ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
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Dan @ Necessary Roughness has left a new comment on your post "Mark Jeske, Leave WELS for Missouri? - No Way":
It gets better. LCMS usually requires that an LCMS pastor be on the board of an Recognized Service Organization, but the Board of Communication Service provided an exception.
See Brothers of John the Steadfast article.
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GJ - Dan and others are making an important point. A WELS pastor does not just fall into this situation by accident. The LCMS bureaucracy is famous for its Byzantine structure and methods of obstruction. Step on a few toes and experience the Left Foot of Fellowship, delivered anonymously but with vigor and power. But Time of Generic Grace emerges suddenly in Missouri, as if parthenogenesis were routine.
![]() | Time of Generic Grace Ministry Time of Generic Grace is an outreach media ministry with a mission to share the good news of Jesus Christ with as many people as possible through the most advanced technology available. Pastor Mark Jeske of St. Marcus Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, delivers weekly messages which are aired on regular broadcast television in more than 22 markets across the United States and available via the Internet. The program also airs around the world on satellite TV on Daystar Television Network, the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Network, and the American Forces Network (AFN). |
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Mark Jeske, Leave WELS for Missouri? - No Way":
Jeske has denied being Lutheran, much less having any synodical affiliation, on 'his' program. Until now.
The Lutheran synodical affiliation that he now claims is one of which he is not a member. Further, it is an affiliation with a Lutheran synod that is not in fellowship with the synod of which he is a member.
Jeske has not informed his viewers/listeners where they can go in their communities to learn more. They apparently have to return to his show to learn more. Until now.
His show is now being billed by the LCMS as a Recognized Service Organization of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
How does this, specific denominational/synodical affiliation affect the generic/non-denominational/pan-denominational flavor of his show to this point?
Jeske has had a number of years to officially connect his show to the WELS. He has chosen to refuse to do so.
Hopefully, this chosen, official affiliation with the LCMS is the first step in leaving the synod that he long ago abandoned.
PS - Jump, jump, jump!
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "How To Get Robbed (Not Robed) By WELS Perish Servi...":
The pastors of those congregations served by Parish Services think it was money well spent. It's like the MasterCard commercial:
o Xeroxed study with a little white-out--$10 grand
o Pastor never has to do evangelism or much visitation ever again--priceless!
M/S/C to remove the contingency of LCMS clergy presence on the board for LCMS RSO status for Time of Grace Ministry. [The operative assumption, however, is that the board will continue to have LCMS lay presence.]But what has people talking is that the host of the program is THE leader of the “church growth” movement in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Fighting some of the false doctrine in the movement is a major problem for the WELS and I’m sure they love that the LCMS is now supporting this program.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Perish Assistance in WELS":
I know of two churches which spent between $30,000 and $35,000 each on Perish Services.
If you want to save the money, here is the essence of the program.
1. Get lay people to take over some
of the pastor's duties in the
Sunday morning worship service.
2. Start a pre-school.
3. Have a greeting and visitors
center in the narthex, which
is improved with coffee.
4. Get a new church sign.
5. Spruce up the landscaping.
6. Find a way to increase
offerings -- anything from an
every member (stewardship) visit
to hiring an outside firm.
7. Write a mission statement since
you can't know what are a doing
without one. (Shame our
forefathers' churches didn't
have them. WELS could be big by
now if they had!)
8. Start a committee to talk about
"The State of the Church."
9. By the way, some new buildings
would help.
If you think this is worth thirty grand, I have a message for you. I will discount it to $20,000 just for you. If you want to buy in, leave your email address on this blog and I will get in touch with you where you send the money. It's a deal. I just saved you $10,000. Only serious contributors of $20,000 need to respond!
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Perish Assistance in WELS":
My congregation used Parish Assistance several years ago. I firmly believed that a good plan was developed. However, with any plan the pastor and laity must be involved, supportive, and committed to address the plan that was adopted. Many years have now passed, the plan gathers dust and the pastors discuss how overwhelmed they are with two bible studies on Sunday mornings and nothing else the rest of the week. Parish services may be bad and my experience doesn't support it but we're in denial if we think we do not have leadersip issues to address churches that are frankly withering away.
The pan-Lutheran Shrinkers are becoming aware that the new generation is not buying their Gospel-marketing methods.
Confidential to spineless Boomer pastors: You have done to the Lutheran Church what the secular politicians have done to the country.
The poor losers at Sickabod are whining again. They were trounced and humiliated at the WELS convention while people continuously downloaded and posted to this blog. The fact is - the pleasant and Gospel-oriented people in WELS, laity and pastors alike, enjoy Ichabod. I get long personal emails and phone calls from them.
Sickabod does me a great favor by displaying their utter lack of reading comprehension. They remind me of the Canadian who was telling me how superior that educational system was. I asked, "Then why did your Prime Minister go to Harvard Law instead of the University of Toronto?" He continued his memorized speech when I said, "We have double the percentage who go to college." He countered, "But you have more people in America." Thus Sickabod - not just wrong on all the facts, but buffoonishly wrong. I graduated from a Jesuit school! I teach at a Babtist school! I am fired from UOP - but I was chosen to mentor new faculty there - in their graduate school. Can you find 15 things wrong in each paragraph at Sickabod? If not, you are not up on Googling.
In contrast to the affable Gospel-centered WELS people, the works-salesmen at Church and Chicanery do not represent WELS at all. They are a cancer growing from the Pietism that some elements never gave up completely (unionism, Reformed doctrine, shunning). I had cancer many years ago - just a minor basal cell carcinoma. Still, it had to be cut out.
False doctrine is a cancer, according to the Word of God. False doctrine needs to be diagnosed and removed. There is no other option.
I have lawyers in my family, which is good for several reasons. One is that I get plenty of legal advice. Another is that I know when people have overstepped the boundaries of civil law.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Sore Losers":
Your analogy is not that smooth; what do you do when the cancer has spread and it is not possible to remove it? There's also cancer that no matter how many times it is removed it comes back in different forms on different organs. There is no cure for cancer, only management techniques. The good news is, God saves us from all kinds of cancers, even false doctrine.
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GJ - Not my analogy.
KJV 2 Timothy 2:17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
The word "canker" is translated in modern versions as gangrene or cancer.