A few years ago, DP Seifert told the pastors that they would soon no longer recognized their synod. He failed to say he was one of the architects of the surrender to Church and Change.
Reality is hitting hard now. One source told me last night that most of the WELS parochial schools are closing or merging. There will be just a handful of schools left, all of them dependent on the Milwaukee taxpayer choice program, the deceptive charter school concept. Following Jeske's example, WELS will run a few schools, but they will be fueled by taxpayer checks. They are not private schools and are definitely not church schools. They are employment opportunities.
In the good old days, WELS refused government support and avoided being entangled in government regulation. Now WELS is just another cog in the public school system. For the clergy with their trotters in the trough, life is good for the moment. This set-up strikes me like junk food, appealing for a short time but disappointing soon after.
James Huebner, a fan of Rob Bell, is such an expert in evangelism that he once loaned himself out to other congregations (for a fat fee) - to share the wisdom he gleaned from Fuller Seminary. Now he moonlights as the First Veep of WELS. His parish gets a $10,000 kickback for this!
Check out his Grace Place Coffee Shoppe, formerly the Soul Cafe.
He claims Grace in downtown Milwaukee has tripled since his gracious visitation, but where is the school? The Milwaukee insider says that Grace has no school and must export the kiddies to another location.
Lutheran elementary schools in Milwaukee - wave goodbye. Going, going, gone.
The same trend is also obvious in Appleton, Wisconsin, where WELS members are just as dense as they are in Milwaukee. WELS congregations are closing/merging the schools there too, in spite of three decades of Church Growth in Fox Valley.
Following Jeske's lead, the Fox Valley churches are also going non-Lutheran. Naturally, they are intimately connected with his Church and Change operation, which still has its websty up and running.
Mary Lou College no longer has a role. The school was once a prep, college, and seminary for the Minnesota Lutherans. MLC became the teachers' college for WELS and later jettisoned the prep because it needed the space. They do not need a teachers' college when schools are rapidly closing and merging.
Nor does MLC need to remain open for dozen guys to get prepped for seminary. WLC could handle that, or they could lease a portable classroom at Watertown.
