Ben Wink has left a new comment on your post "No Creed But Willow Creek - That Is the Syn Confer...":
Grumpy,
I know from my own experience of at least one person who didn't receive a call in 2003, and then didn't get preference when the 2004 graduate calls came out.
When I graduated MLC in 2002 as a staff minister, I basically believe that they did not know what to do with me, but as they were trying to promote staff ministry (not a whole lot mind you), they gave me a one-year call.
After that one-year call was up, the 2003 call list came out and I wasn't on it. Then 2004, nothing. 2005, nothing. All the way through to almost 2011's call day now and I still haven't heard anything. Supposedly after a certain amount of time where they haven't given you a call, you are then simply plucked off the list of available candidates for no other reason other than you're embarrassing them.
Now I know that staff ministry graduates have been given calls in the intervening years. And to actual staff ministry jobs and not just teaching gigs because they went as a double track. So what gives?
In those intervening years I was completely cynical about the entire experience and now I am more of a realist with cynical tendencies. My view of staff ministry was to be a called helper for the church and school (if they had one) in any capacity that I could aid and assist the pastor and teachers. During my internship for instance, I never prepared or gave sermons but I did do shut in visits, helped with the youth groups and VBS, led the 55 and over Bible study, helped teach Catechism classes, led adult Bible class, was a communion assistant and an usher, did first time visitor follow-up contact, etc.
Nothing too radical and new agey about it. I went to MLC for five years, did the one-year internship and I graduated. Then a one-year call. Then nothing. The only place that could give me a job decided not to do so. Others graduated after me, some got calls, others not, but I can wager that those who didn't are still sitting around waiting for the call. That is if they haven't moved on with their lives like I had to in order to earn a living for me and my family.
Part 2 to continue...
Part 2
By the way, the one-year call thing I firmly believe is a convenient way to make the list of called graduates look more impressive than it actually is. Because who remembers that MLC 2007 graduate with the one-year call that then got nothing in 2008? No one but the student and their family. Oh, and the Conference of Presidents too because the list looks good, they don't have to bring them up when the next year's list comes out, and it looks like they actually did their job.
And then the cycle starts all over again. And to all you MLC students out there: think about your schooling carefully. Get a degree that you can use out there in the world. Because all I got with my staff min degree was the ribbon around it on graduation day. And don't think that it cannot happen to you. And don't think that you'll have any spiritual and/or emotional support from MLC after you've left there without a call. You'd think you'd get better treatment from a Christian college, but sadly that is rather naive thinking. The only regular contact you get is envelopes in the mail asking for financial support. Which they somehow want even though you didn't get a job in on call day.
I stumbled around in the dark for a couple of years because of this. MLC wanted nothing to do with me. I stopped attending church for a while, which was ironic because I waited everyday for a visit or contact with my church elders so I could chide them for waiting this long to get in touch with me, but that church didn't even bother. They might even still have me on the membership rolls. I even wrote an article for the Forward in Christ that was published, after they edited it a bit by eliminating the word "call" and inserting "assignment". Remember kids, if you get a call it is divine, but if you don't then it is an assignment with no divinity attached to it.
Finally, how do we know that God only has need of us for one-year at a place? That seems rather specific in an odd way that doesn't really have a Scriptural base. I mean if we pull at that string more, you could probably say the same for staff ministry, but I'll go with the deacon description for that. But the COP knows that this person is needed for only 365 days starting right after graduation. That this ISN'T regarded as ludicrous is even more ludicrous.
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GJ - The Doctrinal Pussycate will remind anyone that he can "march in and get rid of someone on the spot," although that never happens to those with Church and Change tattoos on their foreheads.
6 comments:
Ben Wink is right. The training one receives at MLC is not readily transferrable to another job, and with the exclusivist mindset and doctrine the WELS teaches, it is not easy to move to another denomination after growing up in the WELS. One would have to have doctrinal flexibility or indifference for that, and be able to overcome the propaganda one has heard over the years.
It seems most often the WELS and other synod establishments won't outright tell a person they'd never-ever receive a call. They just string them along. Sometimes it's a case of the faculty being divided about someone, but usually in the end the cons win out over the pros.
The one-year call only would be the cons' concession to the pros, I think. Once they are against you, you'd have to be a stellar performer to keep receiving calls. The cons read the synod call list and complain if they read so and so received a call.
Actually, all the synods string mediocre students along. From the day they enroll they suspect so and so won't receive a call, but they rely on tuition and student loans too much to tell the student to get lost, or at least come clean about their actual chances. For instance, I've heard of students being strung along until graduation who got pregnant and had to marry quick, students in the teacher track who smoked, just couldn't sing worth a hoot, or read music, period. (The last two are serious deficiencies in a musical church like the Lutheran church, even for pastors who can't judge whether a hymn is good or not. They'll pick all drab or hard hymns, and then can't even help the congregation struggle through them.) In the LCMS I heard of a student who had a conviction for selling marijuana several years before going into the pastor track, but that information remained in his student record for 8 years of schooling, and surely was one big reason he didn't receive a call.
I know of one case where a WELS pastor got a WELS teaching job, but then was eased out of that call merely for grading too hard (or more accurately, not grading as scandalously easy as the WELS wanted). When he contacted the DP about going back into the ministry, the DP told him he was out of the ministry too long. Of course, fat chance of him being accepted back at the seminary for a quick refresher course! So he got a job with the Antichrist in the teaching profession, but he didn't pope, of course, but continued going to a WELS church. When another WELS member was seriously interested in becoming a WELS teacher, he related his experience, and that person got wise and happily remained a public school teacher, but with the feeling of one who has been "saved...as one escaping through the flames" (1Cor 3:15). He felt no need for a baptism by fire in the WELS.
They want members and workers horrible for no longer being in the sect, which is another sign of cult behavior and thinking. WELS includes 5% only of all Lutherans in America, if that. The mini-micros are not even that, and they have the same tendencies. It does not come down to mediocre grades but mediocre genes - the more in-bred someone is (like Jeske) the better. Smoking pot? One guy was caught selling drugs, and he is a WELS pastor today. The homosexual candidates are also protected and transferred when caught, until they have police records.
Why do member churches support such a dishonest crapshoot? Are they simply ignorant? Intimidated?
Member churches are propagandized. WELS has a well-oiled PR machine in its monthly magazine, thrust into members' hands as they leave church; and in "The WELS Connection", the monthly 3-minute infomercial celebrating life in a flawless synod and detailing all the innovative church growth gimmicks and mission starts. Nobody gets out of church on the 4th Sunday until they watch it. And the members pay for these. When I left the Synod a year ago I shared some of my reasons with members of my congregation. I'd say that most had no idea what was happening.
Oh,yeah. One addendum to my above post. They play "shoot the messenger." Even if you have verified your facts independently, don't EVER say you heard about it on this blog. You will be discredited immediately.
"teachers....just couldn't sing worth a hoot, or read music, period. (The last two are serious deficiencies in a musical church like the Lutheran church, even for pastors who can't judge whether a hymn is good or not. They'll pick all drab or hard hymns, and then can't even help the congregation struggle through them.)
Those students are actually desired in WELS. They fit well with the WELS heritage and mindset:
"Wir sind von dem Wisconsin Synode; wir machen kein 'show.'" We're from the Wisconsin Synod; we don't make a show. - August Pieper
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