Herb's son Steve vicared at Holy Word, Austin:
Rev. Herbert H Prahl
Western Wisconsin District President
wwdpwels@sab.wels.net
715-834-2595
The Church Growth/Fuller/Willow Creek infestation can be dated, if not precisely, from 1977, when The Love Shack gave birth to an illigimate child named TELL magazine, midwifed by Ron Roth. The natural father of this love-child is unknown but many played the role of Moses' sister (Exodus 2:7), offering to get a wet nurse to help the child grow.
Most of the WELS DPs were pastors throughout this period. One way or another, they have run interference for Church Shrinkers in WELS and the Little Sect on the Prairie. If Kelm, an early TELL editor, the first Evangelism Secretary, got into trouble, they arranged a new position for him. He could not be Evangelism Secretary any longer, so they made him the head of Spiritual Renewal, another Schwaermer CG program of WELS.
Next he landed a job of Wisconsin Lutheran College, home of C and C, teaching a required-for-graduation course in Reformed doctrine. No, not against Reformed doctrine - advocating Reformed doctrine.
Somehow this aging heresiarch has managed to be the main speaker at Sausage Factory Mission Festivals (organized by the students) many times, and a regular keynoter at the annual C and C Lovefest at Martin Luther College.
St. Mark Depere took him on but when money was tight, Bruce Becker hired him back as a Love Shack consultant: your offering dollars at work.
So, does anyone expect these brave DPs to do anything about Church and Change? They have decades of experience ducking issues. They get out their doctrinal telescopes and see error in the Little Sect, just as the ELS gets out theirs and gape at WELS errors. But nobody does anything substantial. The shocker of yesteryear is normative today.
The promotion and protection of Paul Kelm, age 64, has involved plenty of WELS leaders, either by their silence or their advocacy. 
