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?"
12 comments:
The Holy Morhpin' Synod of WELS = FRAUD today.... It is not your father's church!
Fie, doom, and wrath upon them.
If you and your church care about the outcome of the convention, send busloads of members to the convention to support your delegates. That way you get better information and responses.
Will the WELS Convention lead to improvements? Given the track record of WELS over several decades, the answer most certainly is a resounding NO! The conventions result in little if any seminal thinking. Instead they tend to rubber stamp half-baked notions and fatally flawed proposals from leaders with their vested interests at stake. Interested parties must make a point to attend and influence the thinking of delegates and other attendees to break out of false doctrine, teachings and corrupt practices.
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
WELS math is a mystery. Chances are they don't know either.
The called workers and pastors ARE the system. If it's broke, it's because they haven't fixed it. From their perspective, it's not broke. Heck they keep getting paychecks and unchallenged lukewarm theology so all's well, right?
Change will only come when Synod stops receiving all that slush money.
Laymen: STOP donating to synod. They are poor stewards and cannot be trusted. It's like finding out your favorite secular charity blows 40% on administration costs while their purpose suffers, but you send them a check anyway. You are the idiot that enables the thief.
Anon,
June 11, 2009 4:40 PM
Finally someone is telling it the way it is. The pastors and called workers like it the way it is because of little accountability and responsibility. In their minds God will always provide the MEANS -- meaning supporting members -- to take up the slack and fix the problems.
Deep down they simply do not care, or at least do not care enough to think matters through and properly manage the system.
When WELS finally folds, it will be time to get back to doing the Work of the Lord ourselves, instead of hiring others to do it.
If you oppose Synod management, that's fine. I, as much as you, Anons 4:40 and 5:17, see things that are broken and need to be fixed.
But generalizations like "The pastors and called workers like it the way it is because of..." or that they "simply do not care" do not help your arguments our the conversations we need to have on how to improve. You do not know what all the called workers think and unfounded comments are hurtful to the many called workers I know that are working hard to fix what is broken, do not accept lukewarm theology and want more accountability. Be more careful with what you post.
Pastors and called workers need to start fixing things by fixing the irrational and crazy ideas coming from their leaders. Are they even trying to do that? Not from what I have seen for years.
The training of pastors and called workers conditions them to repeat stock phrases over and over – not to think, not to solve problems, and certainly not to make sound decisions. It is easier to go along with demented leaders out to use them and the members.
Well, I had to find the answer for myself. In the Together we are WELS: 2008 Annual Report, it says that the Operating Budget is just what the synod brings in as far as revenue, and the Consolidated Budget is the budget of the synod, schools and other entities. So the $17 million I was asking about above represents the budgets of the four system schools added together minus the synodical subsidy.
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