LCMS Loves Working with ELCA - Just Like WELS

Mark and Avoid Jeske has Change or Die! Conferences every year with ELCA women pastors, LCMS and WELS Pastors.

The Evangelical Lutheran Liturgical Congregations website lists "congregations which use the historic liturgy of the Church in all of their services and practice Closed Communion" and "have not adopted worship customs from the surrounding culture." One of the congregations listed is St Paul Lutheran Church, Austin, TX. 

On Saturday, February 2, 2019, St Paul Lutheran Church is holding the 14th Annual Senior Fest, where one will "Join fellow Lutherans from the Austin and Central Texas for fellowship, education, and spiritual growth." 

This Senior Fest is sponsored by the Texas District of the Missouri Synod, Adult Lutherans Organized for Action (a Recognized Service Organization of the Missouri Synod), and........... The Southwestern Texas Synod of the ELCA. 

The devotions will be given by Rev. Michael Neuman, LCMS TX District President, and the Keynote Speaker is ELCA Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod Bishop Michael Rinehart. 

It gets worse. 

According to the Texas District Senior Fest brochure, there are six workshops and presenters:

1. BE NOT AFRAID! DISCOVER THE MYSTERY OF THE LABYRINTH! -Barbara Schutz, Spiritual Director, member of First English Lutheran Church (ELCA), Austin.
2. BOTH SIDES NOW: Dialog in a Time of Political Extremism - Bee Moorehead [actually Moorhead], Executive Director, Texas Interfaith Center for Public Policy/Texas Impactmember and deacon of University Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Austin.
3. CALLINGS NO ONE HOPES FOR BUT MAY BE UNABLE TO REFUSE:Are you ready? How do you prepare? - Barbara Wiederaenders, member of First English Lutheran Church (ELCA), Austin.
4. FEARLESS GENEROSITY: Legacy Planning for Family and Ministry - Deacon John Dellis, gift planner, Lutheran Foundation of the Southwestmember of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church (ELCA), San Antonio.
5. HAVE NO FEAR; SAFE I ANCHOR IN HIS GRACE! - Dr. Robert Achterberg, member of St. Paul Lutheran Church (LCMS), Austin.
6. “WHO GETS GRANDMA’S YELLOW PIE PLATE”: A Guide to Passing on Personal Possessions - Blaine Nelson, member of St. Andrew Lutheran Church (ELCA), Canyon Lake.

Thus, of the six presenters (seven, if you include the Keynote Speaker), only ONE is a Missouri Synod Lutheran. 

One wonders how a congregation listed on the Evangelical Lutheran Liturgical Congregations website could be holding such workshops with so many non-Lutheran presenters. 

BTW, for a Senior Fest, the prayer labyrinth may need to be wheelchair-accessible.

 The Don Patterson does all this and more in WELS.
He is at Hollywood, Austin - or is that Holy Word?