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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The LCMS is sick and needs help. We have been saying that there is a crisis of supervision in the LCMS. This is just absolutely unbelievable! Who would have thought our grandfather’s church would come to this. I cannot believe that 30 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago anyone would imagine that the LCMS would sink so low as to have a congregation that has not only hired a promoter of the gay/lesbian agenda as a music director but then to openly state this on their website. What has made this pastor and his church so bold and courageous?
Bethlehem is a member of the Northwest District. We contacted President Schumacher of the Northwest District last Thursday morning by phone and e-mail about this situation. Since then the link from the congregation website to the Music Director’s personal website has been taken down but the congregation’s website still proclaims that the Music Director was the former artistic director of the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus. To see the current church website click here. To see the way it looked before we contacted the bishop click here (not everything plots correctly, but you can see the link to jamesHing.com in context). Once you get to the personal website of the music director (which actually is located at http://web.mac.com/hinger/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html; we have archived it here), click on the word “blog” and you will see further evidence of promotion of the gay and lesbian movement. If you cannot follow that link we have archived it here as a pdf. Notice the Music Director promotes a gay and lesbian radio program on his blog. The full article about this radio program is archived here.
We are not sure that it was by the bishops urging that the link has been taken down. The bishop has not told us anything other than acknowledging that he got our e-mail and phone message. Putting the best construction on it, it seems as though he is the one who gets credit for this small step in the right direction.
Of course, the problem is not limited to the embarrassment this sort of public statement by our sister congregation and brother pastor brings upon the rest of us in the LCMS who are supposedly walking in concord and unity under the scriptures and confessions. The solution is not limited to taking down the offending links and statements. The solution is to see to it that we do not have open and public sinners serving in our congregations. This sounds a lot like the Kari Jobe matter. We were told that it does not matter if the music director of the youth gathering was a Pentecostal woman pastor. Now are we going to be told that it doesn’t matter if a congregation’s music director is a promoter of homosexuality and lesbianism? Which sin is worse, corrupting the pure Gospel with false teaching (Kari Jobe) or corrupting the pure Gospel with impenitent sin (promoting the gay and lesbian agenda)? The solution not only involves removing the embarrassing links and removing the openly sinful worker. It also involves getting this pastor and all errant pastors to repent of their compromising theology of worship, evangelism, scripture, unionism, and sexuality.
There is much more to this story. We will keep you posted on it. The LCMS is sick and is in need of much more careful supervision from its bishops, pastors, and laity. Please pass this article on to your LCMS friends and relatives, not to embarrass our beloved synod but to use it as a means of alerting them to what has become of their denomination under its leadership in the last several years.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Is "Our Valpo" A Congregation? - Ripped from the P...":
You just read whatever you want into anything you want, don't you Mr. Jackson?
If a college is growing, do they not need more physical and intellectual resources, such as classroom space and faculty?
Why would a growing institution such as WLC not need more spiritual resources as well?
"Apparently the students are so spiritually starved from their own congregations that they need cell groups to tide them over during the week."
You may be the first pastor I have seen that frowns upon Christians spending time with the Lord and with each other outside the confines of their own congregations.
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GJ - I am a pastor? The Chicaneries are always telling me I am not. In fact, this anonymous, brave soul addressed his message "Mr. Jackson." I get a chuckle from people changing titles when they disagree with my Biblical, Confessional posts. One wit favored "pastorless," which means "without a pastor." Am I without a pastor? In fact, I have a number of friends who are pastors, and I value their judgment.
This story illustrates what another person observed, that bureaucrats grow their kingdoms, not by being more productive, but by building layers under them. The current campus pastor already has a staff, and now he needs an assistant to generate more cell groups. Wayne Mueller did the same thing, building up a core of loyal and obedient Shrinkers who marched to the mike at every convention and voted for additional loyal and obedient staffers.
Wisconsin Lutheran College (Brigadoon WELS, joining the synod during fund drives, then disappearing again) needs more Lutheran staff. WLC needs to boot the Chicaneries from the board. I am sure the new prez is a fine fellow, but he should head up a Babtist school since he came from Jeff Gunn's CrossWalk.
The rumor I heard is that the current campus pastor cannot get any interest going in his bee-bop whoopee services. Would another attendant at the beehive help? They should try a high church (for WELS) pastor, someone edified and inspired by the Book of Concord. College students favor real worship services, so WLC should be cutting edge with the liturgy, creeds, Gerhardt hymns, Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhardt, Jacobs, Krauth.
There are many reasons why WLC is called "Our Valpo."
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--- Anonymous has left a new comment on your post " Shrinkers turned doctrinal discernment into "sl...": Good morning Pastor GJ! Yes, the words "Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Church" are listed once on the Core's webstry. It is not even on the home page, you have to click on the categories and scroll down a few times. Are Ski and others ashamed of being Lutheran? Oh yes, I remember now. Jeske said, "Change or die." He went on to make fun of those churches "out-in-the-sticks." I did not laugh at his funny remarks concerning close communion. Jeske's unionism is blatantly public; therefore, my input is not needed. Hey, I like my fuddy-duddy church with its Folgers Coffee instead of lattes. In our new visitors folder it says that church is not a movie theater. Considering the Core, do you think they list that one in there visitor information? You have to admit, that's pretty funny just thinking about it. Can you down play the sacraments? With the "felt needs approach" one has to be hospitable to the guest. Give them a choice, for example, "Would you prefer the body or the blood?" (Yes, that's morbid,remember, the Roman Catholics used to be given only the bread.) There are churches near my home[not Lutheran]that do not offer communion. Disclaimer: Time of Grace is not featured on my church's web. In Christ, from WELS church lady
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GJ - How about "Hello, I'm Pastor Bob. We have an exciting hour for you today"? He is dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. That happens all the time.
Lutheran84
November 19, 2008
From Martin Luther: Hymns, Ballads, Chants, Truth page 8-13: "On July 1, 1523, the infant Reformation saw executed in the Brussels market place Heinrich Voes and Johann Esch, two Belgian Augustinia...
From Martin Luther: Hymns, Ballads, Chants, Truth page 8-13:
"On July 1, 1523, the infant Reformation saw executed in the Brussels market place Heinrich Voes and Johann Esch, two Belgian Augustinian monks and followers of Luther. Since wandering minstrels and their ballads served as the mass media of the day, Luther wrote this first hymn of the Reformation as a ballad recounting the martyrdom of these witnesses. First appearing in 1523 in broadsheet for, it, along with Luther's tune, was published in Johann Walter's 1524 Wittenberg hymnal.
Tr. F. Samuel Janzow, 1913 2001
Setting by Carl Schalk
Publisher Concordia Publishing House (1982)
http://www.youtube.com/user/Lutheran84
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LYRICS for A NEW SONG SHALL NOW BE BEGUN
Kelmed from this blog
By Martin Luther
1. A new song now shall be begun,
Lord, help us raise the banner
Of praise for all that God has done,
For which we give Him honor.
At Brussels in the Netherlands
God proved himself most truthful
And poured his gifts from open hands
On two lads, martyrs youthful
Through who He showed His power.
2. One was named John, a name to show
He stood in God’s high favor.
His brother Henry, well we know,
Was salt of truest savor.
This world they now have left behind
And wear bright crowns of glory.
These sons of God had fixed the mind
Upon the Gospel story,
For which they died as martyrs.
3. From where the Foe in ambush lay,
He sent to have them taken
To force them God’s Word to betray
And make their faith be shaken.
Louvain sent clever men, who came
In twisting nets to break them.
Hard played they at their crooked game,
But from faith could not shake them.
God make their tricks look foolish.
4. Oh, they sang sweet, and they sang sour,
They tried all their devices.
The youths stood firmly like a tow’r
And overcame each crisis.
In filled the Foe with raging hate
To know himself defeated
By these two lads, and he so great.
His rage flared high, and heated
His plan to see them burning.
5. Their cloister-garments off they tore,
Took off their consecrations;
All this the youths were ready for,
They said Amen with patience.
They gave to God the Father thanks
That He would them deliver
From Satan’s scoffing and the pranks
That make men quake and shiver
When he comes masked and raging.
6. The God they worshipped granted them
A priesthood in Christ’s order.
They offered up themselves to Him
And crossed His kingdom’s border
By dying to the world outright,
With ev’ry falsehood breaking.
They came to heaven pure and white;
All monkery forsaking,
They turned away from evil.
7. A paper given them to sign -
And carefully they read it -
Spelled out their faith in ev’ry line
As they confessed and said it.
Their greatest fault was to be wise
And say, “We trust God solely,
For human wisdom is all lies,
We should distrust it wholly.”
This brought them to the burning.
8. Then two great fires were set alight,
While men amazed did ponder
The sight of youths who showed no fright;
Their calm filled men with wonder.
They stepped into the flames with song.
God’s grace and glory praising.
The logic choppers puzzled long
But found these new thing dazing
Which God was here displaying.
9. They now regret their deed of shame,
Would like to slough it over;
They dare not glory in their blame,
But put it under cover.
They feel their gnawing infamy,
Their friends hear them deplore it.
God’s spirit cannot silent be,
But on Cain’s guilty forehead
He marks the blood of Abel.
10. The ashes of the lads remain
And scatter to all places.
They rise from roadway, street, and lane
To mark the guilty faces.
The Foe had used a bloody hand
To keep these voices quiet,
But they resist in ev’ry land
The Foe’s rage and defy it.
The ashes go on singing.
11. And yet men still keep up their lies
To justify the killing;
The Foe with falsehood ever tries
To give the guilt clean billing.
Since these young martyrs’ holy death
Men still continue trying
To say, the youths with their last breath
Renounced their faith when dying
And finally recanted.
12. Let men heap falsehoods all around,
Their sure defeat is spawning.
We thank our God the Word is found,
We stand it its bright dawning.
Our summer now is at the door,
The winter’s frost has ended,
Soft buds the flowers more and more,
By our dear Gard’ner tended
Until He reaps His harvest.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Luther - A New Song Shall Now Be Begun":
The traditions that the Crusaders hold near and dear, namely the hymns were actually contemporary once upon a time. Bach, oh yeah, was top 40 bach in the day...:)
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GJ - The question is whether a hymn is good, not whether it is old. There are many bad, old hymns. The comment above shows an impressive lack of knowledge about how hymns are judged.
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JR has left a new comment on your post "Ichabod Helps The CORE Poach":
One thing I still don't understand is why the CORE had to set up shop in Appleton. If Ski's methods are so wonderful, and he wants to reach people by doing everything short of sinning, then why put this church in the synod's backyard?
If numbers are all that matter, wouldn't it have been better to set up the CORE somewhere with little to no Christians? Wouldn't it have been better to put this church somewhere that WELS wasn't already established?
The inconsistencies in the philosophy of these guys and the application of said philosophy are too numerous to mention.
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GJ - I will try to explain it in a few paragraphs. JR, you are asking pertinent questions. That makes you impertinent in the eyes of the Shrinkers.
First of all, everything they do and say is a lie. They know it, and they enjoy deceiving people. They are not Lutheran, and they know it, but they fasten their belts around their ears and say, "You are hitting below the belt. Foul!" whenever someone asks about their doctrine and practice.
My intuition tells me they knew they were doomed long before Mark Schroeder was elected. They knew someone would force open the books and find out what an appalling mess they made out of the Schwan gifts. I wonder if Gurgle went overseas so he could bury the real books under a Yumyum tree.
The CORE was started as the escape vehicle for the WELS Church and Change fans in A-Town. If everything went badly, they could have a legal entity from which to start over without all the pain of meetings, corporate papers, etc. The Seminex gang did that, creating a foundation called FLUTE to be their vehicle, although that particular vehicle did not lure enough rats out of Missouri.
Outreach? There is a WELS church a block away doing real outreach. The CORE filled their movie theater (only at night) with WELS members. I don't have the latest figures but the first reports made Bernie Madoff seem frugal and selfless. Ski, Glende, Bishop Katie and other WELS workers take off to Schwaermer training conferences more often than Hollywood stars enter rehab. They are addicted to the buzz of the hive.
Mark and Avoid Jeske wants his own little denomination, or perhaps a core group to take with him wherever he goes. Katie and Ski are Jeske products, loyal as Shelties. Church and Change is a Jeske operation, based on board members alone, although some hit their cloaking device for effect, magically disappearing (Becker and Ski). Watch Jeske and everything will make sense. He is featured on the LCMS websty. That is a pretty big hint. Jeske's classmates have gone over to Missouri and they are also CG. One is a Missouri DP, etc.
Another interesting approach would be to follow the money. How much did Ski sell his home for in Milwaukee? Did it sell at market or way above? Who bought it? And who sold him a home in A-Town? Where is all this loot coming from, to fund The CORE - certainly not from 9 new members in about a year. They couldn't afford to pay the lease and utilities.
People respond most to the money issues, but the real issue is doctrine. These people, pastors and laity alike, have been pried loose from Biblical doctrine. Their only comfort is a brotherhood of deception, laziness, and fraud. I would love to know who started it. Ron Roth was a founder, but who else was involved? That would be good for a real dissertation, not a DMin by Steve Witte, although that has some gems in it.
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