Facebook - Not Everyone Hymns the Glories of the WELS School System

Fun in a WELS synodical school.

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  Paul Lidtke Honestly, Dan, I believe you overstate the case of the WELS worker training system. I am an MLS grad, NWC grad and WLS grad. While I don't purposely wish to run down any of those schools or their grads, I wouldn't say that by the time I graduated from WLS we were "all one big family." It's silly, in my estimation, to paint that picture. As called workers we may be serving in the same synod, but no matter how hard we were made to think that after all those years together in school unite us, we aren't "one big family" even now. 
  
  Think carefully, Dan, about the pastor who says, "I was at a conference run by Google and I was received better there than I've been at most pastoral conferences." That's what I was told by someone just a year or two ago. And he's someone I expected to be a "we're one big family" type of WELS guy.
  
  When I attend district and synod conventions, I usually seek out laypeople. It's often easier to strike up a conversation with a rancher or grocer than it is a WELS called worker who is not familiar with you. I'm glad that you find the WELS educational system to be stupendous, but I'm not sure it's realistic.

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  Paul Lidtke By the way, we really do need to start a new thread about schools to make these latest comments "fit" the thread. 

  5 hrs · Like · 1
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  Dan Babinec Maybe it's part of my perspective from having been in a very cutthroat and competitive job situation for most of my adult life before returning to the WELS system that I find so refreshing... "one big family" doesn't preclude dysfunction. I too seek o...See More

  5 hrs · Like
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  Paul Lidtke I recognize, Dan, that your perspective is different than mine. Yet, in one small way I share it. I worked as a fill-in on air personality during the early years of my time in ministry. Country radio is as cutthroat as it comes. Granted, I wasn't full-time, so people around each station loved a part-time guy who can handle himself on air and is dependable. Even then, I found more camaraderie and team work than I have found among neighboring WELS churches and called workers at times. In fact, I still hear more from my radio friends than most of my WLS classmates!

  5 hrs · Like · 2

WELS church workers do prison ministry from the inside,
from vicars to DPs to headquarters staff.

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GJ - Too bad the pressure for conformity means covering up for the right people and expelling those who can think for themselves.

As one defender of WELS said, the sooner the sect falls apart, the better.