A WELS layman phoned me and asked me to post ideas about the upcoming WELS convention. Being there is influence, so if conservative laity and pastors do not attend, they are not going to have any impact. A non-delegate has more time and energy to listen, buttonhole, and lobby than a delegate.
Here are my ideas:
- Doctrinal studies are proposed. They need to be centered on the Book of Concord so Lutherans can find their identity outside of Pietism, Fuller, and Willow Creek.
- The conflict between fake-fellowship and reality has to end. WELS has been working with ELCA on evangelism, worship, and leadership projects for decades. The influence has been one-way and detrimental. Besides, no one is fooled, even if WELS hides its romance with ELCA.
- The unionists must be punished. The Crypto-Calvinists in the COP and at The Love Shack have persecuted Lutherans for 30 years. Now the loyalists of Willow Creek (Parlow) and Southern Babtism (Parlow, Ski, Glende) need to face the music.
- The Love Shack staff is worse than useless. They have worked tirelessly to fund their friends, wreck the synod, and feather their own nests. Almost all of them should be fired, but especially the Mission Counselors and Perish Assistants.
- The Doctrinal Pussycats all need replacement, starting with those who have served (themselves) the longest. They have enabled the Church and Chicanery agenda with such idiocies as giving Randy Hunter a vicar, providing a free vicar for Don Patterson, endorsing and supporting The CORE.
Some Realities
WELS spent millions on MLS in a bad location getting worse. Area high schools and the budget battles have drained its student population. Also, regionalism (State of Wisconsin WELS versus Michigan WELS) has worked its magic. I recall one Conference Chair sneering that MLS is "just a prep for Saginaw." This is worst time in the economy to turn MLS into another area Lutheran high school.
The scope of WELS world missionary work is staggering, stupefying, beyond reckless. No wonder calls are being terminated right and left. Drunk with Schwan money, WELS began cutting off the Apache mission, its first mission, to cover the globe. The money was not there and widespread support was lacking. They need to cover a few areas well instead of trying to be ELCA or Missouri in size.
Mary Lou College and The Sausage Factory are jokes, but I don't get the humor. They only prepare students to look to Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, Trinity Deerfield, Granger Community Church, Mars Hill, and Northpoint Babtist Church for answers. If the two faculties are so bereft of trust in God's Word, why don't they join a Schwaermer denomination instead of trying to convert WELS?
How appropriate, that Bruce Becker was finally de-funded from attacking God's Word, only to re-surface at Mequon for the WELS Prayer Institute hive training event.
Strong congregations create a strong church body. As Lenski said, "Programs come and go, but the Church is built on the Word of God alone."
The laity who want to give have seen their retirement funds decimated and their benevolence giving wasted on wild hair projects. Doctrinal and funding integrity will motivate people. Giving Don Patterson another free vicar will not.
Wayne Mueller and SP Gurgel got the synod to fracture giving, so every entity had to run around asking the same rich people for funds. That was a trend started in ELCA and Missouri. The Tetzels work for a commission, just like Jeff Davis. That strikes some as unethical and greedy.
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Bruce Church has left a new comment on your post "Ideas for the WELS Convention":
Here's an innocent question for which I don't know the answer. If the education budget for the WELS is $26.2 million (see links below), and the synodical subsidy for MLC is $4.5 million, LPS and MLS and get $3 million, and the seminary gets $2 million, where does the other $17 million go? I'll look for the answer in the comments.
The WELS Budget summary
http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=1332&contentID=51100&shortcutID=18902
Excerpt:
Board for Ministerial Education
Total Budget= $26.2 million
Total administrative $=$3 million
Total FTEs=31.7
MLC synodical subsidy is 4.5 million
http://www.mlc-wels.edu/home/newsworthy/budupd20081125/image/image_view_fullscreen
Budget reduction of $8 million forces ministry cuts
http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1712&cxDatabase_databaseID=1&id=10890&magazine=Forward%20in%20Christ
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Shockeroo from James Radloff, Classmate of David ...":
During relatively recent years, WELS has closed and/or amalgamated three prep schools (there are no longer prep schools in Mobridge, New Ulm, or Prairie du Chien). It has also closed and/or amalgamated two colleges (there are no longer colleges in Milwaukee, which was a WELS junior college for training teachers, or in Watertown, which was the only WELS college devoted exclusively to training pastors. With each closure or amalgamation, the leadership assured the membership of the synod that the proposed closure or amalgamation would place WELS on a solid financial footing for its long term future. With each closure or amalgamation, the financial position of WELS eventually deteriorated enough so that another school needed to be closed "to save the synod." We have four more schools to go. If the pattern continues, in short time we will have no schools and a worse financial position than now. At that time, there will be only one thing left to do. That would be to sell the Synod Administration Building and return to a part time president who is also a parish pastor and have the bulk of the rest of the work of the synod carried out by elected or appointed volunteers. Then we will be back where we started before the current administrative expansion craze. The only difference is that we will have lost our worker training system. If the pattern of closing schools to save the synod continues, one can only sit back and ask of our leaders, "Do you really think it is worth it?"
