. Fellow pastors and laity also have an obligation to confront false teaching for what it is.
KJV 2 Thessalonians 2:5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? 6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming: 9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Sermon Dishonesty":
>>"People can find ELCA pastors saying exactly what WELS and Missouri pastors are preaching, to stretch the meaning of the term, because they are also trooping off to Exponential in Orlando, Florida. They are also buying or copying sermons. The apish pastors are all too busy making members needlessly busy to do the one thing needful. (Luke 10:42)>>
So what you are saying, is that in the end, there is really no difference in what ELCA teaches and all of the other Lutherans because of what is being preached on Sundays? We in WELS believe in closed communion. We believe in Biblical Fellowship practices. We believe that God's Word is really true and not full of errors. Umm, we believe in, umm lots of things that THOSE LIBERALS scoff at!
How dare you suggest that we are not different! Are you saying that by subscribing to the Augsberg Confession (UAC 1580), which ELCA does too, is putting us in the same boat? Why I never!
If what we say we believe isn't enough to distinguish us, then I don't know what is! So what if the sermon is the same. Maybe it's all just good homoletics. I hear pastors copying Luther all the time. Well, I used to, but that's beside the point! It's the heart of worship that matters isn't it? After all we can't just be happy in the Lord?
WE would never Fellowship without coming to agreement in our doctrine, so it just can't be true that we are the same.
I think we're not, I think we're not..........
