I once saw a book or tape on the Cutting Edge of Church Growth. That would be the circumcision party of the Christian Church. A generation of synodical employees--from Kieschnick, Moldstad, Gurgle on up--have made careers out of shrinking their churches in the name of growth, while their craven co-workers announced how everyone in the synod was conservative, confessional, Biblical, etc.
The WELS Shrinkers have shown themselves to be lazy, lying copycats. They defend themselves by copying the name and style of this blog, revealing even more about themselves. They are too lazy to blog more than once a month. The liars hide their identity while quashing comments. They spend their time proving how stupid Mequon graduates are. The Sausage Factory should shut down the fake blog just to protect what is left of the school's shredded reputation.
Meanwhile, Church and Change is chasing yesterday's dream.
In contrast, the cutting edge is before your eyes.
A. Youth want traditional liturgical services, not badly performed whoopee worship. Many alienated Lutherans would love to have a Christ-centered Means of Grace service.
B. The Church and Money Changers are limited to taking over congregations where they are stuck with old buildings or enormous leases. Their triumph is mitigated by the need to pay the bills. They are too lazy to do pastoral work, so they spend an inordinate amount of time skimming synod funds, begging for Thrivent loot, or applying to foundations.
In contrast, Bethany Lutheran has almost no overhead. Similar to online education, there are no limits to outreach world-wide - except for bandwidth and computers.
C. The Shrinkers are secretly ashamed of their plagiarism. At least they are worried about being caught at it. They do not post their stolen sermons or save their purloined homilies. When caught at violating the law, they hide the evidence.
However, Bethany's digital files are saved, and thousands have viewed them. The sermons are posted twice each week. Readers report how they are printed and shared, emailed to others. Those who are quoted are cited.
D. The Shrinkers love to brag about their outreach, but channeling Groeschel, Stanley, Driscoll, Warren, and Sweet to bored Lutherans is not evangelism. The Shrinkers avoid video. They are too lazy to blog. Their websites are an embarrassment to all Lutherans, offering no content except links to false teachers and imitations of their style, such as asking for soft-core porn confessions online. They want to be hip, but they are stuck in the 19th century, with bricks and mortar limiting them as much as their doctrinal torpor does.
The only task of pastors is to sow the seed carelessly, without anxiety, without judging the results. Ironically, in farming and gardening, this is called broadcasting, just as it is in radio, TV, and the Internet. As a result, Bethany reaches people all over the world, as the Feedjit map shows. People alienated from the Lutheran Church have written and joined in the services, which were designed for the original calling group. Can any WELS/ELS church claim 20,000 people interested? Our unique readers number 20,000. The normal daily page reads are between 1500 and 2000 pages each day, seven days a week. The readers search the site, so they do not limit themselves to the daily posts. They have at their disposal:
1. Quotations from Luther, Chemnitz, Chytraeus, Schmauk, Jacobs, Walther, Hoenecke, J. P. Meyer. The citations are always given.
2. Quotations from the Shrinkers and their gurus - Valleskey, Kelm, Hunter, Olson, Huebner, Patterson, Sweet, Driscoll, Stanley, Groeschel, Wagner, and many more. Citations or links - of course.
3. Verbatim proof of synodical apostasy. The pages are often copied from the Net before they are erased by the Shrinkers. The original links are supplied, even if they are broken later.
4. Weekly sermons, plus services for Lent, Advent, and special days in the church calendar.
5. Doctrinal discussions - such as the origin of Pietism.
6. Hilarious graphics from three different sources.
7. Links to interesting blogs, Lutheran documents, and classic hymns.
8. Almost 5,000 posts so far, since 2007.
The Shrinkers are full-time employees, many enjoying an assistant female pastor as a perk. How do they manage to do so little in a week? Their ambition is limited to anonymous attacks on anonymous blogs, with support from their beer-soaked friends, who post anonymous comments when not suffering from DTs.
