Columbus, Ohio was central to the old, old ALC of 1930, not to be confused with The ALC of 1960. Lenski and many other great theologians taught at the seminary, which influenced the Augustana Synod and other Lutherans in Lutheran orthodoxy. Much later, the seminary merged with they trendy Hamma seminary of the LCA and went downhill faster than a WELS congregation with blended worship.
In WELS, Columbus was called "the sewer of the synod" for good reason.
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg was kicked out the LCMS ministerium for cause, forced to resign. His wife divorced him for the same reason.
Floyd followed her back to Columbus and began church shopping. Soon he was at St. Paul, German Village. He never joined WELS because St. Paul was not a member of WELS at that time. Floyd also made it clear that he despised WELS.
District VP Paul Kuske got an organization together, Lutheran Parish Resources, first promoted by Floyd, to introduce the local church to Church Growth. Floyd gathered up a bunch of WELS people and pastors, including future Pastor Nitz, to attend a CG workshop at a---gasp--LCMS church.
Floyd also taught CG at St. Paul, German Village.
The local congregations did not want Floyd, so funds were arranged for Roger Zehms (recently divorced) to work with Floyd. That gave Columbus two divorced Church Growth leaders. Wait, there's more.
Marc Schroeder (not related to the SP Mark Schroeder) was the pastor of Prince of Peace. He was also divorced. And he loved the Church Growth Movement.
Out of six (6) local pastors--since Floyd pretended to be one--half were divorced.
The Columbus ministers met at The Donor's house. No one named the sacred name. He was just "The Donor" at LPR meetings. The Donor was also divorced. I did not attend those meetings, which pretended to be circuit meetings.
One day I discovered that the Columbus circuit involved twice as many congregations as the metro area alone. A future DP advised me that the circuit was required by the constitution to meet. And yet, the District VP and Circuit Pastor had not called a meeting in years. Boy, did they resist having a circuit meeting. They fought it tooth and nail.
Some of the fruits of Church Growth in Columbus, WELS:
- St. Paul, German Village, got much smaller. Robert Schumann and Nitz, both Growthers, did not get along, so the congregation become totally polarized. Schumann was forced out of the ministry and is reputedly an atheist.
- Marc Schroeder was kicked out of WELS, so he and his congregation--lavishly funded by WELS--joined the LCMS.
- Paul Kuske and Robert Schumann supported Floyd getting a job at an independent Lutheran congregation, though Kuske denied it. Floyd promised to commune Masons at his new job.
- Roger Kovaciny joined the ELS and Thoughts of Faith, but resigned from the ELS.
Roger raised funds at Floyd's new church for Thoughts of Faith. - Paul Kuske was voted out of office as District VP.
- Doctrinal Pussycat Robert Mueller chose not to run after betraying his own district over the DMLC/NWC Anschluss. No one would stay in the same room with him, so he wisely chose not to run. WELS made him a fake missionary to Russia, which amounted to some free travel time.
