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| Don't worry, Paul Wendland is training the Mequon boys to adore the ecumenical NNIV. Mark Schroeder is helpless. |
rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Lutheran Organizations Are Dying Together - United...":
What is happening now in American Lutheranism is the continuing worship of the mega-church/corporate model. Since the leaders have abandoned the Biblical model of true church growth through the Means of Grace, they have attached themselves to visible numerical growth like barnacles on a ship. At my former WELS congregation, the ex-president worships at the feet of Cornerstone Ministries. He cites the investment model that the fee of x dollars has produced y dollars in capital appeals.
Yet, recently, a more level headed member told me that they still have some really serious cash flow problems in the congregation. The financial drought was preceded by the spiritual drought. The people perish for a lack of knowledge. Besides the Bible, a member studying Luther's Small and Large Catechisms knows more doctrine than anyone who has gone through the alleged Bible studies offered in the mega-church approach.
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GJ - ELCA pastors have complained about a similar situation, where their own pastors take advantage of denominational loyalty to prey upon the parishes as highly paid "consultants."
Nobody in WELS seems to work for others. If a congregation is going to start a generic diaper-changing service, aka Christian Academy for kindergarten and pre-K only, they are urged to pay a WELS consultant a huge fee to tell them how.
The WEL Perish Consultants were trained at Fuller Seminary to fill in the blanks on their Church Growth template. They were so lazy that they left in "when the bells stop ringing" on churches that had no bells.
DP Buchholz admitted that the Perish Consultants did nothing except cause trouble and waste money.
Ah, but here is the greed-connection. The Perish Consultants always promoted Praise Bands and big spending programs. The congregation needed to raise a lot of money for these lofty plans, so the Church and Change "consultants" urged the congregation to hire the Church and Change money-guys from Cornerstone. Plus - Cornerstone has people on synodical committees to guide more opportunities toward them.
When these self-centered "consultants" are done robbing the congregation and pushing it into excessive spending, the consultants have the loot and the parish has the problems. A new building is a big commitment to expense, maintenance, utilities, and insurance.
Since Church and Change overlaps the administration completely, the Wisconsin Sect is using its own resources to drain its congregations of funds. In the same way they start big missions near their established congregations to take away members.
How neat to train people to worship and think in generic terms, so they are trained to leave.
