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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "From Appleton - The Entertainment Capital of WELS ...":
I contacted Engelbrecht via e-mail expressing my concerns about CORE several months ago. To date, no response. Ditto SE Wis. DP Rutschow. SP Schroeder, however, did respond and has been taking action.
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Light From Light:
At St. Peter’s December 14, 2009 call meeting, our Church Council President announced that the council had amended Pastor Glende’s job description to read “lead pastor,” and that we would be calling an “associate pastor.”
I moved to table the call because I believed that our congregation did not have enough information to ratify Pastor Glende as lead pastor, and call an associate. I believed that the council needed to better communicate with Pastor Christenson to better understand why he left after only seven months. Also, without going into any specifics, I cited a long letter that I had sent to the council and my pastors back at the beginning of November which raised important issues. I did not mention any of the specifics of my letter because I believed that that would be beyond the bounds of a call meeting.
Another layman asked whether there were additional actions or steps that needed to be taken before we issued a new call, and Pastor Glende replied, “If we had to do things, if there was anything that needed to take place before we could call again, then District President Engelbrecht wouldn’t allow us to issue a call.” District President Engelbrecht did provide our congregation with a call list of five candidates that he believed were suitable to be an associate pastor.
The argument against the motion was that neither Pastor Glende, nor our church council, nor District President Engelbrecht believed that any additional steps needed to be taken. District President Engelbrecht did attend and participate in our call meeting. When he was not speaking, he sat in the back, and chatted with Pastor Skorzewski.
The motion to table the call failed. However, it did receive a smattering of timid “ayes.” After the meeting, another layman estimated that the motion to table received about a third of the votes present. (I thought it probably received less than that, but there was no official count). St. Peter congregation did call Pastor Wayne Shevey to be our associate pastor with a unanimous vote. This is a divine call, and it is our prayer that God will bless St. Peter through this call.
On Thursday, December 17, 2009, I met with Pastor Glende, and he provided me with the church council’s official response to my letter. The council’s response was a letter that summarily and unanimously rejected every one of the concerns I had raised as being either false or without merit.
May the Lord be with his Church, his Bride, his Chosen People “to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20). “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” (Revelation 22:21).
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GJ - More than one person wonders about the glue that holds this farce together. A layman raises legitimate concerns and finds them batted down by the typical WELS homie attitudes. Engelbrecht is bending over backwards to favor, protect, and promote the worst of Fox Valley, the antithesis of Lutheran doctrine and worship.
But let us take a gander at Engelbrecht's leadership. He has no problem with Parlow's St. Mark Depere cult being a member of another denomination. He has no apparent problem with Parlow, Ski, Glende, Buske, and Bishop Katie worshiping at a Babtist conference (lovin' it). Engelbrecht has no objections, as far as anyone can tell, about Ski and Katie studying at Granger Community Church. How about Dirt or Story or Catalyst. Silence.
Ski will be teaching the district about evangelism again--or--How to turn $250,000 into 9 members, in one year!
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Pastor L has left a new comment on your post "From Appleton - The Entertainment Capital of WELS ...":
Just weeks after coming to the Northern Wisconsin District five years ago I learned the lay of the land. One area pastor even verbalized it when he said to me, "It's a good ol' boys district."
That will not change as long as Doug Engelbrecht remains as District President, a post he's held for upwards of twenty years. While I must respect the office, long ago I lost respect for the man holding it.
A seven-month pastorate is unheard of in the WELS. The district presidents have agreed not to extend a call to a pastor until he's been at his current church FOUR YEARS. As I understand it, Pastor Christenson was spared 3 1/2 more years in Appleton because a more kind-heart DP included him on call lists in his district. It wasn't because DP Engelbrecht was trying to help the ministry!
It amazes me that more lay people at St. Peter aren't asking, "Why did Pastor Christenson leave so soon." Golly, usually when there's a change in pastors it's headline news. Somehow this got buried on page twenty at St. Peter!
Sad to say, we're becoming a synod of cover-ups. I,for one, plan to repent in the new year and ask more questions.
I probably won't ask my district president, though. There are many times in my five years that I've left phone messages and e-mail messages and never received a response from DP Engelbrecht. My circuit pastor has said, "You mean you didn't hear from Doug? He said he was going to contact you."
So, now you know why I'm not too worried about getting in trouble with my district president. I don't think he knows my phone number or e-mail address!
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "From Appleton - The Entertainment Capital of WELS ...":
Has Mt. Olive gone CG now too? It's getting very hard to find a good church in Appleton. I agree with the previous poster though: Riverview and St. Paul are conservative. You can add St. Luke, Little Chute to the "safe" list. What a sorry state WELS is in when one has to make lists of safe churches. Appleton does need to wake up. The derelict DP needs to be ousted at the next district conference, and the conservative churches need to get behind a strong candidate who is willing to openly oppose the nonsense going on up there.
By the way, conservative Lutherans in the Milwaukee area may want to look in to Trinity Lutheran downtown, an LCMS congregation that still uses the Lutheran Hymnal.
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GJ - The Shrinkers worked hard for 30+ years to bring the Lutheran Church to this low point. It will take the Word, the Confessions, and time to rectify the situation.
