Where Marcus Manthey? Hire Him as Editor!

Rev. John Seifert, president of the Michigan District, says the displaced workers were encouraged to hear that their experiences in ministry have value in and are transferable to the secular market. Still, they face a difficult struggle finding meaningful employment in the Saginaw area where the unemployment rate hovers between 22 and 25 percent.


Seifert expresses thanks for the support from Committee on Relief for the effort. "The counseling would not have been possible with it," he says.

Faux-Reilly Retort

I. J. Reilly has left a new comment on your post "WELS Pastor Answers Home Visiting Issue":

I am a WELS pastor of a small/medium sized congregation. I have been to the homes of most of my members at least once. I regularly visit those who are in special need. I would probably spend a few more evenings visiting, but I have a severely autistic son and I am needed quite a bit at home. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn. I'm saying this because most of the WELS pastors in my area follow the same pattern -- actually, they probably outstrip my efforts. Your characterization has NO BASIS IN REALITY. Why you are this bitter and try to find deficiencies where none exist simply boggle my mind! Actually, I pitty you. (I threw that last spelling error in so that you would publish my comments if only to gloat over your superiority in the use of the English language.)

***

GJ - If this is the same person, or parson, I get a lot of angry comments from him when I criticize the Shrinkers. Of course, there is no way to tell from anonymous messages. It could be another Faux-Reilly.

His WELS region must be exceptional, because I have heard from all over - not just laity. I had a WELS family move from a Minnesota town to Columbus. The husband said he never experienced a WELS pastoral visit in the decade or so he lived in that state. He was astonished that I visited homes.

I gained a wider perspective from a WELS leader who has a position where he would know what is happening in a large region. Sad to say, there are WELS leaders who are quite friendly and they actually identify themselves by their real names. But I digress. This WELS leader said the lack of visitation by pastors is a terrible problem and it exists just as much among the solid, orthodox pastors. He is not a Shrinker fan.

This is what a WELS pastor told me, about 22 years ago, Faux-Reilly. "In Milwaukee the parishes are about one square mile. The pastors can drink all week and preach on Sunday. That is what a lot of them do." I did not accuse him of being angry and bitter.

WELS Pastor Answers Home Visiting Issue

Ron Roth, WELS Stewardship and Church Growth Guru, should help this church get four or five pastors, or waste millions on remodeling the structure. Or start a rock band. That's the ticket.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A Home Avoiding Pastor Makes a Church Avoiding Con...":



It saddens and frustrates me to hear people accuse WELS pastors of being unloving and uncaring for not making home visits.



I would ask the people making such accusations to consider things from the other perspective. I can't speak for all WELS pastors, but I can tell you about my situation. I serve a congregation of almost 2000 souls. I literally have a meeting or a group or a class every Monday through Thursday evening. Often times I also have a wedding rehearsal on Friday evening and a wedding on Saturday evening. Most weeks I'm lucky to spend one evening with my wife and kids per week.



I would LOVE to spend my evenings visiting my members rather than listening to the Ladies Aid talk about what kind of coffee to buy or listen to the elders squabble over pennies. But whenever I get the courage to suggest that the pastor might not need to attend every single meeting of every single organization, I'm told that I'm lazy and need to be a better leader and manager of the congregation. Whenever I try to get laymen to assume some leadership to free me up for home visits they tell me they're way too busy to help.



And even if I were to give up everything else in my ministry and visit members at home every single night of the week, every single day of the year, not ever spending a single night with my own family, it would still take almost six years to visit everyone.



Home visits are a wonderful thing in small congregations. But in large congregations like mine, they simply are not logistically possible, especially when congregations are too stingy to have an adequate pastoral staff of 4 or 5 pastors. It's not that I'm lazy, it's not I don't care about my people. It hurts me to hear people accuse me of that when it simply isn't true.
 
****
 
GJ - Two points to consider - very few WELS congregations are that large. The smaller ones have pastors who never visit. I know one where the pastor was begged to bring Holy Communion to a dying member. He finally showed up, without communion. He could have gone home for his kit, but did not. He was known for not visiting members and he was a fanatical partisan for Church Growth.
 
I do not know this pastor or his congregation, so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. If I could wave a wand, I would say, "Evening meetings begone. Just visit people." I am not sure evening visits need to dominate. Hospital and shut-in visits can be done during the day and they usually are done during the day.
 
Congregations should support more staff, but the stories about pastoral laziness are pretty common. I give all the glory to the Shrinkers who imported management theories and turned pastors into managers. They run the school systems of Missour, WELS, and the Little Sect on the Prairie.

---

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Pastor Answers Home Visiting Issue":

As the pastor who submitted this comment, I can assure you that I do hospital and shut-in visits during the day. That's just a given. But I don't think that was the issue at hand. The issue at hand was home visits, right? Good luck trying to find 90% of your members at home during the day. (I'm lucky to find 90% of my shut-ins at home during the day.)

I get the sense that you think I'm silly for suggesting that a congregation of 2000 should have 4 or 5 pastors. How many pastors do you think a congregation of that size should have? Please tell me you're not like my members who think one (or maybe two) pastor should be able to handle everything since he only works one day a week (if only!). If a congregation of 400 should have one pastor, shouldn't a congregation 5 times as big have a pastoral staff that's 5 times as big?

I also resent your insinuation that I somehow support rock bands or contemporary worship or the like. I can assure you that I am dead set against rubbish like that.

***

GJ - I did not insinuate anything about this pastor. The Shrinkers think the solution is a huge building project and a rock band, dump the liturgy, etc. Ron Roth started that with TELL and continues it with his stewardship business (with Jeff Davis). That is like hiring the founders of  Edsel to start a new car company.

I think a congregation of 2000 souls should have five pastors. If a congregation of 100 - 200 has one pastor, a congregation of 2000 should have many more.

I vicared with a pastor who had a congregation of around 2000. I am not sure about the numbers. He did two services per Sunday and had a German pastor doing weekly German services. He had a church administrator and a vicar. He did not like clergy staff. He had very few evening meetings per month. He visited constantly and made sure his vicars visited five days a week. There were various social type gatherings. What made that work was the close relationships within the congregation, extended families, etc.

Many years ago Father Neuhaus made the point that denominations were using up the trust built up by previous religious leaders. He was an apostate, but he made a good point.

A Home Avoiding Pastor Makes a Church Avoiding Congregation

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Member Comments":

Gone are the days Pastors made house calls. All I ever get is a voice mail message and I'm lucky if my call is returned by the Pastor. It seems some are turning their jobs into becoming managers. I'm sad about that as it shows a lack of caring. But I also think it is a sign of the times. The more they can push off onto the elders or cell group leaders, the less they'll have to do.

***********
Pastoral calls are a thing of the past. My family are all WELS at different churches and the discussion has come up about how the pastors never ever come to visit. Except for the address on the mailing list, they wouldn't even know where you live. They are just too 'busy' to do their jobs. I've seen how busy my pastor is just running from one kids baseball game to another soccer match. I'm sure it's his mentality that he only has to work just one day a week and then for only a few hours. It's no wonder they copy and paste a sermon. Many are neglecting their flocks.

GJ - Church and Chicaneries have definitely changed their synod. Think about that the next time they start crowing about how great Mequon is.

Faithful Pastors in WELS?

The wealthy have lost billions of dollars, so Miss Piggy is drying up fast. There is no Church Growth without heavy subsidies.

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "WELS Member Comments":

"There are conservative (true to the Word) pastors that could take the call."

Pastors who are true to God's Word and the Lutheran Confessions do not exist in the WELS.

They all confess a new gospel, a new declaration of righteousness and have destroyed the central doctrine of Scripture in thier current confession. Opposing Christ and the Confessions they profess that the whole unbelieving world is righteous, forgiven of all sin and, by divine verdict, been declared by God to be guilt free all before faith worked by the Holy Spirit. Christ declares that no one is forgiven prior to faith in Him. Christ declares that the Holy Spirit's faith grasps hold of the fact that Christ paid for all sins and that by believing that your sins are then forgiven, you are justified through Christ and righteous in God's sight just as Christ is. WELS teaches that faith grasps hold of the fact that the whole unbelieving world was already declared forgiven when Christ paid for the worlds sin. That faith doesn't make of an unjust man a just man as Scripture and the Confessions declare but is just a open and empty hand accepting that you've already been declared forgiven. You are no different after faith than you were before faith.

The WELS and all Lutheran Synods confess this false gospel of Universal Objective Justification. Anyone who does is condemned by God and stand outside the body of Christ as Paul clearly states in the first chapter of Galations. There are those in the Lutheran churches who out of ignorance or hypocrisy do not confess the false gospel of Universal Objective Justification but believe they are forgiven and justified by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone and not before faith. These are part of the invisible Church and are part of the body of Christ.

In Christ,
Brett Meyer

***

GJ - Actually, I disagree that there are no faithful pastors in WELS. I know there are pastors in WELS who realize how ridiculous UOJ is. In fact, there has been a shift toward emphasizing justification by faith (which is rumored to be in the Bible, throughout, unlike UOJ - which came from Halle U. and the Pietists).

The Synodical Conference leaders made a Pietistic mistake when they canonized rules of fellowship and practiced Mennonite shunning. They mistook outward actions for an inward love of the truth. Pretty soon they were doing wacky things, like excommunicating someone for having his son in an English speaking catechism class.

Luther's solution was to trust the Word and let God work through the Word. So he did not leave the Catholic Church. They excommunicated him - and he is still excommunicated.

I am deeply troubled by the many Boomer pastors and members who let their congregations and synod rot away. Issues in WELS did not have the courage to stay together when DP Free died, and very few showed their faces before that, when Gurgle showed up to glare at them.

I have friends and contacts in all the synods, except ELCA. I knew some pastors who realized the error of ELCA, but too late. Now they are like the people who thought Obama was the Messiah.

At any given time a Lutheran body is facing doctrinal error. However, they have not done a good job of dealing with those errors in the last 50 plus years. WELS may be different, but that remains to be seen.

Michigan District and Spriggs - Church Growth? - Say It Ain't So, Joe

Martin Luther Spriggs, ex-WELS pastor, Willow Creek Fan

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The CORE - Say No More":

I did not know where to post this but this is FYI:

The Michigan District Commission of Evangelism will present a seminar on Saturday, October 24th, beginning at 10:00 AM at Beautiful Savior, Cincinnati. The title for the seminar is "Reaching Out In a Digital World." The seminar has been prepared by Martin Spriggs, our synod's chief technology officer. The purpose of the seminar will be to help congregations:
* Recognize and understand the many technological tools available for use in outreach.
* Develop a plan to use the most appropriate digital tools to spread the Gospel.
* Mobilize congregational members to use digital tools for personal evangelism.
* Determine clear goals for outreach using the tools of today.

This smells like church and change to me. 

***

GJ - Here are a few hints:

1. Spriggs gave Willow Creek sermons verbatim, 25 years ago. His pastoral service was not listed in his WELS.net bio the last time I looked.
   
   
2. When Eastcoast insisted to me that Gurgle had disbanded Church and Chicanery completely - "gone, dissolved, scattered to the wind" - I asked, "Then why is their next conference linked on the WELS.net website? I am sure Spriggs would know why. Gurgle's candidate for SP is Don Patterson, so Gurgle is to Patterson as Bohlmann was to Kieschnick.
   
   
3. Anything from "Evangelism" in WELS, ELS, LCMS, ELCA, and CLC is Church Shrinkage.
   
   
4. Anything from American or world missions in those groups is Church Shrinkage.
   
   
5. Their periodicals promote Church Shrinkage.
   
   
6. One WELS pastor said, in print, that the crypto-Calvinists are no longer crypto. They are running the show. If SP Schroeder is supported, that can change, but it is a long haul, especially when the Good Ol' Boy network, cemented by GA abuse, is involved.

I am surprised they did not invite me to teach this technology seminary. I am a certified web designer. I can Photoshop - ask Kudu Don Patterson. I have created many blogs and taught various businesses and professionals how to blog. Oh - I know. I never went to Fuller Seminary, and I only went to Willow Crick once.

Lettermann Talks Like a Church Growth Guru

Who's sorry now?
Who's sorry now?
Whose heart is aching for breaking each vow?
Who's sad and blue?
Who's crying too?
Just like I cried over you?

Right to the end
Just like a friend
I tried to warn you somehow
You had your way,
Now you must pay
I'm glad that you're sorry now.

Right to the end
Just like a friend
I tried to warn you somehow
You had your way,
Now you must pay
I'm glad that you're sorry now

"I'm motivated by nothing but guilt. If you know anything about me, I am just a towering mass of Lutheran Midwestern guilt," he said sarcastically, to audience applause.
Townhall

The CORE - Say No More

Did you listen to His voice at the food kitchen run by Church and Change.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Learning from Cicero: The Decline and Fall of the ...":

Check out the CORE:

http://www.gotocore.com/comingup/

Did you...did you...did you...

No, I didn't and now you made me feel really guilty. That's the church for me!

And no, I didn't listen to His voice in a van down by the river. I hear His voice only in Word and Sacrament..... on Sunday where it should be, but isn't at the CORE.

WELS Member Comments

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Financial Picture More Dire Than Expected":

I am a WELS member and I don't know what to think about your blog. Part of me says well someone else notices the things I have. Part of me asks is it sinful or is it right? You'll notice I'm being cowardly and not signing my name.

I do think it's sinful nature that causes all of this and I pray for all of us. I too worry about sin but I am trying to trust in God to take care of it.

I do think putting sin in the light is a good thing. I know of more than one case of sexual molestation that has gone on and was not reported to the police. In fact the person who was molesting was kept in their job and yes the Synod's insurance has paid for it and maybe that is what it is going to take to stop that kind of enabling. Bad publicity and rising insurance costs come from bad decisions being made. Why would anyone want to help another in their sin is beyond me.

In response to the rent issue, I know of churches who greatly undervalues the cost of the rent on the parsonage so it reduces the tax cost. I have also known Pastors to get state assistance because they say they are in the poverty level. If you add in all their perks they make well over most of the congregation. I've also heard Pastor's speak about their work much like a lawyer does - in 6 min increments.

Gone are the days Pastors made house calls. All I ever get is a voice mail message and I'm lucky if my call is returned by the Pastor. It seems some are turning their jobs into becoming managers. I'm sad about that as it shows a lack of caring. But I also think it is a sign of the times.

I'd like to ask why is there so little accountability in the church? We are to abide by the governance's of our state but I think many skirt around that and no one enforces the constitutions. If you call anyone on it they call you a heretic. I have seen more than a few men drop off of council because of it.

But just how are we suppose to deal with sin inside the church? I will tell you I notice it, spoken out and have been criticized for it. IMHO these actions have hurt the members in worshipping their God. It is one reason I and I know many others who have pulled back from service.

I am not leaving WELS because I think they are the best thing out there - they preach the true word of God and as we approach the reformation I am reminded about the reason I love being a Lutheran. Remember what Luther's 1st petition was. Repentance.

So I am not sure about this blog but I keep coming back to read it. Maybe it's a good thing you're putting some of this in the Son-light. I pray God takes care of the rest.

***

GJ - All the synods cover up. In the case of one Shrinker, Missouri and WELS and the Little Sect on the Prairie all cooperated in enabling the criminal himself and in attacking anyone who dared object to a pastor having sex with the wives and daughters of the members. WELS and Missouri were happy to shake the money tree connected with this criminal, whose repentance consisted of claiming he was persecuted.

Do not overlook the Good Old Boy Network. Fred Adrian was famous for being so bad as the DMB Chair, Michigan District, WELS, that he was forced out. His married vicar went to state prison for molesting a minor girl in the congregation. WELS fought the lawsuit and lost, to the tune of $400,000 and promptly appealed the verdict. How do you like that - WELS taking a member to court? Fred wrote a happy letter to the congregation, saying, "Insurance paid for it."

However, Fred wrote two different vicarage reports, one saying he knew, one saying he did not know. (GA at work.) Fred resigned from the ministry but he has a call in the district again. There is only one sin in WELS - questioning WELS. Ditto ELS and LCMS.