Breaking News - Jeske Featured or Sheepdipped at LCMS District Meeting

Crude Photoshop speaks the truth: what Jeske promotes.
Life TV Groeschel, Babtist Andy Stanley, Nominal Lutheran Ski.

Rev. Mark Jeske, double-linked on the official WELS website, spoke to the Southeastern LCMS Disrict in June.

Let me be blunt for a change - Jeske is moving on with his life, following Dan Kelm and others in joining the Missouri Synod.

He recently spoke at the LCMS college in Mequon. I heard that The Sausage Factory faculty woke up from their slumber and yelled "Hey!" about that.

Some call this sheepdipping. He needs some credibility before joining and probably wants to test the waters, to see if he is welcome.

Jeske's departure implies the leadership of Church and Change departing. Three bored-of-Lutheran-doctrine members are current or former Jeske employees. Other nodes of the Jeske Chicanery network are - the Kudu Don Patterson Safari Team and the Parlow Fox Valley Consortium. However, such departures are often unpredictable, with some staying and others going.

PS - Jump, jump, jump!

How To Get Robbed (Not Robed) By WELS Perish Services

Those 9 points, in that one post, about Perish Assistance recommendations are exactly the same as those they were selling to our church back a few years, when the program started here. The "printed" report that was the result of Phase 2 of the effort came to 70 pages, and cost 70-75 dollars a page. The one problem was someone forgot to do a Find and Replace for the name of the previous congregation in the boilerplate. For most of the specifics they named Our Church accurately, but in some places the name of the congregation was Another Church. Oh-oh.

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GJ - So I am doing the math. The Perish Consultants (as in Paul Calvin Kelm, James Huebner, et al.) come in and pretend to study the congregation. They print up their recommendations, which are simply the same things over and over - without even changing names. And they charged this poor congregation $5,000 for one phase alone! So why did WELS have to bring missionaries home? Because these plagiarizing copycats from The Love Shack drained the life-blood of the congregations.

Did they benefit the congregations? No. They alienated people and moved on with the cash in hand. I would love to know what Kelm, Stroh, Huebner and others were paid in addition to their normal salaries.

When I was in the evil LCA, a building consultant from the national office met with us several times about a new addition. They charged nothing for this, since the consultant was paid from benevolence.

When I vicared in the LCA, someone from the Lutheran Layman's group organized the capital funds campaign for a weekly fee - no commission. He used Biblical material for the most part, but some of it was over the top, as in "If not now, when? If not us, who?"

If someone working for the LCA had tried to charge $5,000 to $35,000 for handing a congregation some Fuller Seminary boilerplate, the congregation would have tossed him through a stained glass window, head first.

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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!

Wilken Out - Jeske In - KFUO

Jeske's Time of Generic Grace on KFUO Now

September 4, 2009

“Issues, Etc.” and “Time of Grace”

KFUO-AM is now airing “Time of Grace,” a weekly program featuring Pastor Mark Jeske, senior pastor at St. Marcus Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wis. If you go here on the LCMS Web site, you’ll see that the group that produces the broadcast is now a Recognized Service Organization of the LCMS.

What’s curious about that is that in order to be an LCMS RSO [Revered Service Organization], you have to have an LCMS clergyman on your board. Time of Grace doesn’t.

The Board for Communication Services lifted that requirement in a recent meeting:

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.

You can listen to the program for yourself. Not much Gospel proclamation, which won’t surprise anyone familiar with CGM.

But I can’t get over how odd it is that KFUO would ditch its flagship program — Issues, Etc. — and begin airing “Time of Grace.”

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GJ - Most likely Jeske is going to lead the troops out of WELS into Missouri. Kieschnick's LCMS is CGM-friendly, nay CGM-ecstatic, while Schroeder's WELS is CGM allergic.

Note that Paul Calvin Kelm's brother and son both left WELS for Missouri a long time ago.

I cannot imagine the Chicanery crowd staying in WELS. The trouble is, they want to bug out when clergy positions are scarcer than hen's teeth.

They will want to take some of their sugar daddies with them. In a parish, the pillars often hold up the church in more ways than one. The exodus of people too good for a congregation is normally the best thing to happen to it.

Likewise, the pastors and laity who despise the Means of Grace and mock the efficacy of the Word should find a safe haven. As Mischke supposedly said at a WELS convention, "Paul Kelm would be welcome in any denomination." Amen to that.

The Chicanery exit from WELS will brighten up the entire Wisconsin Synod.

Failure To Supervise - Lutheran Synods in Epic Fail

Cardinal Manning

Pundits are saying that state governments need to downsize permanently. Tax revenue has plummeted and shows no sign of improving. Synodical income is bound to follow that trend nationally.

WELS Perish Services has been getting huge fees - $30,000+ - to sell boilerplate to their own congregations. Where were the Circuit Pussycats and Doctrinal Pussycats during these grand thefts? I just answered my question. They were purring about being in a purr-fect synod and showing claw to anyone who raised an eyebrow, let along an objection.

Before the regime change, one pastor was ousted when he asked about how WELS was spending the money.

"Failure to supervise" is a serious offense in the court system. The laity and church officials have a fiduciary responsibility to take care of money which is not their own.

More importantly, they are "stewards of the mysteries of God." No one has a license to set aside the Word of God in favor of synodical decisions. ELCA hailed its overwhelming vote to overturn Romans 1, as if voting revealed a new truth. The leaders called it "taking a risk," although they clearly favored one outcome only.

The economic debacle has proven that material value is only a number for the moment. I talked to a stock broker before the housing meltdown. He loved housing stocks and held his nose about Walmart stock. Home-builders are clawing for the edge of the quicksand pit, hoping to stay alive. Walmart remains a strong, profitable company. He also liked bank stocks, which collapsed soon after. I listened and invested in more training.

The truth of God's Word is eternal. The Book of Concord never hesitates to mention the treasures of the Gospel. I am continually amazed that Lutherans have been willing to sell their heritage for a bowl of lentil soup, served cold by the Reformed.

Synodical esteem reminds me of the price of home-builder stocks a few years ago - another bubble easy to puncture. Strachey wrote about an ambitious minister in his Eminent Victorians. Cardinal Manning devoted his life to his own career and squashing his competition (Cardinal Newman). Now Cardinal Manning's hat is hanging on a peg, his fame resting on the devastating portrait painted by Strachey. The painting posted above is not flattering either.

Wouldn't it be better to pass on the incorruptible treasure of the Gospel and be forgotten, than to short-sell the treasure in order to gain the temporary esteem of corrupt men?