From the church bulletin, at St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Freedom, Wisconsin:
Pastor Tim will be gone from Monday – Wednesday, May 4-6th. If an emergency arises, please contact Pastor Christenson @ 733-7225 or his cell 585-6998.
Absent is any mention of Drive 09. An innocent reader would think the "pastor conference" was Wisconsin Synod.
From the Twittering of Glende, Ski, Buske and Katy, we know that all four were in Atlanta at the Drive 09 Babtist conference with Andy Stanley, that they are such buds with the Babtist staff that the four invited Carlos Whittaker out to lunch even before they got there.
We also know from Katie that a total of seven WELS pastors (see below) were there in Atlanta, including four WELS pastors never mentioned in the Tweets of the A-town Musketeers-plus-Buske. Ichabod readers, I warned you more WELS workers were there. The blabbering Tweets came from the cubs, who know they are protected by the stealthy senior wolves of Church and Change.
Background
The recently retired pastor of St. Peter in Freedom, Ron Ash, has been chairman of Church and Change, the folks who ran the synod into the ground before Gurgel beat a hasty exit to a secure and undisclosed location.
Tim Glende grew up at St. Paul, German Village (Columbus, Ohio), where Floyd Luther Stolzenburg introduced the loathsome Church Growth Movement. Pastors Mike Nitz and Robert Schumann both promoted CG at St. Paul. Needless to say, the congregation shrank from the work of the Church Shrinkers. Schumann is openly allergic to religion these days, like many CG burn-outs.
As Wayne Mueller claimed in FIC The Northwestern Lutheran, the Church Growth Movement never existed in WELS. But no one was allowed to question the Church Growth Movement in WELS, especially in Columbus. VP Kuske worked closely with Stolzenburg and promoted Floyd for a church job after Floyd and Roger Zehms wore out their welcome as leaders of the "first Church Growth agency in WELS." Of course, The Love Shack was first Church Growth agency of WELS, with predictable results.
Dishonesty breeds even more dishonesty, stealth, sneaking around, dissembling. I do not blame the young cubbies of Church and Change as much as the senior wolves who have abused them with bad training in the WELS school system, horrible examples at so-called evangelism days at MLC, and easy money from synod subsidies, grants, and Thrivent bail-outs.
Katie Tweeted: "Grateful for the last 3 days I spent with 7 kingdom minded WELS pastors. Love their hearts for lost ppl." But Ski spoke to the alleged evangelism conference for the Anything Goes District (Northern Wisconsin) this year and last. The delight of Katie seems to contrast the Babtist WELS pastors, "who have hearts for lost people," with the traditional WELS pastors who implicitly rely on the efficacious Gospel in the Means of Grace.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
Finally someone is pointing out the duplicity that is done in the name of God. Man devises and promotes such dishonesty -- not God.
Why should these people be deemed trustworthy when it comes to your soul?
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
We have not heard much from the Wolf Pack today.
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GJ - I think they are waking up or sobering up. See below.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
The Ichabod zombies are hilarious. Brett the scorned layperson, Worms from A-town, Kreuter the former St. Marcus member, and Jackson the zombie leader have all had their hands slapped by the man and now are seeking revenge. GJ wants so bad to connect the Church and Change dots that he dreams up stuff and the zombies fall for it. I don't think GJ could connect the dots if his life depended on it.
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GJ - Dreaming up must mean quoting their websites and Tweets.
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JR has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
My father didn't give me enough attention. I wasn't breast-fed. My pastor doesn't return my calls. I was passed over for a promotion at work. My ex-girlfriend is getting married. Obama is stealing my tax dollars.
OK, there. Now will you actually answer the allegations instead of resorting to petty attacks that do nothing to reinforce your position? Or is this what amounts to "strategery" among the C&C crowd these days?
I'll ask as simply as I know how:
1) Is there any question that Ski and others were at this Drive conference?
2) How is the attendance of WELS pastors at a pastoral conference attended and organized by others with whom we clearly are not in fellowship okay?
3) If you agree that going to the Drive conference was okay, why was it hidden from the congregation under the guise of a "pastoral conference" that would give the members the impression that it was a WELS event?
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JR has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
I'm confused then. You seem to be advocating two viewpoints in conflict. Pastor Glende said he was at a "pastoral conference," yet the conference was "not about fellowship." Either Pastor Glende is lying to us or you are lying to yourself.
"I am not going to change your opinion and you will not change mine." There's another classic C&C talking point at work-- it's all adiaphora, isn't it? That's classic Parlow.
I'd be interested in hearing what Ski and the others learned at this Drive conference that was so markedly different from the last Drive conference that justifies the expense incurred in light of these tough economic times. Couldn't that money have been better spent giving it to World Missions or some other synod need?
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JR has left a new comment on your post "Lo, How Honest the Church and Change Pastors Are":
You said, "I know that it [attending Drive '09] is not about fellowship." (emphasis mine)
I'm curious to know how you "know" this. Are you one of the attendees? Were you at the conference?
Obviously, I was not at the conference. But when I hear the phrase "pastoral conference," I can't help but think of fellowship.
You have a different perspective. If this conference wasn't about fellowship, what was it about?
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GJ - Judging from Ski's gushing remarks about Drive 08, and Tweets from various participants, this was definitely a worship conference where all the participants joined in ecumenical worship. Ski said he worshiped with the Babtists last year, and I believe him. Why would 2009 be different?
