Polluted WELS Comment:
Matthias,
I stumbled upon your web page today and have read through almost all the posts. The title of your page, "Polluted WELS" definitely caught my attention.
Although I am not a pastor, my congregation went through something your's seems to be going through. This was a few years ago. A bunch of the vocal leaders in my church wanted contemporary worship. Our pastor did not. Neither did a large "silent majority" of our congregation.
The WELS officials (not sure about their titles) came in and said we needed to have contemporary worship to grow. I asked where in the bible our mandate was to "grow."
The answer given was the so-called great commission. I pointed out that Jesus simply told us to go out and preach the gospel in that passage. I cited all the passages I could think of where Jesus promoted faithfulness over worldly success. And how he warned of the leaven that infects the whole lump and how he ws always talking about false teachings coming from within the church in those places.
I even pointed out that the ministry of the old testament prophets and even Jesus's own ministry would be considered a failure by WELS standards.
This did not sit well with the WELS officials, but it helped some others in our congregation to speak out and rally around keeping our church traditional.
I have to admit, at that time I didn't really know what the term "confessional lutheran" meant. I was really more into just keeping things conservative. I wanted my worship service to be like they always had been from when I was growing up.
I've learned a lot since then, and I do think we should be changing. But we should be changing by becoming more confessional, not less. Like have communion more often (even every Sunday?). Or by stressing the means of grace more.
So what happened at our church was this. The ones who wanted contemporary worship went off and formed their own church along with members from other local churches. Other congregations in the area were upset that this new church got synod funding and that it was taking some of their members away.
Our pastor gladly let the trouble makers go, and we encouraged anyone who wanted contemporary worship to go to that church instead.
It hurt our numbers and our offerings for a while. But many of us dug a little deeper into our pockets to make sure we could keep our pastor and our church. Now, we have a smaller group, but we are at least a like-minded congregation that can worship with a liturgy and without all the fighting and back-stabbing that was going on. It's much better.
So I don't know if you live in a bigger community with many WELS churches, but if you do, maybe you could send those vocal supporters of contemporary worship off to another congregation that already does that. I don't know if that's a normal thing you can do as a pastor, but it worked out in our situation.
My answer is probably not what you were asking about, but I wanted to tell you our story to let you know you are not alone. I will pray that you can keep your congregation and not give in to contemporary worship.
JPM
I stumbled upon your web page today and have read through almost all the posts. The title of your page, "Polluted WELS" definitely caught my attention.
Although I am not a pastor, my congregation went through something your's seems to be going through. This was a few years ago. A bunch of the vocal leaders in my church wanted contemporary worship. Our pastor did not. Neither did a large "silent majority" of our congregation.
The WELS officials (not sure about their titles) came in and said we needed to have contemporary worship to grow. I asked where in the bible our mandate was to "grow."
The answer given was the so-called great commission. I pointed out that Jesus simply told us to go out and preach the gospel in that passage. I cited all the passages I could think of where Jesus promoted faithfulness over worldly success. And how he warned of the leaven that infects the whole lump and how he ws always talking about false teachings coming from within the church in those places.
I even pointed out that the ministry of the old testament prophets and even Jesus's own ministry would be considered a failure by WELS standards.
This did not sit well with the WELS officials, but it helped some others in our congregation to speak out and rally around keeping our church traditional.
I have to admit, at that time I didn't really know what the term "confessional lutheran" meant. I was really more into just keeping things conservative. I wanted my worship service to be like they always had been from when I was growing up.
I've learned a lot since then, and I do think we should be changing. But we should be changing by becoming more confessional, not less. Like have communion more often (even every Sunday?). Or by stressing the means of grace more.
So what happened at our church was this. The ones who wanted contemporary worship went off and formed their own church along with members from other local churches. Other congregations in the area were upset that this new church got synod funding and that it was taking some of their members away.
Our pastor gladly let the trouble makers go, and we encouraged anyone who wanted contemporary worship to go to that church instead.
It hurt our numbers and our offerings for a while. But many of us dug a little deeper into our pockets to make sure we could keep our pastor and our church. Now, we have a smaller group, but we are at least a like-minded congregation that can worship with a liturgy and without all the fighting and back-stabbing that was going on. It's much better.
So I don't know if you live in a bigger community with many WELS churches, but if you do, maybe you could send those vocal supporters of contemporary worship off to another congregation that already does that. I don't know if that's a normal thing you can do as a pastor, but it worked out in our situation.
My answer is probably not what you were asking about, but I wanted to tell you our story to let you know you are not alone. I will pray that you can keep your congregation and not give in to contemporary worship.
JPM
