"Recently, I spoke to an Episcopal rector in the Diocese of San Diego who told me, sadly, that he lived barely a mile from his bishop but not once in nine years has the bishop called him up. (They only meet at diocesan conventions.)"
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=14966
Mrs. Ichabod and I stopped to see a friend, 96 years old, as soon as we reached the Quad Cities. We both enjoyed seeing her. Unable to see, she squeezed our hands and smiled the whole time. She laughed when I told a story about her thanking me for adjusting the screen on her computer and saying, "Now put it back the way it was." Five years ago she made supper for us and insisted we stay at her home for the reunion. We skipped one reunion event to be with her. Visitation is not work and yet nothing replaces it. Personal visitation is essential.
DPs like to complain about the work pastors fail to do. WELS and LCMS DPs are just like Episcopal bishops. They are no longer parish pastors. I know WELS DPs pretend to be pastors, but they get funds to have someone do their work for them.
DPs never do any pastoral visitation. They only write letters to rebuke ministers for rocking the boat. They think of themselves as great and powerful executives. They are powerful, because they remain the single most important factor in the decline of their sects. They are "helpless" in dealing with doctrinal apostasy and the adultery of their pastoral friends, but their lupine jaws slaver at the thought of getting rid of a faithful pastor. They do not mind dissolving a congregation to get even with someone.
The Little Sect on the Prairie is no different. George Orvick, Jay Webber, and John Shep had no trouble with Floyd Luther Stolzenburg - until I gave them unwanted publicity for lying down with a dawg and gettin' up with fleas.
The last LCA bishop I knew complained to my face that people associated his district with all these "radical things that are being talked about." I replied, "Lie down with dawgs, git up with fleas." He said, "We have plenty of fleas."
Actual visitation would prevent decline and even reverse the rapid advance of apostasy, but the Lutheran bishops would rather enjoy their status. They get luxury vacations from Thrivent grants, disguised as conferences. The sect pays for their travel, often to exotic locations. Most members could not afford one of those trips. In several denominations I have heard leaders claim, "It is not us versus them!" But I have also heard their conversations, where it is clearly us versus them, because THEY alone are the church.
One university was famous for contacting the faculty only to rebuke them for being a few hours overdue for grading, or for violating new policies no had publicized. I knew some academic bosses who thought leadership started with slapping people silly (metaphorically) for the fun of it. I watched and waited - nothing new. But then they took a survey and suddenly salaries went up and personal thank-you notes began to be sent. They began to realize they were not the whole show or the only show. Changing schools is a click of the mouse button now, even for faculty.
Denominations are dead because people have realized that those offerings for the headquarters are simply to pay lazy bums huge salaries for acting important and visiting destruction wherever they go. They have the humility of peacocks and almost as much sense.
And Englebrecht will NOT show up for a scheduled meeting.
