WELS Members Funded This Church Growth Cancer, In the Name of Prayer

The WELS Prayer Network

The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) is a Confessional Lutheran Church body begun in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The WELS has approximately 1,259 congregations with a total membership of 400,622 souls. See www.wels.net for details on the Synod and its various ministries.

The WELS PRAYER NETWORK was established in November, 2004 in Green Bay, Wisconsin by a group of about 20 WELS Christians. The Institute received a $1,000 grant from WELS Perish Services to begin its ministry. The Network is a daughter ministry of "Church and Change." See www.churchandchange.org for details. The Board of Directors meets once a year in Milwaukee to provide guidance for the network. As of September, 2009 the Board of Directors is: Reg Draheim, Dan Witte, Matt Doebler, Dan Oberer, Bruce Becker, Paul Kelm, Jim Aderman, Bob Gurgel.

The organizational meeting of the Network was held at Beautiful Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church on November 7, 2004. At that meeting it was agreed to begin praying that God would promote and encourage prayer specifically for renewal throughout the Synod. A prayer conference date of July 16, 2005 was established. Steve and Reg were asked to serve as event coordinators and host the conference in Green Bay. The first event was to be promoted primarily by word of mouth and distribution of a brochure

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GJ - Questions just zip through my mind:

1. Why did 20 Lutherans need $1,000 from the synod to start a group? That is just $50 per person. Note that Bruce Becker's Perish Services gave the money, so Bruce used his budget to get another Church Shrinker group going, the same way Church and Change started - from the offerings of faithful Lutherans. Purpose - undermine Lutheran doctrine.
   
2. WELS Lutherans are denser in Fox Valley than just about any other area. Why would these pious souls not ask their own congregations for the loot?
   
3. Or hit up Thrivent?
   
4. Why did Church and Change think they needed a separate organization? This sounds like a hidey-hole prepared for the day when the synod shut down Church and Change.
   
5. Wowser. Look at the Board of Directors! Church $hrinkage Unlimited. I imagine they double-dip by having a Fuller reunion party after the board meetings. Thanks to Ichabod, most people know what these people stand for: The Book of Concord...not!
   

EastCoast wrote to me a few months ago: "Thanks for exposing the WELS Prayer Institute."

The Marines and Two Presidents

NPH Publishes Koester's Study of the Book of Concord

David Chytraeus is another genius of the Reformation.
Lutherans know C. Peter Wagner better than Chytraeus, Chemnitz, and Gerhard.

As I recall, Robert Koester earned a DMin at Fuller Seminary but learned there how bezonkers the whole Church Growth Movement was.

He was often quoted in the background in the 1980s, because all the pastors understood they had to speak softly in Jerusalem, lest it be heard on the streets of Gath.

"Shall we permit this to be done! in the name of Christian unity! and by a latitudinarianism that is our own heritage, which rises ever anew from the embers of the past to find such veiled support and strength in the citadel of Zion that Confessionalism is told to whisper low in Jerusalem lest she be heard on the streets of Gath."
Theodore E. Schmauk and C. Theodore Benze, The Confessional Principle and the Confessions, as Embodying the Evangelical Confession of the Christian Church, Philadelphia: 1911, p. 941.

I even had a colleague of Herman Otten tell me at his church how much he loved my rips on Church Growth. But when I began talking about CG in this pastor's large LCMS church, with staff around, he made it clear that I should skip over the topic.

This adult study is called:

A Brief Introduction to the Lutheran Confessions,

A Bible Study for Adults.

By Robert J. Koester.

The book follows the order of the Book of Concord. People are going to find that the Book of Concord is the best, one-volume commentary on the Bible they can find. They really have no business buying new Bible commentaries or new editions of the BOC until they know the basics of the Triglotta.

Unfortunately, the study uses the ELCA Kolb/Wengert Book of Concord for quotations and the wretched NIV.

That means two serious mistakes were made. The old Tappert was OK for a small version of the Book of Concord. At least Tappert knew what it meant to be a Lutheran. NPH prints the Triglotta, and Repristination has a one-volume, English-only Trigotta. Why would anyone to the right of Unitarianism want to sell ELCA books for them? Yuk.

It has been shown that the old classics can be reproduced and sold to great advantage. The Bente Historical Introductions to the Book of Concord was once sold as a single volume. The English-only could be reprinted in a more eye-pleasing form.

* - Kurt Marquart used to criticize the Tappert translation, but later Concordia, Ft. Wayne was promoting the ELCA edition, which some call a fantasy version - not the official text. I would rather order cockroaches for my home than an ELCA version of anything. ELCA dropped Sasse and Lenski from its list, but they published the rants of a female Jewish Rabbi! Augsburg/Fortress - a name that will live in infamy.

Look in the back of the ELS and WELS hymnals. They are full of credits for the Liberal Book of Weirdness, which they kelmed with gusto. Why? Publicly, they skewer ELCA. So why is ELCA a leader in hymnal publishing, an example to emulate? The WELS answer is that James Tiefel laid unclean hands on the project. Like his cousin Paul Tiefel (CLC), he is a true ecumenist: he loves every denomination except his own.

WELS CW is set up to look exactly like the LBW.  Why? The ELCA leaders are especially good at graphics, flower arranging, and interior decoration. ELCA tried to keep Lutheran out of the LBW title. WELS succeeded. The LBW started the feminist trend with hymns. WELS took it into the Creeds - fully human and other barbarisms.

Pieper's Non-Sermon Deleted

Still Life: Water on Mars

I had to delete Don Pieper's non-sermon because there were so many code errors in it, from kelming it. The more I fixed it, the worse my blog looked. I needed an exorcist for this one.

You can perhaps find it on the Net, where he posted it. But then again, maybe he took it down. I can't find it at the moment. Tis funny how the Shrinkers remove their sermons once people start reading them and gagging.

Patient Endurance

Thanks to a recent innovation, sold on QVC, I can blog while walking Sassy.

Most people of patience as being able to remain calm while waiting for a few minutes.

The Biblical term refers to waiting for many years during a time of great conflict and trouble. Americans are probably the most impatient people on earth, a strength in many ways, but a weakness in others. Would anyone else expect a deadline in a conflict that has lasted 14 centuries? Yet Islam began an aggressive military campaign as soon as their prophet died, reaching Vienna in 1530 and repulsed only by circumstances and incredible stupidity in the last attempt in 1581. Islam gave the Lutheran Church a chance to take root, so we have to give the religion some credit.

Resolving conflict after Luther's death took decades, not minutes. He died in 1546, creating a vacuum of doctrinal leadership, which was filled by the editors of the Book of Concord. The Book of Concord was not published until 1580, so the effort to unify the Lutheran voice took 34 years of work by several of the greatest theologians in the history of the Church. Why do Lutherans know so little about Chemnitz, Chytraeus, J. Gerhard, and the others? Because Lutheran religious leaders have neglected those theologians with savage indifference. Luther himself is just a rabbit's foot today, someone to mention, usually a figure to disparage. One ELS pastor began ranting about Luther. I asked, "How much Luther have you read?" The answer was, "Not much."

I was not surprised later to learn that an ELS professor confused Paul Gerhardt the hymn-writer with Johann Gerhard the theologian (co-author with Chemnitz on the Harmony). The ELS is not especially ignorant - just illiterate at the same level as WELS and Missouri. ELCA is in another league altogether - no wonder Jerry Kieschnick is so cosy with them. Jerry follows the money, even into will-writing that landed him in court.

Too many people have chanted, "What does Synod say?" as if an organization were the Holy Spirit. Too few have studied Lenski, the Book of Concord, and a KJV. Previous upheavals have been caused by Lutherans who were well versed and eager to debate the issues. Missouri Lutherans used to pack churches to debate Seminex. Before that WELS had many conferences on the Synodical Conference apostasy. The managerial types, mostly Boomers, made sure that never happened again. But power is not taken - it is given up. The membership largely gave up its power and will to anyone with a title, briefcase, and DNA.

The eructations of Church Growth, Emerging Church, Purpose-Driven, Contagious, New Age, and Rock have finally become irritants too caustic to ignore. It will take time and study to expel them from the Lutheran Church. The issue is not high church versus low church (or even buffoon church) but sound doctrine. High church buffoonery is not only possible but mandatory in the Episcopal Church, USA.