Another Reason WELS Is Failing - WELS Union Work with ELCA

 

The panel discussion, "Congregational Culture Eats Mission for Breakfast," features Rev. Sherrie Lorbeck (ELCA's Cross of Life Lutheran Church, Brookfield, Wis.), Mr. Matt Trotter (WELS Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, Wis.), and Rev. Brian West (LCMS NextGeneration at Trinity Lutheran, Clinton Township, MI).

Cross of Life Lutheran Church, Brookfield, ELCA - Rev. Sherrie Lorbeck


Max Trotter -  WELS

Church Council President at Grace Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wis.

Matt Trotter is currently finishing a second stint as President of Grace, in Downtown Milwaukee. Matt has served as president from 2006 to 2010 and again from 2014 to the present. During that time, Grace has continued to present quality traditional liturgical worship, while adding staff, changing operating models, adding programming, and accommodating spirit-led membership growth of 250 souls. The median age of the 47 adults confirmed or baptized at Grace between 2012 and 2014 was 32 years old.   

Matt first attended Grace in 1999, after discovering it on a walk to a neighborhood establishment. Matt was baptized at Grace in September 2000, drawn to the church for its vibrant worship, thorough bible studies, and Monday night services. Matt’s other non-profit work included three years as a reading tutor at Martin Luther King Library in Milwaukee, seven years as a Special Olympics coach and six years on the board of Wisconsin Lutheran College.   

Professionally, Matt has worked at Time of Grace for two years in the field of Fundraising Development, as Chief Development Officer. Time of Grace’s mission is to connect people to God’s Grace, doing so via TV, print, and increasingly social media and the internet.  Prior to coming to Time of Grace, Matt owned a small business providing LED lighting product design, including optical engineering, for three successful Milwaukee Electric Tool LED Lights. Matt is a graduate of Texas A&M and a happy husband of 15+ years to a wonderful woman, Mary Jo. Together Matt and Mary Jo are super-blessed, never bored, parents of maybe the five most awesome daughters ever.

Rev. Brian West - LCMS

Biography

Pastor for the NextGeneration at Trinity Lutheran Church, Clinton Township, MI

Rev. Brian West has served as an overseas missionary in Central Europe, urban house-church planter, worship leader and currently serves as a Pastor for the NextGeneration at Trinity Lutheran Church in Clinton Township, MI. He is learning to embrace inefficiency as he follows Jesus; living passionately in Christ for the sake of the whole world. He and Erin, his wife of 12 years, and their two daughters are engaged in living as a messy family on mission. Rev. West is also an avid cyclist who loves to play and write music and almost never turns down a good cup of fair-trade coffee.

Rev Jason Ewart - Ausgekickung - WELS

Rev. Steve Witte - WELS Church and Change Founder

 Does anyone laugh when they call Steve Witte "Dr."?
All the Fulleroids have drive-by DMins that mock
the Means of Grace. Lawrenz, on the far left, is an exception -
with a real PhD from Judaism.

 Organized by Mark and Avoid Jeske - the buzz will never die.

Witte and other rascals were promoted for this
Church and Change hive gathering.

WELS Says - Trinkets Yes, Justification by Faith - NO!

 News flash - WELSians are more interested in drinking glasses.

Hunnius said this about Huber, a statement equally applicable to Edward Preuss, whose Justification by UnFaith essay is still praised as inspired by the LCMS-WELS-ELS Enthusiasts.

"Huber will never be able to explain his way out of this nonsense of insoluble contradictions and most prodigious absurdities. Therefore let him enjoy his justification, and let him bless his elect and sanctified people with it -- Turks, Jews and all unbelievers. We, in the meantime, shall restrict justification to believers only, as prescribed by all prophetic and apostolic Scriptures."

-- Theses Opposed to Huberianism

Cowardly Lion: Courage! What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage! What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder? Courage! What makes the dawn come up like thunder? Courage! What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the "ape" in apricot? What have they got that I ain't got?
Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman: Courage! 
From Quotes

J-578

"So, then, we are reconciled; however, not only we, but also Hindus, and Hottentots and Kafirs, yes, the world. 'Reconciled', says our translation; the Greek original says: 'placed in the right relation to God'. Because before the Fall we, together with the whole creation, were in the right relation to God, therefore Scripture teaches that Christ, through His death, restored all things to the former right relation to God." 

F. R. Eduard Preuss, 1834-1904, Die Rechtfertigung der Suender vor Gott. Cited in Rick Nicholas Curia, The Significant History of the Doctrine of Objective or Universal Justification, Alpine, California: California Pastoral Conference, WELS. January 24-25, 1983. p. 24. [GJ - This restoration of all is used by Karl Barth, official theologian for Fuller, to promote Universalism.]

 This is so reassuring for unbelievers, clergy drunks
and adulterers.

Do WELS Parents Have a Synodical Duty To Produce More Children?

 The smoke and mirrors report - new plans from the dunces who promoted the Church Growth Movement for the last 40 years.

The LCMS is also in panic mode, and also blaming parents for not having enough babies to make them feel good about their synodical health.

I am focusing on WELS, because I have the most evidence from them, carefully copied into Megatron with the citations, mostly leaked from their own clergy, who chose to remain in hiding.

Summary - WELS jumped into the Fuller Seminary anti-Lutheran Church Growth Movement 40 years ago. The initial leaders were such apostates as Steve Witte, John Lawrenz, Frost Bivens, David Valleskey, Paul Kelm, Robert Hartman, the Wendland clan, Wayne Mueller, and many more. Three WELS Synod Presidents in a row have promoted the Church Growth Movement, its crafts and assaults. The First Vice President of WELS  is a Fuller alumnus, trained to be a "consultant" with Kelm and Larry Otto Olson, DMin Fuller.

This WELS congregation lost 50% of its average attendance in five years. How does a parish do that with so much Church Growth genius in the sect?

 "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our cradle rolls,
but in ourselves." James Huebner, First VP.

WELS materials--like the LCA stuff I saw and the LCMS propaganda--were entirely devoted to Fuller's idiotic Church Growth Movement. The Michigan District of the LCMS named their Evangelism commission "Evangelism and Church Growth." That is either redundant or a contradiction. Beep. You are correct - it is a contradiction. Church Growth is based on marketing, numbers, and sociology. Church Growth is antagonistic toward Evangelism - the Means of Grace, the efficacy of the Word.

Yes, they are already ordaining women in WELS.

Kudu Don Patterson was not a Church and Change member,
but he attended their "last" conference.

Universalism--marching under the banner of Universal Objective Justification--is the dogma of Halle Pietism, Karl Barth, Fuller Seminary and W/ELS-LCMS-ELCA. The good news for them is that everyone is forgiven and saved - just tell the rabble that message. Wayne Mueller gave a speech to the WELS Youth conference in Columbus braying that same false doctrine. Wayne Mueller hates to admit it, but he was a champion of Church Growth all along. The Adam-apple did not fall far from that corrupt tree.

God is bringing doom, insolvency, and disaster upon the apostate Lutherans who mock the Reformation by trying to make a few bucks from its 500th anniversary.

The end-game for the mainline denominations--including all the Lutheran sects--is money without members. Many mainline congregations and seminaries are massive monuments of brick, marble, and glass -- well-endowed by the saints of the past -- emptied of students, staffed by incompetent, lazy pretenders as professors. Google through the faculties of the Protestant Left for the zaniest examples: Episcopal, UCC, Yale. Some are truly sickening to read, especially since the professors are being awarded the choice positions, felllowships, research grants, and titles. Foundations and insurance companies fund them, too.

 The glory has departed.