Thursday, March 21, 2013

WELS Newest Scandal - Trying To Grab Historic St. John in Milwaukee

The Church Growthy DP kicked out St. John Lutheran Church
and its pastor, Kevin Hastings.
Hastings has been getting the church some real visibility
with the help of some younger Lutherans.

WELS Layman Tim Niedfelt's post on St. John Lutheran Church, Milwaukee.

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Pastor Kevin Hastings gave me permission to write about the attempted take-over of St. John Lutheran Church and its assets.

Update - Two men have grabbed the assets of St. John's and locked Pastor Hastings out, "fired him" and changed the locks on the doors. A new member was going to become the congregational president, so the two men expedited their plans. I knew the plans were being hatched some months ago.

If you would like to enjoy some irony, the nearby WELS churches are led by Mark and Avoid Jeske (St. Marcus) and WELS VP Jim Huebner (Grace).

Gausewitz was once the pastor of Grace. The former SynCon president is strangely absent from the Grace website, which is devoted to sighing about the awesomeness of Huebner, yet another Fuller alumnus.

WELS should adopt a motto, using a cat from LOLcats - Discipline? We gots it.

St. John has a beautiful building, well maintained by Hastings. The pipe organ has been put to good use recently, but a WELS college student was told not to play on that organ.

St. John also has an endowment fund. Can anyone imagine WELS trying to grab the endowment fund? I certainly can. Drag a hundred dollar bill through a WELS convention and all the DPs will follow out the door.

Speaking of DPs, here is the guy who kicked St. John and Pastor Hastings out:





Pastor Kevin Hastings on Facebook.

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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "WELS Newest Scandal - Trying To Grab Historic St. ...":

Ichabod -

WELS is repeating history. As King Ahab coveted Naboth's vineyard; so the synod covets this well kept church structure. Shame on them for their covetous and extortionist disposition!

Nathan M. Bickel
www.thechristianmessage.org
www.moralmatters.org