Church Growth's Last Big Push in WELS

Everyone knows who the chief Church Growth advocates in WELS are. If not, just read the Fisher paper linked below. He has named a good share of them. Supposedly Brug took him apart afterwards and the reaction to the paper was negative. However, I have to question the extent of the reaction, given that David Valleskey based his career on Fuller's Pietistic and Unionistic doctrines. Far from being hurt by this, Valleskey found himself promoted to president of The Sausage Factory, even though he spilled his guts about CG in his infamous Quarterly article and his book, which was even worse.

Worse than "The Church Growth Movement: An Evaluation?"

Yes, the book should have been titled - Church Growth, A Glory H alleluia Chorus.

Even worse than his FIC article, "The Church Growth Movement: Just Gathering People or Building the Church?"

Yes, even worse than that.

 The good news is this - I see a frantic effort by the entire Chicanery network to win at all costs, to saturate the synod with skirmish victories:

1. Keeping Kelm on the payroll for now, even though he never should have been hired.
   
2. Inviting Kelm to be the featured speaker at Willow Creek Chapel this weekend. What better way to celebrate a WELS congregation joining the Willow Creek Association and getting away with it?
   


3. Sending Kelm out with his expensive boilerplate solutions for poor, innocent First German in Manitowoc.
   
4. Putting Kelm in charge of seeding the symposium paper with his spin, the most hilarious being his worry about Reformed doctrine and quoting Focus on the Family!
   



5. Regurgitating the same old bilge in the Fischer symposium paper.
   



6. Promoting Jeske in the Missouri Synod as a warning where he and his rich followers will go, hiding the fact that he is desperate for funds with Thrivent and the foundations out of cash.
   



7. Putting three CrossWalkers in leadership positions at Wisconsin Lutheran College: the president and two board members, all from a non-WELS Emerging Church experiment, which looks like everything else being done far better by the Enthusiasts of other denominations.
   



8. Printing FIC articles lavishly praising Chicanery churches - like the stealth node in Chicago, and Hunter's Latte Lutheran Church Lounge, which got a vicar (a sign of DP favor).
   



9. Giving Kudu Don Patterson a free vicar in the midst of the Great Obama Depression.