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| Andy Stanley trained Ski and Glende, maybe Glende's old church should try multi-culturalism. |
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| Lenski suggests that sugar-coating the Gospel might not be a good idea. |
Tim Glende once served Star of Bethlehem in Savoy, Illinois? How is that church doing?
Bueller, Bueller, anyone?
PS - An email informed me that the congregation is out of money, cannot pay for anything, not even a supply pastor. Apparently Tim tried his Happy Clappy Tranformational Entertainment Worship here.
Why not send some of that loot wasted on The CORE to Star of Bethlehem?
That would be real, relational, and relevant.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Tell Us about Star of Bethlehem, Savoy, Illinois -...":
The glory of the (W)ELS. Sad to say but at least Glende left them a few hundred dollars, DP Buchholz left his old congregation with $1.3Million dollars of debt.
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GJ - An email states there is not a single Book of Concord in the Star of Bethlehem building. Tim doubtless took all the copies along with him, because he knows how important the Confessions are. He is quite an expert, according to his anonymouse blog.
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tell Us about Star of Bethlehem, Savoy, Illinois -...":
Congregation Meeting on May 20th After Service
http://www.starofbethlehem-savoy.org/
A very important congregation meeting will take place following the service on Sunday, May 20th. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend this meeting to help make decisions about the future of Star of Bethlehem.
May 1, 2012
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solafide (http://solafide.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tell Us about Star of Bethlehem, Savoy, Illinois -...":
From that, it looks like they are struggling, which is too bad. They are in one of the larger metropolitan areas in Illinois and have a huge Big 10 school (the largest school in the state) on their back doorstep.
After doing a quick church, the 2 closest churches are St. Mark's in Normal, IL (where they get their vacancy pastor) and Terre Haute, IN (which is also a vacancy and has been for quite some time).
View Larger Map
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tell Us about Star of Bethlehem, Savoy, Illinois -...":
The vacancy pastor for Glende's old church (he was there last in 2006) has a church website that doesn't mention the WELS at all, except there is an old bulletin from 2009 that mentions WELS in a blurb about closed communion. That bulletin can't be accessed through the site navigation and it looks like they forgot to delete it. So basically the WELS is only mentioned at St. Mark's when it has to "take one for the team"! The vacancy pastor is Pastor Paul Waldschmidt at St. Marks, Normal, IL:
No WELS mention:
Google: wels site:stmarknormal.com
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=wels+site:stmarknormal.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Star of Bethlehem in Champaign does mention the WELS prominently:
wels site:starofbethlehem-savoy.org
related post:
Update on Tim Glende's Church Growth Efforts in Savoy, Illinois:
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2012/05/update-on-tim-glendes-church-growth.html?showComment=1337631067976#comment-c5080047131610662596
8 comments:
From their website:
Star of Bethlehem is currently served by Vacancy Pastor Paul Waldschmidt. Pastor Waldschmidt is the pastor of St. Mark Lutheran Church, the WELS congregation in Normal, Illinois.
http://www.starofbethlehem-savoy.org/
The glory of the (W)ELS. Sad to say but at least Glende left them a few hundred dollars, DP Buchholz left his old congregation with $1.3Million dollars of debt.
Congregation Meeting on May 20th After Service
http://www.starofbethlehem-savoy.org/
A very important congregation meeting will take place following the service on Sunday, May 20th. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend this meeting to help make decisions about the future of Star of Bethlehem.
May 1, 2012
From that, it looks like they are struggling, which is too bad. They are in one of the larger metropolitan areas in Illinois and have a huge Big 10 school (the largest school in the state) on their back doorstep.
After doing a quick church, the 2 closest churches are St. Mark's in Normal, IL (where they get their vacancy pastor) and Terre Haute, IN (which is also a vacancy and has been for quite some time).
By now the vote is in, and one wonders whether Glende's old church got the up or down vote.
The church is (was?) on the south edge of town with open country (farmers fields) to three sides. The WELS likes to plant churches, for some reason, where few people live and can walk to, I think because the land is cheap in those locations. But it's cheap for a reason since businesses don't want to locate far away from their customer base. By the locations they choose, it seems the WELS wants only to cater to the car culture, and they seem to think that people who want to actually walk to church can remain heterodox, since they don't show enough commitment. (BTW, public transportation usually doesn't run on Sunday mornings and in the evenings in most cities.) It's the WELS CG version of Schuler's drive-thru church, where if people wanted to attend without a car, they were just out of luck. It's like the health insurance companies who locate their offices on the second floor of buildings without elevators in order to attract only the healthy.
I've heard of WELS churches failing in a large metropolitan area when two or more WELS churches were close by, but the nearest WELS church to Glende's church was 51 miles away in Normal, IL, according to the WELS church locator. Evidently the CG services were so bad, the WELS members there drove 51 miles to get away from it, or turned to local LCMS churches:
http://welslocator.locatorsearch.com/
Map:
http://g.co/maps/x4kc9
Greg,
Schadenfreude much?
The vacancy pastor for Glende's old church (he was there last in 2006) has a church website that doesn't mention the WELS at all, except there is an old bulletin from 2009 that mentions WELS in a blurb about closed communion. That bulletin can't be accessed through the site navigation and it looks like they forgot to delete it. So basically the WELS is only mentioned at St. Mark's when it has to "take one for the team"! The vacancy pastor is Pastor Paul Waldschmidt at St. Marks, Normal, IL:
No WELS mention:
Google: wels site:stmarknormal.com
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=wels+site:stmarknormal.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Star of Bethlehem in Champaign does mention the WELS prominently:
wels site:starofbethlehem-savoy.org
related post:
Update on Tim Glende's Church Growth Efforts in Savoy, Illinois:
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2012/05/update-on-tim-glendes-church-growth.html?showComment=1337631067976#comment-c5080047131610662596
More on the Savoy WELS church history:
Savoy, Illinois
By admin: on May.12.2009
http://blogs.wels.net/missions/2009/05/12/savoy-illinois/
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