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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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Candidate for Anger Management Class":
Kyle Fax simply does not get it. The impressions left by synod and its schools either attract or repel prospects and members. Like it or not, members are customers of WELS. If I do not like what they are doing, I stop supporting them as much. Over the years I have cut way back because of the disgraceful nonsense, wastefulness, and declining confessionalism. I imagine many others feel the same way. After all, giving to WELS is not the same as giving to God.
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GJ - If Martin Luther College were a citadel of Lutheran orthodoxy, they would have something to offer. However, ever since Ted Hartwig, MLC has been a citadel of feminism, unionism, and Enthusiasm. Larry Oh! got his DMin at Fuller Seminary, which qualified him to teach Church Growth - something he never accomplished in his only parish - Love' Park. Each year, MLC invites the most notorious Chicaneries to add a rinse cycle to the brain-washing there. If readers want a who's who of Enthusiasm in WELS, look at the speakers' list for their mission day, with Paul Calvin Kelm as the keynoter.
Therefore, MLC has decided to be one more mainline denominational school with high costs and limited prospects for its graduates. The promotion of tacky videos as "fun" suggests that the administration (a) wants to be cool and (b) lacks the spine to spank the children of connected WELS leaders.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Eberle, Shrinker, Backed Jeske":
Where is everyone today? Looks like even Pastor GJ is busy with other venues.
In response to mjleyrer,
Who said ,"Change or die?" Who said,"Those stick churches?"
Who is deeply involved with the liberal section of the LCMS?(meaning not the Confessional LCMS folks)
Yes, Jeske made fun of Close Communion. Does he know that WELS teaches against unionism? Perhaps Pastor GJ could provide a link to that Concordia Mequon Speech.
Is he ashamed of being Lutheran? I am not ashamed of being WELS despite the issues with money, C&C, and Kokomo.
mjleyer, help us Confessional Lutherans. We will start our own C&C. How about Conservative And Confessional!
In Christ,
from WELS church lady
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GJ - I linked Jeske's Mequon speech before. I repeat some information because people often stick with the front page.
Someone told me he checks the blog three times a day, so I always think of him when I am doing updates, or feeling too sleepy to do one.
I did have three posts by around 6 AM, which is about 6 hours before the Shrinkers wake up. A lot of comments came in while the grandchildren were visiting.
By the way, Shrinkers rage against the cat photos, so I added a new one from one of our resident artists.
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The Show: Each Sunday at the 10:30 a.m. service, the sanctuary at St. Marcus Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, becomes a television studio for "Time of Grace," a 30-minute TV program featuring the Rev. Mark Jeske. The senior pastor delivers his sermon not only to his congregants, but also to three TV cameras that send his words into homes across the U.S. "It's a sermon delivered by a friend," says Jeske. The show also incorporates Bible study with Jeske (pictured), filmed in a studio.
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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.
