Plants Grow in Soil - The Church Grows through the Efficacious Word in the Means of Grace

Two Black Boxes for Darwin
The best known one (Behe, Darwin's Black Box) is the irreducible complexity of life at the microscopic level. There are too many mechanisms that must work together perfectly to rely on evolution as an explanation. In fact, evolution becomes increasingly comical as we look at the infinite dependencies of the soil under our feet.

A scientist offered a second black box for Darwin. This one is always on my mind when I write about gardening. He said, in a book whose title I have forgotten, that a scientist cannot answer the question of purpose. He can only observe what he sees. And yet, everyone is eager to say things like this:

1. The purpose of the protozoa is to keep the bacteria in check.
2. The purpose of the earthworm is to tunnel, mix, aerate, and fertilize the soil.
3. The purpose of the this particular insect, the fig wasp, is to pollinate the fig tree. No other animal can do this. Without this one particular wasp, the tree would never fruit, never reproduce.

I often wonder if my favorite authors on the soil food web are winking at the discerning reader, when they mention the craft, cleverness, and purpose of microscopic dependencies. They toss out evolutionary terms, even precise dates like 750 million years ago, but 99.9% of the content says just the opposite. To paraphrase something from long ago, "Intelligent Design trembles on their lips."

Don’t forget that in those instances where a fungus brings food back to a plant root tip, it was attracted to that plant by the plant’s exudates. Fungi are good, but the plant is in control.

Wayne Lewis, Jeff Lowenfels,(2010-09-10). Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 908-910). Timber Press. Kindle Edition. 

Both of Darwin's black boxes are in play here. No one can explain how a fungus can be purpose-driven to swap nutrients it collects for the carbon it needs to grow. Nor can anyone anyone explain how the root tip knows the plant needs and arranges the bargain.

Science is pursuing nanotechnology - mechanics at the microscopic level. Plants already do nanotechnology in every cell, and microscopic beings minister to them, using nanotechnology.

Fungi cleverly trap nematodes with a little spring action they devised "on their own," or they lure those delicious tiny worms with one chemical and kill it with another. Nematodes are power bars for fungi, since nematodes are loaded with extra nitrogen. The fungi can send that excess nitrogen along their length to plant roots, which respond with carbon credits.



No Compromise
I am not suggesting any compromise with Creation through the Word. Nor does the Six Day Creation depend on its agreement with current science. I find it amusing that science must collide with Creation when explaining how everything works together.

This Creation concept is especially important because the power and efficacy of the Word is the bedrock of Biblical teaching. Take that away and nothing is left but moralistic philosophy (aka mainline theology, aka modern Pietism).

Ruined Soil, Bad Crops
The SpenerQuest clowns were crowing and preening their feathers recently. They made this hilarious claim - the LCMS is so good and pure because Walther and his obedient followers pledged to the entire Book of Concord. Therefore they alone have the right version of everything, including UOJ (which the masked with their term - "election by grace").

They revealed their Pietism by emphasizing what Walther did - not what he actually taught or believed. Walther also swore eternal allegiance to his adulterous, syphilitic bishop - an eternity that lasted until CFW organized a riot to rob, threaten, and kidnap his bishop-for-life.

Walther, who only had a bachelor's degree from a rationalistic school, believed in Stephan's UOJ, which was learned during the Third Martin's stay at Halle University, the mother ship of Pietism. Walther taught Justification Without Faith. The Great Walther only associated with Pietists, going from the Pietist who died to the one who led their escape to America - Stephan, who was dictatorial, corrupt, adulterous, and crazy with the clap.

Why are the "conservative" Lutherans so comfortable with ELCA and going downhill with the same speed as ELCA? They have distanced themselves from the power and efficacy of the Word. Now they rototill their congregations and districts with the latest programs, borrowed from the equally apostate Babtists.

Some have thought to blame the encroachment of Babtist influence on Lutherans, but that is several fries short of a Happy Meal. The mutual attraction is like lint to Velcro, and it is apostasy. The Church Shrinkers want nothing to do with the faithful, even if those people are only faithful to their own confessions and teachings.

The Church Shrinkers are drawn to their ideal counterparts - the greedy, corrupt, unbelieving apostates who ooze sanctimony in the name of sanctification and issue absolution for their own crimes while condemning the fidelity of others as felonious.

Mrs. I was on the phone with QVC to order something for our anniversary. I suggested a dustmop, but she wanted jewelry. Somehow they got on the topic of roses. The phone person asked to speak to me. "How do you keep insects from your roses?"

I said, "I don't do anything except use wood mulch. I used no spray and had no insect damage all summer." The poor woman was in shock.

In fact, we found grasshoppers on the roses twice while pruning them. We did nothing and they did not move, hop, or semi-fly away. They had it good - organic rose food, no aftertaste of pesticide.

Why no visible damage? The good insects kept the damaging ones in check. We also know that fungi keep plants healthy and productive, too, by living close to them and inside of them.

Believers are like plants. They grow by being nurtured in the right way, designed and provided by God Himself. When man injects his rapid grow cells and other instant answers, he destroys the divine meaning and purpose in the Means of Grace.

Notice all the synodical programs to solve the problems caused by all the synodical programs.

The ultimate irony is that the skunkpatch called LutherQuest is violently opposed to Luther's doctrine, the Biblical doctrine of Justification By Faith.

Megachurches after the Star Pastor Is Gone - Religious News Service. Does Patterson Have a Succession Plan Once He Is SP?

Kudu Don Patterson dressed up like this - no kidding.
Photoshop added the dollar signs.

What are megachurches without their star pastors?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/national/what-are-megachurches-without-their-star-pastors/ar-AA73tho

Can a megachurch survive the departure of its megastar pastor?

For Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, it’s an open question.

Mars Hill announced last week that it would dissolve the network of 13 churches across the Northwest that took root under pastor Mark Driscoll, who stepped down in October after supporters lost confidence in a high-wattage leadership style that was criticized as bullying, hypermacho and intolerant.

For many megachurches, a pastor can become larger than the church itself — particularly for multi-site churches whose disparate congregations are connected by little more than a pastor’s sermon and a satellite feed. Before his resignation, the name “Mark Driscoll” was more widely known than “Mars Hill.” The dueling brands sometimes clashed.

Some say Driscoll once told staff members, “I am the brand.”

Driscoll’s edgy personality built up a congregation of an estimated 14,000 people at 15 locations across five states. Weekly attendance is now reportedly about 7,600. In August, the church’s expenses exceeded revenue by $650,000.

According to Mars Hill leaders, by the start of 2015, locations within the Mars Hill network will either become independent, self-governing churches, merge with another church or disband.

Mars Hill’s church properties will be sold or the loans on the individual properties will be assumed by the newly independent churches. Central staff in Seattle will be laid off as the formal Mars Hill organization dissolves.

Megachurches across the country have faced similar dips in attendance once a popular pastor left, a problem that can plague any church but one that can be exacerbated in a megabrand context. If the chief executive of McDonald’s left, for instance, the company would face fewer questions about its survival than “The Colbert Report” will when its star leaves.

“It’s not uncommon for CEOs to say the first agenda item is to talk about ‘What happens when I’m not here anymore?’ ” said William Vanderbloemen, co-author of “Next: Pastoral Succession That Works.” “The key is to have an emergency succession plan.”

After former megachurch pastor Rob Bell’s controversial book “Love Wins” raised debates over whether hell exists, his Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Mars Hill Bible Church lost about 1,000 people. It now has about 3,000 attendees, said its current pastor, Kent Dobson.

Every megachurch pastor wrestles with challenges of brand and leadership, said Mark DeMoss, who handled some public relations for Mars Hill before Driscoll resigned. “If the pastor is the best communicator and preacher and pastor in that local context, I think you can make a good case for that’s who ought to be up there,” he said. “The dangers are sometimes in succession.”

Not all churches with large followings have a drop in attendance after a pastor’s departure. After Joel Osteen’s father died, following a heart attack in 1999, his Lakewood Church in Houston grew from 5,000 to more than 50,000 today.

Attendance at Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., was about 4,000 when he died. Under his son, Jonathan Falwell, the church has a congregation of about 10,000.

Similarly, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., founded by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, an icon of the religious right, had an attendance of about 1,000 (and a broadcast reach of about 3 million) when he died in 2007. After some turmoil during the transition — under Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson and a popular pastor in his own right — the church’s membership is about 2,400.

Driscoll’s fall from grace came after growing scrutiny of church finances, plagiarism allegations concerning his books and comments he made under an online pseudonym. Much of the criticism came from bloggers and on social media from people who did not attend the church.

Could Driscoll make a comeback at another church or ministry? For an evangelical movement that values forgiveness, redemption and second chances, anything is possible.

For one, Driscoll’s resignation did not reach the scandalous level of Jim Bakker’s or Jimmy Swaggart’s in the 1980s. Bakker was accused of fraud related to time shares; Swaggart was accused of adultery. Both remain active in the ministry but aren’t seen much beyond late-night cable TV.

Other high-profile pastors have stepped down and then attempted comebacks with varied success.

After allegations of gay sex and drug use were made by a male escort, Ted Haggard stepped down from his Colorado Springs church and as head of the National Association of Evangelicals. But he has since started another church.

In 2011, Sovereign Grace Ministries founder C.J. Mahaney took a leave of absence from his church-planting network amid charges of “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment and hypocrisy.” Mahaney was reinstated after a year, and he is now pastor of a church in Louisville.

In 2010, John Piper took an eight-month leave from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, explaining that his soul, marriage, family and ministry pattern needed “a reality check from the Holy Spirit.” He returned for a few years before retiring.

Some evangelicals see high numbers as a measure of success for a minister — something that could be hard for Driscoll to reproduce in a second act.

“If [Driscoll] can continue to draw people in and have a successful ministry, then his authority — even if it has been questioned — will still rest on what he’s producing,” said Scott Thumma, a megachurch expert at Hartford Seminary.

Some critique evangelicalism as a tradition that encourages a drive for more and more numbers, regardless of the costs. Wendy Alsup, who attended Mars Hill from 2002 to 2008, said she sees a growing movement of evangelicals asking whether bigger actually is better.

“There’s a big reaction among some to identify with something that has longevity,” Alsup said. “They’re rejecting fast growth and going back to the slow, methodical structure.”

— Religion News Service

SP Mark Schroeder got directly involved in rescuing Ski,
instead of saying "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Luther Selection - Sent by Michigander

Below is today's selection from the John Sander collection of Devotional Readings from Luther's Works.  Today being November 16, of course.  Page 403-404. Augustana Book Concern, 1915.

Remembering that the distraction of the times that enabled the Lutherans to continue with little attention from the powers that were, that it was the Turk (Muslims) at the gates of Vienna, the comments by Luther on the Old Testament lesson of Ezekiel 16: 49-50 remain appropriate today, given the goings-on in the Middle East and other places.

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Ezekiel 16: 49-50  This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness [sic] of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.  And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

   These same conditions now exist everywhere.  Every peasant, burgher, nobleman is simply gathering dollars, waits and saves, eats and drinks, is insolent and mischievous as though God were nothing at all.  No one cares for the despised Jesus in his poverty; nay, he is even trod under foot, until all obedience, discipline and honor are destroyed among us, as they were in Sodom and Gomorrah, and matters become so bad as to become unbearable, because all admonition and preaching seem to be of no avail.  The world will not recognize that it must die and stand before God in judgment, but rages against the known truth.  Let us give heed and take heart, that the wrath of God may not also sweep us away.  What else would God need to do to that end than let loose the Turks and Satan among us.  The Turk would be compelled to cease doing what he has done and is still doing, were we not so hardened in blindness and impenitence and so completely ripe for judgment.  The reason is that we rage so blasphemously against God's Word and his proffered help.

   I hold that if we Lutherans, as they call us, were only dead, the whole world would immediately cry, "Victory," as though they had already devoured every single Turk.  But it shall happen to them also that a hundred shall be slain by one Turk.  The younkers in Jerusalem thought, if they should only put the profit Jeremiah out of the way they would surely be safe from the king of Babylon.  What happened?  After they had cast Jeremiah into the dungeon, the king came and led them all into captivity.

   I can also see that God has spun a web over Germany as it is determined to be guilty of willful blindness, wickedness and ungratefulness in opposing the precious gospel.  It is determined to be guilty of foolishness before God for which it will have to pay dearly.  May God preserve us and grant us and our little flock that we may escape this terrible wrath, and be found among those who honor and serve our dear Christ, and await the judgment at his right hand joyously and blissfully.  Amen.
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Almost 500 years on, we find ourselves in similar conditions.  Only the times change; people do not change.