Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Cutting Edge - In 1958



AC V has left a new comment on your post "Bet on Bad Doctrine in the Age of Apostasy":

And this is a Lutheran Church? Just what I need on Sunday morning - a seminar on how to balance my checkbook. Check out Hope Lutheran Church (WELS) in Dousman, WI this Sunday, if you want to either be formed into a Pharisee or sent a guilt trip:

The Good Life. How could the richest nation on the planet, the nation with the most resources and the most opportunity be facing financial crisis? It's obvious isn't it? Isn't it the other political party? Or it's the current administration? Or it's the previous administration? Nope. The problem isn't in Washington. The problem is looking at you in the mirror. As we begin this series, we will discover that if our country is ever going to experience a recovery, it will start when the Christians begin paying attention to what God has taught us about how to handle financial responsibility.

http://hopeinjesus.org/

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Bet on Bad Doctrine in the Age of Apostasy":

(W)ELS is not using the Confessional Lutheran clergy to teach the next generation of Seminarians.

 They’re using the cutting edge New Age Emergent clergy like Ski, Glende, Patterson and Oldenburg.

(W)ELS Pastor Jerrod Oldenburg – Eternal Rock Lutheran Church, Castle Rock, Co.
State of the Church 2012

01:55 - (W)ELS “Seminary asked if (he) would come and talk to the students about what it takes to start a church”
04:45 – “People are the most important part of a church.”
05:20 – “In order for us to have any success in trying to build a church we have to make sure we’re on the same page.”
06:50 – “How can we set it up so we can do worship with excellence.”
07:00 - “We don’t have a baptismal font today, we’re working on trying to pick the right bowl.”
07:15 – “we’re doing this because we’re ultimately trying to build this launch pad.”
07:44 – “So we said, what is the best possible way that we can get people to learn in God’s Word, so we went back and forth and we ended up saying let’s do like some sort of small group kind of idea.”
07:55 - “Some people asked why don’t we have Bible study right away – well we kinda wanta make sure we do worship well. So then we went to bible study and we worked on that and we started doing Grow Groups. And we’ll talk about how this is kinda shaken out in the end. And we also wanted to do some Serve Activities.”
09:30 – “we have over 30 people signed up for Grow Groups.”
09:50 – “Service. You say well how many people do we want to serve? The number I use is 50%, now this is probably getting a little convoluted, but 50% of the average adult attendance, so if we have 35 people I’m hoping we have 18 people serving in church in some way. And you say that actually doesn’t make sense because as a church you say we want you to worship, we want you to grow, and Bible study be we also want you to serve so why do we only want 50%? Well one, if you serve at the women’s shelter I don’t get reports from that. I have no idea how many of you are outside of these doors going to do something in the community and I have no way to figure that out. So I can say, of our own people I’m shooting for 50%. And why don’t we have a 100% of our people serving in church every week? Does anyone lift weights…yeah, burnout that’s exactly it, if you lift weights you don’t actually grow…your breaking down your muscle fibers as I understand it, breaking them down, breaking them down and the only time that they grow is when they recover. And I think it’s the same thing as believers…”
12:30 – “So we said let’s reduce this as much as possible. I want to do three things, cause that’s like triune and really neat. We couldn’t do it. We got it down to four, worship, growth, serve and share. But there’s something interesting though, we’ve nailed number three, have we nailed number four, really well?”
29:00 – “So you draw your little rocket…so right above that write five names of people that you want to say I want to have intentional impact with this year. Just five names…put it some place where you’re going to remember…”
http://www.eternalrock.org/media.php?pageID=23

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/search?q=oldenburg

2 comments:

Brett Meyer said...

Crossroads Consulting Ministry Diagnostic Analysis report for (W)ELS St. Paul’s
http://www.splnewulm.org/church/publications_church/diagnosticanalysis2011.pdf

A consultant team including Pastor Elton Stroh, Pastor Robert Raasch, and Staff Minister Dr. Scott Gostchock was formed to assist St. Paul’s in conducting a Phase 2 diagnostic analysis. The purpose of this analysis was: (1) to obtain an accurate description of your congregation in its current spiritual and physical state – including blessings and challenges, and (2) to create a data baseline from which to plan future ministry and measure the effects of future efforts.

Another significant issue in every congregation preparing to plan future ministry is consensus.

A list entitled, Reasons Churches Stop Growing, was shared with your leaders. They were asked to add to the list (if they desired), check all that were significant at their church today, and identify the #1 issue their church was facing at this time. Leaders added The School Connection. The number before each item indicates how many of the 13 leaders identified that item as significant. The list included the following:
2 - Mission (struggle with the question, “Why do we exist?”)
10 - Vision (lack of a sense of purpose, direction, focus, or excitement)
3 - Philosophy of Ministry (don’t understand WHY we do WHAT we do the WAY we do it)
11 - Spiritual Growth (shallow spiritual life, low level of participation in Bible study)
_3 - Programs (lack of opportunity/variety, not based on real needs)
8 - Staff (not sufficient, not properly trained, not fully committed)
0 - Organizational Structure (the system doesn’t serve the vision)
1 - Facilities (not enough space for people, programs, parking, etc.)
_4 - Culture (failure to adjust to or connect with the community)
_1 - Conflict (major internal issues with relationships)
_3 - The School connection (added by your leaders)

Reaching consensus is always a concern within a congregation. Consensus might be defined as a desired end result of a process that involves as many people as possible in reaching widespread and congenial agreement. Reaching consensus involves: (1) allowing adequate time and opportunity to communicate necessary information, (2) creating an environment where everyone’s input is welcomed, and (3) engaging participants in dialog that leads to better understanding, healthy compromise, and greater unanimity. The process would usually not involve voting, except as a formal affirmation and recording of what has been agreed to previously.

Brett Meyer said...

Continued quote from above report:

 There were 1,427 giving units in your congregation.
 The grand total of all giving was $1,229,081 (not including tuition/fees, interest, or similar sources).
 The top 5% or 71 of your giving units gave $562,799 or 45.8% of your income.
 The top 10% or 143 of your giving units gave $805,302 or 65.5% of your income.
 The top 20% or 285 of your giving units gave $1,037,718 or 84.4% of your income.
(WELS norm: top 20% give 75% of their congregation’s income.)
 The top 50% or 713 of your giving units gave $1,229,081 or 100% of your income.