Confessing the Truth Means Telling the Same Story

 Pastor Steve Spencer, the first to quit the Intrepid Lutherans,
told me he was responsible for Jon-Boy Buchholz being elected WELS DP. 
I would never admit to such a crime.

Doubtless rumors are roiling the booze-pacified waters of WELS about the sudden and tragic resignation of Pastor Ricky Johnson. Yes - Ricky.

No one is going to tell me - and that is O.K. As I said about someone who recently asked for some erasures from the blog, "The problem is with the leadership."

Buchholz is a perfect example. Like Mirthless Mark Schroeder, he was elected as a reformer. Like Mark, he could not lead six drunks to the loo at Hooters.

The previous DP got rid of eight pastors in that tiny district and was the pick of Church and Change to be Synod President! Buchholz was equally bloodthirsty, but not with Church and Changers. No, a posting on the infamous unsecret Church and Chang listserve showed that writing in favor of Church and Change - "pure gold" - Patterson - was an insurance policy that never got canceled from repeated accidents.

Buchholz sent me the long, posturing email about Ricky Johnson and contemptuous worship, then hosted a huge grant for the bloke.

Buchholz said he was opposed to the UOJ of JP Meyer and promoted an even worse version. Although Jon-Boy said to me, face-to-face, that WELS never taught Universalism, he clearly did so in his Mistaufen essay to the WELS convention. That was a singular honor - to lay an egg in front of that august company of snoring, hungover clergy and laity.

The majority admire someone who tells two entirely different stories all the time. They say, "He is an adroit church politician." These District Presidents - much like John Seifert and other faux-conservatives, market a furtive frown as disapproval of the latest disgraceful actions. Funny how Seifert seemed so disapproving as a pastor, and yet so willing to absolve all false teachers as a DP. Did he block the Kelm-Olson-Huebner love fest for Church Growth, for which they charged an enormous fee? No. Did he question the Tiefel pan-denominational (minus the ELS) Worship Conference at ELCA's Carthage College? No, he encouraged attendance.

But the final result of such cleverness is to believe nothing and to overlook everything except the truth. These universalists - absolving the Hindoo and Eskimaux, like Ed Preuss - will pounce on the truth like a hobo on a hotdog. Look at UOJ stylists Glende and Ski! Everyone is forgiven - except the husband of the woman they verbally abused and exposed to porn. Him they took to court, to silence him forever and hate him out of the synod.

The lawyer who proved the plagiarism of Tim? Him they excommunicated with gusto, without remorse. No wonder Paul the Plagiarist (McCain) and Kudu Don Patterson welcomed Ski and Glende as friends in blogging and Facebooking.

 Tim Glende not only wrecked his first congregation
and urged it to close, but also got the building sold to a Babtist church thriving on Justification by Faith. Cornerstone has built
onto the new building Glende abandoned,
and the Eastern Orthodox love his original church building, which was not up to Tim's high standards (no coffee bar).

Creation Favors the Ordinary and Overlooked Plants

 Ordinary Shasta Daisies rank high
in hosting beneficial insects. Do not despise them.

The gardening supply companies are in panic. They are afraid the season will close without my purchase of their plants and equipment, so they are loading my mailbox and email with their pleas.

The offerings are vast and exotic. I read the print catalogues to learn more about plants and their growing habits. Dutch Gardens, one of the best suppliers of fall (hardy) and spring (tender) bulbs will describe something really unusual and close with - "rare and choice."

Most of the time I test plants by  buying one or two at Walmart or Lowe's. My shocker this year was the ordinary and widely used Shasta Daisy. I never would have bought one, except Jessica Walliser said it was a great plant for beneficial insects, especially the most voracious. Ladybugs get all the publicity, but others do most of the work. The moment I planted two daisies, the Tachinids landed - and I see them all the time on the flowers, little bristly "houseflies" that are great pest destroyers.

Everyone loves roses, but daisies make the roses better by destroying the destroyers. After neglecting them for decades, I have to admit that daisies brighten up the garden by constantly blooming.

Luther talks about religious leaders who are "head over heels in holiness." Synods throw all kinds of money and honors at those who posture about the latest and most favored fads. The mini-bishops protect the worst offenders because so much has been bet on them - and yet they fail spectacularly and often quite publicly.

 I told the weed-eating crew - save the Pokeweeds.
I like them. "We gathered that," one said, looking
at a row of them bearing berries.

 Before I knew, I hacked down Pokeweed,
which grew wheresoever birds landed.
QED - birds love it.

Pokeweed horrified me with its enormous growth and promiscuous production of berries - until I learned it was the best bird feeder of all - and free - while providing flowers that hosted...you guessed it...beneficial insects.

The Application
The real work is being done by ministers who are never in the limelight and are consistently passed over by the great and mighty. And yet from a distance, the chosen ones seem so glamorous and talented. At least, they think so.

How many synodical bureaucrats actually give original sermons from the Scriptures on a weekly basis? Precious few - I am sure. My friends even caught them borrowing each other's "devotions," which probably came from Fuller in the first place - Messages That Move Mountains, or something equally silly.

The overlooked ministers can comfort themselves with the knowledge that synodical favor is inevitably toxic. Treasures in heaven only come from treasuring the Word of God, never from marble, gold, and silver - or buildings built by the guilt-money from evil, treacherous, two-faced philanderers..

One Babtist minister spoke about a couple that left his congregation. He asked them why. They said, "You never go deep." He had a remedy for that rebuke - "Never ask members why they left."

That has now become a running joke on email, where we measure whether someone is "going deep" or not.

Pastor Rick Johnson Chapped Jon-Boy's Hide So Badly, Rick Got a Big Fat WELS Grant. Alas, Now Rick Is Gone

 Christian Music - somehow connected to Crown of Life.

RESIGNED

Pastors	Current call	Date resigned
Rev Ricky Johnson	Crown of Life LC Corona CA & Yucaipa CA & Riverside CA	9/10/2017

From 2009:

Pastor Rick Johnson, in Corona, California, got his Geneva gown in a bunch because I posted a typo on Bailing Water. 

First, Bailing Water posted the Open Letter, which I also published.

Second, Rick Johnson offered a typical Church and Change rebuttal, attacking the author for being anonymous, for being "too general," etc. Sanctimoniously, he signed his name (for once), as if that made his response credible. The Shrinkers have always used the same method. They avoid the issue of false doctrine because they hate Lutheran doctrine. They change the subject and cloak their agenda.

Third, I posted a quick response, identifying Rick as a Shrinker and Leonard Sweet-heart. 

Rick follows the old lawyer's trick: "If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you don't have either on your side, pound the table." 

Rick is a table-pounder, just like the rest of the Changers. He belongs to the secretive cabal that has controlled the finances and agenda of "conservative" Lutherans for decades. 

Doctrine - not on his side.

The facts - let's avoid what the Changers have done and spent.

The Changers are offended that people have not held their hands and explained their sins to them (Matthew 18). Of course, when people did exactly that to Kelm, he wrote he would not discuss Leonard Sweet at all. 

The Changers are offended that someone would write without his real name. About 100% of the attempted rebuttals on Ichabod are anonymous. A number of them are too obscene and crude to reproduce, even with the words deleted.

Rick and Company enjoy seeing names so they can activate the Changer Slander Machine, the same one which labeled Koeplin, a senior pastor, "brain-damaged" for criticizing Church Growth and amalgamation. The same Changer Slander Machine labeled the former seminary president as "senile" for opposing amalgamation.

When I revealed that Rick was a Sweet-heart with offerings deep in the red, he erased the facts he published and began yelping about his public blog being quoted. He forgot to mention that he erased his slobbering reference to Sweet. Table pounding.

The Shrinkers are terrified now. The laity and pastors can see what Mischke-Gurgle-Patterson-Mueller did to WELS. (Yes, I know how to spell Gurgel. Just having fun with a name.) I hope the Shrinkers keep shrieking like little girls who just saw a spider. People can see them for what they are - insubordinate, dishonest, lazy false teachers. They are clouds without rain, belly servers, wolves wearing the finest fleece (bought with synod subsidies).

Paul warned about wolves from within and without. The Changers are the wolves within.

Crown of Life, Corunna