Off Life Support? Becker Is a Spiritual Alcoholic - Teaching Everyone How To Sober Up

Helping Our Churches Get Off Life Support

By Bruce Becker

The patient is any one of the 1,000 WELS churches that have, collectively as a denomination, been sharing the gospel with fewer people every year for the past 18 years. The good news is that there are approximately 100 WELS churches that are sharing the gospel with more and more people each and every year.

So what’s the difference between the congregations sharing the gospel with less [GJ - fewer] people and the congregations sharing it with more? Do these congregations have different attitudes toward ministry? Different demographics? Different ministry forms and approaches? Different leaders with different gifts? We’ll examine characteristics that are hurting congregations as well as those that are helping congregations in their efforts to bring the power of the gospel to more and more people.

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GJ - Why isn't everyone laughing? Church and Chicanery offers seminars in grantsmanship - the art of wheedling money from Thrivent and foundations. No group is more addicted to life support than Church and Change:

1. Bruce Becker's life support was a princely synod salary, which he used to bulk up Church and Change while serving on the Chicanery board. He jumped ship so Mark Jeske's heavily subsidized operation could keep him plump and sassy. Jeske bounces from one grant to another, cashing in on white liberal guilt.
   
2. Rock N Roll in Round Rock, Texas, is still on life support, synod subsidy and an Antioch grant ($20,000 instead of the $200,000 requested), in spite of having only 30 in attendance, two full-time staff, and their own Rock N Roll blog, which was de-rezzed. Say it ain't so, Joe. (Joe Krohn ran his infamous blog. I was probably his only reader.)
   
3. Chicanery board member Ski has run through $250,000 in a few months, for a net gain of 9 members - and no Holy Communion. They are, like the Apostles of old, waiting for their custom set of communion ware to be delivered.
   
4. Chicanery leaders Parlow and Kelm, when not absorbing more wisdom at Schwaermer conferences, are out begging for huge grants, including one for Life Coaching. I think that was $50,000 or so.
   
5. Don Patterson, a stealth supporter of Chicanery and a former conference leader, gets a free vicar each year. His church is well established. He goes on safaris with others, like Missionary Johne, yet he is still on life support from the offerings of faithful members. "Pure gold," as Kudu Don has written on the Chicanery listserve.
   
6. Conference leader Jeff Gunn was "greatly blessed by God" in avoiding Holy Communion and pretending to be Babtist - until the money ran out. But yes, he expected WELS people (not his members) to support him. He received a grant to run a Welcome Wagon at his church.
   
7. Coffee guru Randy Hunter has a vicar and a lovely assistant. Are we supposed to believe he is doing all this on congregational offerings? Or is he also on life support?
   
8. Victory of the Movie Theatre specializes in superficial, Schwaermer entertainment, soccer camp evangelism, and gloating. Synod subsidy?
   
9. Find out more by asking tough questions about where the money is going.
   

GJ - Why isn't anyone laughing? I love to read the wisdom of synod drones who will not return to the parish to show everyone how it is done. Instead, Becker escaped to the easy living of a parachurch organization. Has he gotten St. Marcus or Time of Generic Grace off life support? All the grants are available in the public realm, through the Internet. The money grabbed by the gloating, preening Chicaneries is sickening. I hope to post links on how to find out more information on grants.