rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Here's Real Church Growth for You Lazy Swine at Ch...":
Some may argue that they would feel uncomfortable with routine pastoral visits. If home visits became a common practice, the ice would be broken quite quickly. The proper responsibilities of the pastoral office can be narrowed down when it is thought of as the shepherd/flock relationship. The "everyone is a minister" approach is a devastating false doctrine. When this is taken to its logical conclusion, the congregation ends up with a plethora of committees engaged in busy work.
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GJ - A member of St. Paul, German Village, paid my way for a local CG seminar. Naturally, Pastor Bob Schumann (ex-minister, ex-Thrivent) took laymen there. How well has that worked for the congregation? Pastor Tim Glende came from that congregation and he is one of the people behind WELS CORE in A-town.
At the seminar, the leader touted busywork as a method to keep members involved. They even have a formula for how many need to have work invented for them to make them committed to membership.
But remember, the CG wolves do not view them as sheep to be fed and guarded (John 10) but as scaffolding. Each month, hundreds join and hundreds drop away from the CG meccas. The scaffolding will get the gurus higher and higher until they can charge people excessive rates for learning how they were so amazingly successful. Granger wanted a ton of money for a few days, so pastors could watch them "do church."
Now that CORE has 15 members, they should charge people to watch them do church. Unfortunately, much of the time would be spent waving goodbye as Ski and Katie leave with Glende for another expensive CG seminar.
I just attended a business seminar. No charge. Free food half the time. We paid for the hotel and getting there. Extra expenses came from the general agent who sponsored it, not from taxing the staff and clients, but from their family funds.
