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| This is the original Bethlehem Lutheran Church, WELS, 312 W Elm St Urbana, IL 61801, which Glende sold to St. Nicholas in 2001. Locals say the church was debt free. |
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| This is the interior of St. Nicholas, perhaps named because it was virtually a gift from WELS, with a choice location on the campus of a major university. |
The staff bios at St. Peter in Freedom are intriguing. Everything is a mixture of fact, fiction, and withheld information. For example, Ski is on the staff, but he is not pictured - to preserve the fiction that The CORE is a congregation, not a sheep-stealing evening service, with attendance stalled at the original level.
Three of them went to Michigan Lutheran Seminary, but Phil thinks it was Michigan Lutheran Seminar. No one notices the spelling?
Fact and Fiction
Glende: 1998-2006 - pastor of Star of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Urbana & Savoy, IL.
He is honest about two locations, but there is a lot more to the story.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, WELS, 312 W. Elm Street, Urbana, was a large congregation on the campus of the University of Illinois. The spacious building was paid for.
Glende received a call to the congregation in 1998.
The Eastern Orthodox bought the property in 2001. A priest on the staff confirmed that they bought their property from WELS and immediately began using it. The Eastern Orthodox have two churches and a student center on the sprawling campus, a total of three properties. They are not a large denomination but they clearly want to serve the student population.
Glende sold the church, which was paid for, and also changed the name from Bethlehem Lutheran Church to Star of Bethlehem [Lutheran omitted].
Glende learned this hatred of the name Lutheran at St. Paul not-WELS in German Village (Columbus, Ohio), where he grew up. That was another smoke-and-mirrors congregation.
Star of Bethlehem got rid of their choice location so they could rent something until the dream cathedral was built. Nothing worked out and a plain jane was built on the end of a corn field, outside of town. They exchanged a great building in a perfect location for a lesser building in a horrible location, with a pile of debt added.
Glende left to be the assistant at Freedom, Wisconsin, where the senior pastor was chairman of Church and Change. C and C is now in stealth mode, but still runs the Wisconsin Sect.
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| This twice-failed bar in downtown Appleton, near a real WELS congregation, was bought with a grant from WELS, to be remodeled with a loan from WELS. |
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| Your offering dollars turned this... |
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| into this. |
Meanwhile, the story of St. Nicholas is just the opposite:
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| Going into the former WELS church building. |
---
St. Nicholas Church in Urbana, Illinois began in 1995 with the chrismation of two families who wanted to be Orthodox Christians, share the faith with others, worship in English, and not have to uproot their families to do it. We began meeting in a living room with priests visiting us, initially for catechism and later for Sunday evening liturgies. We moved first to a rented chapel on the University of Illinois campus, and three years later to our present location, a remodeled existing church building.
An astute observer of church growth once noted that planting a church is a lot like life as a pioneer in the American West. First the explorers come, the individuals who are venturing out into areas where no one has been before. Then the pioneers who move into unsettled territory and have to establish the initial structures that support those who will hopefully follow. And then the settlers come, the ones who turn a wide place in the road into a place to live and work for generations to come. Our experience was not unlike this. Two families who wanted to be Orthodox because they believed it to be the fullness of the faith but really didn’t know what they were getting into came first. Then a few others joined them who could see the outline of liturgical life because of the priests that traveled through and who could tolerate the conditions of inconsistent pastoral care, no choir music, no one to teach church school, or bake the bread except them. They did the work of setting up and tearing down while we met in temporary space. They dealt with dance music blaring in the next room while we sat in the dark, hoping the secular party would end, so we could start the Paschal Nocturnes. And now those who are more like settlers, with the gift of a place to meet, teach, and worship are being added to our number. There are those who are drawn by the ancient worship and centuries-old doctrine, who are working to establish a more complete witness to the kingdom of God. There are those who come from traditionally Orthodox lands, yet because of conditions there have had little opportunity to know why they believe and worship the way they do. God-willing these will become our teachers and singers and servants as God entrusts with even more good work which He has prepared for us.
St. Nicholas these days is made up of a real mixture of people. We have a hard working core of committed local people from a variety of backgrounds, both Orthodox and former Protestant and Roman Catholic. We have a wider circle of regular members who are learning to devote their lives to the Orthodox faith and life of our community. And we have a yet wider circle of Orthodox people to which we minister who for a variety of reasons, time, distance, or lack of zeal, we see irregularly. We have had people from across the world regularly worshipping with us: people from Azerbaijan, Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Canada, China, and Congo, Cyprus, Egypt, England, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Indonesia, India, Eritrea, Korea, Lebanon, Japan, Palestine, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, and Ukraine. In addition we have an active contingent of undergrad and graduate students from the local University. Indeed, one of the most fruitful areas of ministry for us is our ministry to students, faculty, and staff. The upside of this is the new people we meet every fall and many wonderful relationships we have built over the years, and the downside is seeing some folks move away from us every spring, hopefully stronger in their faith as a result of their time with us. One of the ministries our parish chooses to offer is a coffee hour that almost always turns out to be lunch. This allows the students to stay around after church and build relationships with the rest of the parish.
One highlight each year is our opportunity to host a history of worship class from a nearby Evangelical seminary. We welcome them during Orthros, feed them lunch after the dismissal of the liturgy and then afterwards return to the nave of the church for Q & A that usually extends until late in the afternoon.
Another highlight of this past year: in 2008, for the first time in our history, our pastor was able to leave full time secular employment and spend more than 60% of his work week serving us. Part of the resources for this have come from those the parish has sent away to live and serve elsewhere after their time at the University. Thus, as we were able to supply their need, so now they in turn help with ours.
Since our beginning, we have attempted to send a tithe to the Archdiocese and give away another 10% of our parish income to missionary and benevolent needs outside our parish. Our experience is that in some mystery of God’s grace, perhaps through the prayers of our patron St. Nicholas, it always gets multiplied. In 2008, we were able to send a mission team to the orphanage in Guatemala, help out with the Archdiocese Food for Hungry People, and extend some financial support and time to some local and extra local needs. We helped a homeless woman and her children get into their own house and fill it with furniture, linens, and kitchen supplies; we sent hundreds of pounds of clothing to a monastery in Russia for distribution to the poor; we hosted a garage sale to raise money for the Hogar Raphael Ayau Orphanage in Guatemala and introduce people we would not meet otherwise to our church. In all, over $20,000 in benevolent and missionary aid left our parish, but the real benefit is the fruit this bore in the life of our community. We are growing slowly and steadily as it says of the child Christ, “in favor with God and man.” Thanks be to God who does all things well. Please pray for us that we might find the way to repentance and greater joy in the coming years.
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Pastor emeritus
Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Tim
Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
Ichabod
-
I trust that you consulted with Lutheran synodical officials before you
published this article. Did you obtain 150% clearance? And, if so, did you
receive "factual information," - [aka - the official synodical story] ?
***
GJ - They are free to send any and all corrections.
---
From the priest serving at the former Bethlehem Lutheran Church, now Eastern Orthodox. (I told him that Lutherans were called Western Orthodox at Notre Dame.)
I had never heard Lutherans called "Western Orthodox" I suppose a Roman
Catholic who doesn't know history or theology, who considers Orthodoxy
schismatic, rather than themselves could see it that way.
I know Prof Jaroslav Pelikan referred to his own journey into the Orthodox
Church from his Lutheran formation as not a conversion but a return. A peeling
away of layers of additions and acretions that had obscured what he always
believed. I had the occasion to become acquainted first when he visited this
community while his daughter was on the faculty here and later when 2 of my
daughters were attending SVS where he and his wife often attended chapel.
 |
| We used to see Pelikan each Sunday at church, which was near Yale Divinity. Lutherans should consider the fact that Pelikan, the editor of Luther's Works, joined Eastern Orthodoxy. |
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
The WELS would have been much better off if Glende had semi-poped rather than he and the WELS Parish Services selling its best property in Urbana Illinois to the Orthodox and then placing their pulpit in a cornfield in Savoy. What a great use of church extension funds, and probably Builders for Christ!
One wonders how many other churches have given up their adequate facilities and taken on debt to move into corn fields on the edge of town.
What's really ironic is by the time Savoy envelopes the new WELS church with housing developments decades from now (if ever), there will be another Glende in the future arguing that their facilities are old and they have to build new on the edge of town in a corn field to stay "vital."
It's a never-ending process, I gather, that mirrors C.S. Lewis's description of unbelievers in this life. Cities kept on growing suburbs, Lewis wrote, and became larger and larger because unbelievers can't stand to be by each other. The WELS then is doing some hard-case evangelism (and thus will remain a tiny sect) because they are principally going after people who can't stand to be around other people out in the burbs. Conversely, in world missions they go to the cities! What gives?!
***
GJ - It's worse than that, sports fans. The congregation went from a large, paid-for building to rental space. As everyone knows, it takes time to buy a lot and build a new unit. Glende imposed that on the congregation so he could get what he wanted. Once the new unit was building, loaded with debt, but planning a coffee bar for final version, Glende split for a church with a paid-for building: St. Peter in Freedom.
---
solafide (http://solafide.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
The sad part is that one man with a silver tongue and the unconditional backing of the synod can destroy a congregation.
Bethlehem/Star of Bethlehem had prime property next door to one of the largest Big 10 schools, in the second largest metro area in the state (if you count the suburbs as part of the Chicago metro area).
I guess they should've just bought a bar a few blocks away instead... probably would have saved them a lot of time, money, and heartache.
---
Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
bruce - church:
You mention in your comment about WELS "Parish Services." That sounds to me like part and parcel of WELS bureacracy. That reminds me of a converstation I had with a fellow WELS member highly dedicated to WELS. He is under the impression that individual WELS congregations are autonomous. I did not say anything at that point in our conversation, as I did not care (at the moment) to challenge his mistaken cemented understanding.
Now, granted, I don't keep up with the latest WELS bureacratic programs and endeavors; but, I am already convinced that the small synod, called WELS, can be likened in some [negative] aspects to our US federal government. If a local congregation would like to loosen its dependency upon the synod by growing out of that dependency over a 5 year period, I would not be surprised that the synod would buck that "autonomous" resolve at every turn.
Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
***
GJ - The administrators get the top salaries, so Wayne Mueller got a raise when he was forced from the seminary faculty and given a newly created position as Administrator of Perish Services. Then Wayne got $200,000 for being First VP. That was his reward for the constant promotion of Church Growth. Gerlach and Mueller were both pushed off the Mequon faculty, for false doctrine, but they still had stellar careers for promoting Church Growth.
In true GA style, Mueller denied any CG in WELS, but said it was confessional if it was there.
Wayne's lie prompted me to add Church Growth to the legendary Megatron database of quotations. Now I would need a server farm to store all the CG quotes from WELS sources alone - not to mention LCMS, WELS, and the CLC (sic).
Adam Mueller, son of Wayne, was big at the late, great Church and Church websty. Like daddy, he is big on UOJ and Church Growth.
By the way, Wayne Mueller was pure Stephan Huber at the WELS youth conference in Columbus. He was mission work was easy, because "All you need to do is walk up to someone and say - Your sins are already forgiven."
Bruce Becker was next at Perish Services, if I have the hierarchy right. Becker gave Paul Calvin Kelm a job. When his own job was in danger, Mark Jeske gave him a job. The last I saw, WLC was offering Becker a job. WLC gave Kelm as job as World's Oldest College Chaplain, then upgraded Kelm to Leadership.
All these things happened under the watchful eye of Mark Schroeder, who is only quick to discipline those who dare to post on Ichabod.
---
bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
Rev Bickel Emeritus,
I do know that if a congregation is getting too independent, that the next list of pastors they get to fill a vacancy will be only solid synod men, e.g., men whose families have been in the WELS several generations, and men who are solid UOJers, the signature doctrine of the WELS even more than in the LCMS.
I think that the synodocrats and their henchmen pastors use debt to tie the church back to the synod. The money comes either the church extension fund, or Thrivent. Parish services gets involved if the congregation is a mission. Thrivent loans money for building expansion, btw, though that's not well known.
The "synod man" (a la "company man") pastors will then push for building projects even while they don't do evangelism that would enable the congregation to pay off the loan. They'll say the parsonage needs to be expanded, or that the church basement isn't good enough, and a ground level fellowship hall would be better.
***
GJ - But this is a closed circle too. The people who raise the pledges are Church and Change pick-pockets. They are LCMS/WELS guys who get referrals from Church and Change to get pledges for the ridiculous capital campaigns that will fix their congregations. These ideas, stoked by Church and Change, require big debts and big pledges, so the Changers charge big fees to fan the flames.
Holy Mother WELS and Thrivent tie the congregation down with advice, and loans, and endless gratitude. The congregation is a built-in marketing unit for Thrivent. On and on it goes.
 |
| The neighbors watched Star of Bethlehem being built. |
bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
The WELS would have been much better off if Glende had semi-poped rather than he and the WELS Parish Services selling its best property in Urbana Illinois to the Orthodox and then placing their pulpit in a cornfield in Savoy. What a great use of church extension funds, and probably Builders for Christ!
One wonders how many other churches have given up their adequate facilities and taken on debt to move into corn fields on the edge of town.
What's really ironic is by the time Savoy envelopes the new WELS church with housing developments decades from now (if ever), there will be another Glende in the future arguing that their facilities are old and they have to build new on the edge of town in a corn field to stay "vital."
It's a never-ending process, I gather, that mirrors C.S. Lewis's description of unbelievers in this life. Cities kept on growing suburbs, Lewis wrote, and became larger and larger because unbelievers can't stand to be by each other. The WELS then is doing some hard-case evangelism (and thus will remain a tiny sect) because they are principally going after people who can't stand to be around other people out in the burbs. Conversely, in world missions they go to the cities! What gives?!
***
GJ - It's worse than that, sports fans. The congregation went from a large, paid-for building to rental space. As everyone knows, it takes time to buy a lot and build a new unit. Glende imposed that on the congregation so he could get what he wanted. Once the new unit was building, loaded with debt, but planning a coffee bar for final version, Glende split for a church with a paid-for building: St. Peter in Freedom.
 |
| Win Arn says, "We must win the winnable while they are winnable," so avoid those pointy-headed intellektuals who ask questions about UOJ... or where all the money went. |
solafide (http://solafide.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
The sad part is that one man with a silver tongue and the unconditional backing of the synod can destroy a congregation.
Bethlehem/Star of Bethlehem had prime property next door to one of the largest Big 10 schools, in the second largest metro area in the state (if you count the suburbs as part of the Chicago metro area).
I guess they should've just bought a bar a few blocks away instead... probably would have saved them a lot of time, money, and heartache.
---
Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
bruce - church:
You mention in your comment about WELS "Parish Services." That sounds to me like part and parcel of WELS bureacracy. That reminds me of a converstation I had with a fellow WELS member highly dedicated to WELS. He is under the impression that individual WELS congregations are autonomous. I did not say anything at that point in our conversation, as I did not care (at the moment) to challenge his mistaken cemented understanding.
Now, granted, I don't keep up with the latest WELS bureacratic programs and endeavors; but, I am already convinced that the small synod, called WELS, can be likened in some [negative] aspects to our US federal government. If a local congregation would like to loosen its dependency upon the synod by growing out of that dependency over a 5 year period, I would not be surprised that the synod would buck that "autonomous" resolve at every turn.
Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org
***
GJ - The administrators get the top salaries, so Wayne Mueller got a raise when he was forced from the seminary faculty and given a newly created position as Administrator of Perish Services. Then Wayne got $200,000 for being First VP. That was his reward for the constant promotion of Church Growth. Gerlach and Mueller were both pushed off the Mequon faculty, for false doctrine, but they still had stellar careers for promoting Church Growth.
In true GA style, Mueller denied any CG in WELS, but said it was confessional if it was there.
Wayne's lie prompted me to add Church Growth to the legendary Megatron database of quotations. Now I would need a server farm to store all the CG quotes from WELS sources alone - not to mention LCMS, WELS, and the CLC (sic).
Adam Mueller, son of Wayne, was big at the late, great Church and Church websty. Like daddy, he is big on UOJ and Church Growth.
By the way, Wayne Mueller was pure Stephan Huber at the WELS youth conference in Columbus. He was mission work was easy, because "All you need to do is walk up to someone and say - Your sins are already forgiven."
Bruce Becker was next at Perish Services, if I have the hierarchy right. Becker gave Paul Calvin Kelm a job. When his own job was in danger, Mark Jeske gave him a job. The last I saw, WLC was offering Becker a job. WLC gave Kelm as job as World's Oldest College Chaplain, then upgraded Kelm to Leadership.
All these things happened under the watchful eye of Mark Schroeder, who is only quick to discipline those who dare to post on Ichabod.
---
bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Tim Glende's Destructive Ministry in Illinois. Why...":
Rev Bickel Emeritus,
I do know that if a congregation is getting too independent, that the next list of pastors they get to fill a vacancy will be only solid synod men, e.g., men whose families have been in the WELS several generations, and men who are solid UOJers, the signature doctrine of the WELS even more than in the LCMS.
I think that the synodocrats and their henchmen pastors use debt to tie the church back to the synod. The money comes either the church extension fund, or Thrivent. Parish services gets involved if the congregation is a mission. Thrivent loans money for building expansion, btw, though that's not well known.
The "synod man" (a la "company man") pastors will then push for building projects even while they don't do evangelism that would enable the congregation to pay off the loan. They'll say the parsonage needs to be expanded, or that the church basement isn't good enough, and a ground level fellowship hall would be better.
***
GJ - But this is a closed circle too. The people who raise the pledges are Church and Change pick-pockets. They are LCMS/WELS guys who get referrals from Church and Change to get pledges for the ridiculous capital campaigns that will fix their congregations. These ideas, stoked by Church and Change, require big debts and big pledges, so the Changers charge big fees to fan the flames.
Holy Mother WELS and Thrivent tie the congregation down with advice, and loans, and endless gratitude. The congregation is a built-in marketing unit for Thrivent. On and on it goes.
