Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Attend Change or DIE! - Or Else!":
Quotes from Jeske's speach:
the imprinting of our belief system is most effectively carried on through our system of schools. I don't have any romantic notions about my ability as a pastor to transmit Lutheranism just by getting a chance for twenty five minutes or so every other Sunday to talk to people. Those are just little Hors d'œuvre's...I'm just giving treats, like hopefully to spur people on to greater study.
8:57
Make disciples of all nations
19:10
And I put it to you, I think this is the number one thing that ails lutheranism right now in the city, is we, have no plan B. If your only goal is to find people just like us, or to breed em, to breed enough internally, that we have enough babies to grow internally, if those aren't working, maybe I'll call it plan C, that's A and B, if A and B are no longer replenishing enough to keep your organization going, what is plan C?
30:20
And I also have gone to way to many pastoral conferences where some guy got an assignment to prepare an essay that he didn't know anything about, and he manfully struggled with the Greek or the Hebrew, and came up with some blather that was of utterly no practical use to me whatsoever, and you endure those things and move on, I've had, I'm sick of it, I'm done with that kind of stuff, I don't what to read anything about evangelism unless it's written by somebody who has at least 20 adult confirmation a year or more in his congregation, I don't want to read about discipleship programs unless somebody has got a gangbuster set of Bible studies lay and clergy led going on in his parish. I don't wanna, I have no time anymore for people who aren't doing it, that's the only one I want to listen to.
31:44
what is the heart language...what is musical instrument is the core of all hispanic music?
33:35
If you're trying to do transformational ministry...pay attention to their heart language... The very first thing any missionary needs to do is shut the heck up and listen...before you start yapping.
35:14
I realized, we're dying, we have about a generation, I've got about a 20 year horizon before we go out of business.
36:42
We started to change our brand, from gathering our people...
37:45
The real future, I think, for Lutheranism is to decide to minister to people not like me.
41:20
Cont...
...vulnerable, at a very changeful point in their life, when they might really be interested in a sense of community, when their new and lonely we got everything they could want.
45:15
Consumer driven, thank God, that means they will force us to change, nobody ever wants to change, no business wants to change, dear God, no congregation or synod ever wants to change, we only change under pressure because we have to...and I'm glad that your generation is very demanding of what you want because you will force organizations to change if they want to stay in business and will generally, not in every respect, make us better.
47:26
Same thing with not automatic loyalty...many of the kids you might have gone to a Lutheran grade school with will end up outside of Lutheranism, cause the LCMS or WELS or whatever church in their neighborhood didn't meet their needs and they found much more fun at a nondenominational church.
48:00
The growth area in Christiandom right now is in the non denominational churches because they can adapt faster.
48:40
if your generation is very consumer driven, what's in it for me, is this giving me what I want? I think all the better because it will challenge denominations and congregations to adapt and change often in ways that they don't want to do.
49:34
If we keep doing things in the same way all of Lutheranism in Milwakee will disappear
50:45
Here's a few thoughts about change, my friend John Parlow up in St. Mark in DePere, he's got a very rapidly growing church, he says, "when you find you are riding a dead horse what is the very first thing you ought to do next? Dismount."
51:51
I heard Christian futurist Leonard Sweet, a Methodist guy teaches and does alot of consulting, very provocative guy, wrote a bunch of books, Leonard Sweet says "whether you like it or not the future of the church is coming COD, Change or Die." And so I realized that in the early 1980's if we don't change this place is going to die. And so we started just trying stuff...
52:25
And because I stuck my face in it and gave it legitimacy it was never argued over (creating his own gospel choir).
54:16
Growth and turning things around will come at a cost, it will not be easy you will be having to up the down escalator of apathy, deep ruts and people who will try to make theological issues out of every change that you try to propose.
Second, the message is non negotiable, the way in which you deliver that message is infinitely negotiable.
Worship leaders need to plan for the guests more than they need to plan for the club members.
We don't need pastors right now...meaning only like pastors tending the flock, we need missionaries who are going to do transformational change in their churches, to reconnect, not only people not like us but with our own younger generation that's getting away from us.
57:15
