Guardian of the Emerald City Gates: Well, that's more like it! Now, state your business!
Dorothy: We want to see the Wizard!
Guardian of the Emerald City Gates: [gasps] The Wizard? But nobody can see the Great Oz! Nobody's ever seen the Great Oz! Even I've never seen him!
Dorothy: Well, then how do you know there is one?
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
Hmmm...interesting that you feel one should react differently depending on the degree of doctrinal difference we may have with various groups. I suppose that could be a thread all it's (sic) own.
Why do you feel that going to the Drive conference has been a covert operation? Anybody in-the-know knows.
I think the issue that you are having is that you, and others, feel that what the pastors have done is wrong and you want them to face discipline. My suggestion is that you let WELS chain of command work its course. If you don't like the results then you go further up the food chain. At some point you have to accept what comes down whether you like it or not.
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GJ - This comment is so typically WELS that a pastor, likely a Love Shack denizen, probably wrote it. Every point is counter-intuitive. The people who will discipline the Drive 09 Eight have:
- Studied at Fooler Seminary, Willow Crick, Trinity Deerfield, or all three.
- Promoted one Church Shrinker after another to teach at The Sausage Factory.
- Watched with closed eyes while Kelm, Olson, Huebner, Valleskey, Bivens, Roth, Radloff, Hagedorn, and many others attacked the Biblical doctrine of the efficacy of the Word.
- Let Kelm preside as the Waldo Werming Professor of Church Growth, in one botched position after another.
- Hailed We Believe, Therefore We Speak as a great work of theology, required reading for everyone with an IQ smaller than his belt size.
- Did nothing about Drive 08.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "More WELS By the Numbers":
Chop Patterson, Jeske, Galeske, Kelm, SKI, and all the apostates. It's time to get back to the just the pure Word of God, taught in truth and purity.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Discipline for Drive 09? - Only at the Top of the ...":
The commenter says, "Anyone in the know, knows."
That's half the problem. Those that are "in-the-know" really ought to know better and put their foot down.
The other half is that the faithful in those afflicted congregations did not know what their pastor was up to. Why else would they fail to openly identify and celebrate it in the bulletin?
+Diet O. Worms
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JR has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
I don't feel that one should react differently based on the degree of doctrinal difference. I merely was comparing the perceived severity of the offense in a more concrete example. I don't see degrees of difference-- either you are in doctrinal agreement or you are not.
If "anybody in the know" knows about going to the Drive conference, then I'd like a report on it posted somewhere online. If the information provided is so wonderful and proven at getting the unchurched to hear the Word, then it would be extremely selfish of those who attended not to share it with as many other pastors as possible that could not attend.
I want this entire process to be above board. I would like those who attended the conference to stand up and state their case as to why they did so and to have the chance to defend themselves from the allegations of engaging in inappropriate fellowship.
I pray that our pastors and WELS leaders would shine a bright light on this issue and resolve it in a way that is both biblically-based and loving to all involved. If this is done, I am fine with accepting the outcome, whatever it may be. I hope that everyone else would do the same.
The divisions caused by not addressing these things causes all sorts of problems in our synod and is destroying its unity from within.
To see this happen to a church body that I love dearly is painful to me.
