WELS Staff Ministry
Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "Just As I Warned - WELS Has Women's Ordination Wit...":
This document makes very clear to me why it is that elements of WELS leadership had been pressing for “women's ordination” and advocating a pastoral role for women, by having them commune other women. It's just too bad for them that so many WELS layman and pastors are such spiritual weaklings that, out of "brotherly concern for their weakness," a moratorium was placed on female celebrants in WELS. I frankly suspect that this has little actually to do (primarily) with a desire to change doctrine, but rather with organization building and ambivalence toward doctrine and practice. If someone wants to build an empire underneath them, and if the word “minister” can be construed as a “slippery term” (much like the terms “teacher” and “authority” have become), then why not profit from the lack of clarity? If there is anything we know, it's that now-defunct CGM theories were primarily about developing programs – buzz-phrases like “evangelism” and “kingdom blah blah whatever” sitting in secondary position, as the beneficiaries of “effective programs.” The document produced in this blog entry bears the unmistakable fingerprints of the Church Growth Movement, beginning with the pietistic foundation of "lay ministers," with whom I have sufficient experience, both within and outside WELS, to have no confidence in, whatsoever.
Frankly, I'd like to see the financials of the staff ministry program, and the results of the market research they have no-doubt conducted. How many students do they need in order to stay in the black? What is the male-to-female ratio of this program? What does their market research tell them about attracting new students? Are they at the statistical limit for attracting male students? If they need to attract more students to stay solvent, or to grow the program, is attracting female students the only realistic way to do so? Are there other reasons for needing to attract more females to this program – statutory or accreditation oriented reasons, perhaps? What would encourage more females to enter the program? The hope of a career as a Minister of the Word – with the same IRS advantages as males? If these are the considerations being made, are they relevant to the solvency of the staff ministry program only, or of MLC itself?
This whole lay ministry program stinks to high heaven. I'm suspicious.
Freddy Finkelstein
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GJ - There is a list of all staff ministers somewhere, but I did not find it at the wels.net website.
