Here Is a Good Idea To Avoid: Dancing Christmas Flashmob

They just get up and dance badly.

This could have been planned.

Rehearsed?

My Christmas would have more meaningful with this going on.

Note to My Slave Drivers Motivators

Cover design and art by Norma Boeckler

My pals in publishing have been applying the lash to my back. "Where there is a whip, there is a way," they claim.

I appreciate the motivation. I have spent an enjoyable day going over an almost-final editing of the justification book. My gruff but likable editor will have a go at it, and so will some others, I am sure. If someone needs the Word document for editing purposes, I can provide that. Otherwise, the PDF will be available later tonight.

I plan on additional improvements and enlargements, but this is it for the time being. I will focus on typos and cosmetic improvements for now. Feel free to contact me at gregjackson1948@qwest.net

Upgrades are dated, so you can tell which version is uploaded by looking at the free PDF. This one will say Epiphany edition, 2011. A later one would say Lent or Easter. I expect to have an enlarged, improved edition in print for the May, 2011 Left Coast Trifecta - ELS, WELS, LCMS.

Thy Strong Word
Meanwhile, I am accumulating editing suggestions for Thy Strong Word. People are discovering how long it takes to go over a text and list corrections. One time an entire university--in Germany--looked over every page of a new book before it was printed. They found hundreds of errors and were convinced that it was the first book ever printed with no mistakes in it. Afterward, people found hundreds that were missed.

That happened with CLP. Herman Otten and a German student went over the text and found lots to correct. When they were done, LI found even more errors that they missed. Herman was dumbfounded, "But my helper was a German!"

WELS Hitting the Skids - For the Same Reasons

Half-trained plagiarists are filling the slots.


bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":

Narrow-minded Lutheran, The tuition cost at the seminaries has always been prohibitive since the 1980s, I'd wager. Then because they couldn't get enough M Div students (to meet a projected demand that never materialized), they promoted the DELTO and SMP programs instead of lowering the tuition price and granting more scholarships to get more M. Divs.

This happened in the WELS, too. Both synods now have plenty of pastors who don't know any Hebrew or Latin. The WELS ministerial college (NWC and then at MLC) quickly became more expensive than the state universities, just like the LCMS.

I can't remember the acronym the WELS uses for these students (if there is an acronym), but they usually go by the title "second career students."

Due to there being so many DELTO and SMP grads, and WELS second career grads, now all available slots are taken, so the call system has been locked up for years in both synods. Several years ago already any LCMS pastor who resigned to the "candidate" status would have a hard time getting back into the ministry in the LCMS, since they had to make room for students to get calls. In the LCMS, if you don't make the cut, you're banished to one of the lower paying synods, or the ELCA, if you still want to be in the ministry. Good luck with that if you ran up a big student loan bill at LCMS schools!

Lately, a retired WELS pastor who wanted to be a vacancy pastor during retirement told me that the whole vacancy pastor field has dried up since the call system in the WELS has locked up, and calls are filled in record time. Now these pastors can only hope to fill in a mid-week or Sunday service here and there. Now they wish they hadn't retired when they did, and they rue the fact that many slots are filled by half-trained men.

More proof of the decline of WELS is available online 24/7.
Foward (sic) this to your pals.

Mercy! - The LCMS Budget Is Corrupt Beyond Belief

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":

The $28 million budget for the two seminaries is just 2.5% of the LCMS synodical budget. A chunk of that includes student tuition.

The CPH budget is $39 million, which is just 3.39% of the LCMS budget. That would include all the book sales, no doubt, including sales of books to seminary students from the campus bookstores. I'm not sure whether Concordia U bookstores are now run by CPH. It was only a few years ago that CPH started running the seminary bookstores. One can see why CHP editors aren't itching to become seminary or CU professors!

I'm glad to see that the districts are only $84 million of the budget. From what I've seen in the past, one would think it would be much more, yet all the districts combined spend less than Corporate Synod. The rhetoric suggests that the districts dip into funds that would go to synod and missions.

Looking at the budgets of 2009 through 2011, it's interesting that the only synodical entity not to take a budgetary cut was Corporate Synod. The Districts, Seminaries, CPH, LCEF, Foundation and CHI (Concordia Historical Institute) each sustained a hit. Of course, Concordia Plans and CUS (Concordia U System) budgets aren't really controlled by the synod--only influenced by the synod.

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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":

I thought the LCMS Constitution states that one of the primary purposes of the synod is to support the sems and train men to administer Word and Sacrament. What is being done is shameful. Keep pumping in those Ablaze dollars, folks. Who needs the Means of Grace when you can "make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" Who needs the Means of Grace when we're all forgiven anyway? Spending Sunday morning on the golf course is regarded as equally valid.

***

GJ - Concordia St. Louis suddenly had to have their own chapel, which is pictured above and underwritten by St. Marvin of Schwan. I thought he was WELS/ELS.

Mary Lou College suddenly had to have its own, separate chapel, so they built an $8 million cathedral after they re-arranged the books at The Love Shack (now called The Guilt Factory). The chapel was not built while the $8 million was missing. Then it was built, but no one explained where the loot went and where it came from. Apparently, this was also a St. Marvin of Schwan act of atonement.

Both schools are in the dumpers, so this proves that a cascade of cash does not make a college or seminary viable.

Both schools would be full of students today if the money had been applied to scholarships rather than another edifice to glorify a man who left his wife and married the Roman Catholic wife of his subordinate.

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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Mercy! - The LCMS Budget Is Corrupt Beyond Belief":

The chapel, Saints Timothy and Titus, does exactly mirror Walther's blend of Pietism and Lutheran theology, which is really Calvinism making inroads into Lutheranism. When it was built, people said, "Hmm, four white walls and a sermon". Now on some days they have cell groups instead of chapel. No surprise there!:

http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=12394

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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Mercy! - The LCMS Budget Is Corrupt Beyond Belief":

Is the altar on wheels to make room for the praise band?

Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Supporting the Seminaries

Zwingli's doctrine - Zwinglian results.


bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Lifetime Achievement":

Narrow-minded Lutheran is right about the LCMS seminary budget. The LCMS tabulates its budget like Schroeder says the WELS will do from now on, so that no matter where the schools or other entities get their money (gifts, tuition, etc), it still counts under the synodal budget.

The LCMS budget for both seminaries is $28,946,000, of which $300,000 comes from the synod for naming rights. The total budget for the LCMS is 1.16 billion dollars. See:

http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=10186

http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/Board_Of_Directors/Program%20Budget%20Summary%20-%20FY11.pdf

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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":

Narrow-minded Lutheran, The tuition cost at the seminaries has always been prohibitive since the 1980s, I'd wager. Then because they couldn't get enough M Div students (to meet a projected demand that never materialized), they promoted the DELTO and SMP programs instead of lowering the tuition price and granting more scholarships to get more M. Divs.

This happened in the WELS, too. Both synods now have plenty of pastors who don't know any Hebrew or Latin. The WELS ministerial college (NWC and then at MLC) quickly became more expensive than the state universities, just like the LCMS.

I can't remember the acronym the WELS uses for these students (if there is an acronym), but they usually go by the title "second career students."

Due to there being so many DELTO and SMP grads, and WELS second career grads, now all available slots are taken, so the call system has been locked up for years in both synods. Several years ago already any LCMS pastor who resigned to the "candidate" status would have a hard time getting back into the ministry in the LCMS, since they had to make room for students to get calls. In the LCMS, if you don't make the cut, you're banished to one of the lower paying synods, or the ELCA, if you still want to be in the ministry. Good luck with that if you ran up a big student loan bill at LCMS schools!

Lately, a retired WELS pastor who wanted to be a vacancy pastor during retirement told me that the whole vacancy pastor field has dried up since the call system in the WELS has locked up, and calls are filled in record time. Now these pastors can only hope to fill in a mid-week or Sunday service here and there. Now they wish they hadn't retired when they did, and they rue the fact that many slots are filled by half-trained men.

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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Your LCMS Benevolence Dollars - Not At Work Suppor...":

Thanks for your comments, Bruce. I well-remember the "pastor shortage panic" that Missouri was promoting. I think this past Spring's number of uncalled candidates, particularly at Fort Wayne, brought the truth to light, although I believe nearly all have been placed now.

The "shortage" figures were deceptive by including parishes not seeking a full-time pastor. Some parishes don't want to pay for the Concordia Plan, some are served by an emeritus pastor, and some are in districts whose DP's are happy to allow vicars to administer the Sacraments.

Rare 340 Year Old Bible Found in LCMS Church.Staff Cannot Read Roman Numerals!

"My students could read Roman numerals. If not, pow!"




bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "The increasing frequency of Holy Communion in Prot...":


Rare 340-Year-Old Bible printed on pig skin Found in Wisconsin Lutheran Church, anuary 16, 2011.

http://blogs.fox11online.com/2011/01/11/1670-bible-found-in-bonduel/

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978932570

St Paul, Bonduel, WI, NW of Green Bay:
http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/sitelist/02/churches_list.asp?st=WI

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Bonduel Lutherans Find Centuries-Old Bible

By Tiffany Wilbert, twilbert@shawanoleader.com

A teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Bonduel discovered a 17th century relic inside a walk-in safe. A German Bible of Luther’s translation, printed in 1670 in Nuremberg, Germany, by Christoph Endter was discovered in an old section of the recently remodeled church and school. The Bible is huge by today’s standards — 17.5 inches long, 11.5 inches wide and 6.5 inches thick. It has a pigskin binding over boards with brass bossed corners and clasps and contains a copy of the Augsburg Confession, the principal doctrinal statement of the theology of Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers as presented to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at Augsburg, Germany, on June 25, 1530. The Augsburg Confession relates that the grace of God and faith alone save Christians, not deeds and tithes as was the practice at the time for Catholics. “It is a beautiful link connecting us back 3 1/2 centuries ago to a different continent where God provided his same eternal life-giving word,” Pastor Timothy Shoup said. Experts say the Bible is in fine condition. The congregation intends to keep it long enough to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2013 and possibly permanently.Debra Court, the sixth-grade teacher who discovered the Bible, said she found it a couple of years ago while searching for a baptismal reference book to show her class.	WFRV-TV 5 News Report
	WLUK-TV Fox11 News Report
“It was just tucked away in the corner on a shelf,” she said. “I never would have imagined it was that old.” Still, no one realized its significance. After changing hands among some staff for lesson purposes, the Bible was brought to the attention of Shoup. “Thinking the Bible was probably from the 1800s, I let it sit in my office for months before taking a closer look,” Shoup said. The Roman numerals MDCLXX (1670) found on the cover page sparked his interest in finding out more about it. Shoup contacted Concordia Seminary Library in St. Louis and sent personnel there several photographs of the Bible. They were able to determine its authenticity. “It’s rare to find one that old,” Special Collections Cataloger Lyle Buettner said. “No two copies of hand-pressed books are absolutely identical.” Copies of the 350-year-old Bible can be found in various libraries in Germany and the United States, including Concordia. Buettner believes the value to be between $1,000 and $1,500. Considering the rarity of the piece, keeping it safe from damage was a top priority. Buettner’s instructions were quite simple, to keep it stored away from light and away from humidity. “A dark, cool place is good,” Buettner said. Handling it with clean, bare hands is the best way to preserve it for viewing. The school’s safe was really an ideal place for preservation over the years, Shoup said. After debating between keeping the Bible or donating it to Concordia’s collection for research purposes, Shoup decided it would be kept with the congregation for the time being. “Our ancestors came over to settle in the Bonduel area approximately 150 years ago, with likely one family porting this Bible in their trunk,” Shoup said. He hopes to create an acid-free display case for it. “It would be nice to allow God’s people to enjoy this precious book for generations to come,” Shoup said. “This particular Bible is important because it marks time, how God has chosen to speak his same grace into our hearts in all times, in 2011 or in 1670.” The congregation was able to view the Bible during services this past fall. “To have something keep that long and be preserved so well, that’s really something special,” John Boettcher, 60, said. As a member of the congregation all his life, Boettcher said ancestry is very important to him. “I would want to keep the Bible here in Bonduel,” he said. Another long-time congregation member, Jim Brandt, 81, was impressed when he saw the Bible. “Modern printing methods don’t produce anything like that,” he said.