Jerusalem - by Edward Blake - Music by C. H. H. Parry

 

Working on the Zoom - Doc Lito Was Right - We Need Three Computers

 

The Best Buy computer helper came over to finish what we started with the "online repair" from overseas. We settled issues about sound, voice, and the saved video. I will practice more tomorrow. I can stretch earphones from the library but I will trade them for blue tooth.

Grand Canyon U. seems to be having the same shortage of students problems as other schools. I had a course dropped from my schedule because of low enrollment, which is more likely in the summer. I began to expect that after a short lapse (five weeks) last year.

The new priority in 2024 will be the Reformation Seminary, so I will be soliciting ideas for the way we work and start teaching very soon.

We can be using the chat feature soon.

 Mixed feelings about Zoom.

Who Won? The Champions of Apostasy - Slime Marches On

 

The Big Five - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC (sic) - moved step by step into apostasy, which means they once were loyal to the Christian Faith and finally rejected it. The question is not whether this happened but how this was so massive in effect.

Here is a little factoid. ELCA began officially in 1987 with 5.4 million members. Wickedpedia has the current number at 2.9 million, almost half the size and going down rapidly.

Where did the 2.5 million - or, pick a number - go? The Big Four have lost members at the same time, so the promise of one consultant, "Expect a big chunk from ELCA members running to other Lutheran congregations" has failed.

That means all the Church Growth gimmicks have failed so badly - they could not even keep up their own precious numbers. Here are the reasons:

1. Their pastors do not teach faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2. The managers (they are not leaders) despise the KJV and promote atrocious, devious Bibles, three from the gay National Council of Churches - RSV, ESV, NRSV.
3. District managers (they are not leaders) and pastors hate Luther and his Biblical doctrine. 
4. Pastors do not visit their own members, at home or in the hospital.
5. The synods worship themselves, not the Holy Trinity.
6. The managers (they are not leaders) spend lavishly on themselves and gimmick specialists.

 Fifty years of Church Growth - and then some.

From Former "It's OK To Pray" DP Dave Benke. ALPB Ovaltines Discuss Their Failing Colleges

 

LCMS DP Dave Benke signs his posts - "It's ok to pray" - because he invited himself to the pan-religious 9-11 Yankee Stadium event and led in prayer there. LCMS ended up firing Wallie Schulz for finding Benke guilty. Benke was hired back from the Schulz verdict and so "It's OK to pray" is on all his Ovaltine posts - aka ALPB Online Forum.

Benke quote:

The new CUWAA Strategic Plan called, "Wholeheartedly, We Will" was worked on for a year by a hired external consultant and dozens of stakeholders. This plan was approved by the Board of Regents during their February 8, 2024 meeting.

*** 

GJ

My initial response was - Church Growth Management by Objective Strikes Again!

Examples -

This plan includes the following goals:

1.3.1 Within 3 years, the Enrollment and Academics Units will collaborate to ensure that the

university—across its campuses—serves the largest number of LCMS church work students in

the CUS.

1.3.2 Within 4 years, the Enrollment and Mission and Church Relation Units will collaborate to

grow the number of Christian traditional undergraduate students across its campuses to 90%.

3.1.1 Within 4 years, the Enrollment and Student Success Units will achieve an overall

enrollment of 8,500 students across the campuses. ( GJ - There's more, but this is enough.)

Graduates of Fuller Seminary have to be the dumbest of all, because they have caused a rapidly increasing downhill slide ever since 1980 or so. After 44+ years of shrinkage, they continue to pander to the Drucker MBO, its crafts and assaults. The hired external consultant (big salary) got various people to write exuberant statements about what would happen for their LCMS colleges in the years to come. 

All colleges, universities, and community colleges are shrinking - a fact which most people ignore. I might guess that they had a frenzy of expensive additions to aim for the country club effect, to attract more students. One idea, years ago, was to charge less tuition (via grants and scholarships) to make the first two years easier to pay. Student/parent payments go up for the last two years because course credit transfers do not work very well. 

One university said on the phone, "We can only count six hours of credit from your previous school." The student said, "Then I am not signing up." The counselor responded, "OK. All your credits will transfer."

Student loans are mortgages on the students' futures, so not to worry, students and parents. America has decided that lacking a four-year degree might not be so bad.

One can guess that all the Lutheran colleges will fade away in the next decade. Most - if not all of them - major in non-Lutheran students.

And one more item which again is astounding to me:  ENDOWMENT QUESTIONS
🚨IMPORTANT NEW INFORMATION: Of the anticipated $9 million deficit in operations between the two campuses this fiscal year, it appears that over $7 million is in depreciation. In other words, not contributing to a cash flow problem. This is not to be ignored, but the operating deficit is largely depreciation and not a loss of cash.
RESEARCH
• (Updated 2/26) Comparative Data within a sample of 39 institutions in Michigan and Wisconsin: https://bit.ly/comparative-data-2-26
• (New!) Long-term trends for CUWAA (as a whole), Wisconsin, and Ann Arbor https://bit.ly/cuwaa-long-term-trends
Additional questions for consideration:
Would the money that has been raised for Ann Arbor campus projects such as the Maier Center and the Weight Room addition (some $10 million) be returned by Concordia University Wisconsin to those who provided the funds?
Would the dollars originally given by various Districts of The LCMS and the Michigan Church Extension Fund be returned to them by Concordia University Wisconsin? The assumption was that those funds were given for a long-term solution, not a 10-year-solution.
The endowments that are held by CUW for CUAA (now valued at some $27 million) were generally given by Michigan District residents for the benefit of Michigan students. Would those funds be returned by Concordia University Wisconsin to the Michigan District to use to defray expenses for Michigan students attending Lutheran high schools, or other Concordia universities, or the seminaries?

What in the world is going on here?

Dave Benke

It's OK to Pray

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Lent 3 Oculi - "And as that house must be conquered by a stronger man and thus wrested from the tyrant, so must man also be ransomed through Christ and wrested from Satan."

 

Complete Luther Sermon Here -> Oculi. Third Sunday in Lent - Luke 11:14-23.  

6. In the second place, he replies with a public example and a similar work, when he says: “By whom do your sons cast them out?” As if he would say: “Is this not simple idiocy? Just what you praise in your sons, you condemn in me. Because your sons do it, it is of God; but because I do it, it must be of the devil.” So it is in this world. What Christ does, is of the devil; if some one else did it, it would be all right. Thus the tyrants and enemies of the Gospel do now, when they condemn in us what they themselves do, confess and teach; but they must proceed thus in order that their judgment may be publicly approved, when they are condemned by all justice. The sons, of whom Christ here says that they drive out devils, were, I think, certain exorcists among the people, for God, from the beginning, had given this people manifold spiritual gifts and he calls them their “sons,” as though to say: I am the Son of God and must be called a child of the devil, while those who are your sons, begotten by you, do the same things and are not to be considered children of the devil.

7. “Therefore shall they be your judges,” that is, I appeal to them. They will be forced to decide that you wrongfully blaspheme me, and thus condemn yourselves. For if one devil does not drive out another then some other power must do it that is neither satanic nor human, but divine. Hence the words: “But if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.” This finger of God is called in Matthew 12:28 the Holy Ghost, for the words read thus: “But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons,” etc. In short, Christ means to say: If the kingdom of God is to come unto you, the devil must be driven out, for his kingdom is against God’s kingdom, as you yourselves must confess. But demon is not driven out by demon, much less by men or the power of men, but alone by the Spirit and power of God.

8. From this follows that where the finger of God does not cast out the devil, there the devil’s kingdom still exists; where Satan’s kingdom still exists, there the kingdom of God cannot be. The unavoidable conclusion then is that, as long as the Holy Spirit does not enter our hearts, we are not only incapable of any good, but are of necessity in the kingdom of Satan.

And if we are in his kingdom, then we can do nothing but that which pleases him, else it could not be called his kingdom. As St. Paul says to Timothy: “The people are taken captive in the snares of the devil unto his will” 2 Timothy 2:26. How could Satan suffer one of his people to take a notion to do something against, and not for, his kingdom? Oh, it is a striking, terrible and powerful statement that Christ here admits such a dominion, which we cannot escape except by the power of God; and that the kingdom of God can not come to us until that kingdom is driven out by divine, heavenly power.

9. This truth is proved in the case of this poor man, who was bodily possessed of the devil. Tell me, what could he and all mankind do to free him from the devil? Without a doubt, nothing. He had to do and suffer just as his master the devil willed, until Christ came, with the power of God.

Now then, if he could not free himself from the devil as to his body, how could he, by his own power, deliver his soul from Satan’s spiritual dominion? Especially is this the case since the soul, because possessed of sin, is the cause of all bodily possession as a punishment, and sins are more difficult to remove than the punishment of them, and the soul is always more firmly possessed than the body. This is proved by the fact that the devil permits the body to have its natural powers and functions; but he robs the soul of reason, judgment, sense, understanding, and all its powers, as you readily see in the case of this possessed man.

10. He answers them in the third place, by a comparison taken from life, namely that of a strong man overcome by one stronger, and robbed of all his armor and goods etc. By this he testifies also that no one but God can overcome the devil, so that again no man can boast of being able of himself to drive out either sin or the devil. Notice how he pictures the devil! He calls him a mighty giant who guards his court and home, that is, the devil not only possesses the world as his own domain, but he has garrisoned and fortified it, so that no one can take it from him. He rules it also with undisputed sway, so that it does whatever he commands. Just as little as a house or court may withstand or contend against the tyrant who is its master, can man’s free will and natural powers oppose sin and Satan, that is, not at all; but they are subject to them. And as that house must be conquered by a stronger man and thus wrested from the tyrant, so must man also be ransomed through Christ and wrested from Satan. We see again, therefore, that our works and righteousness contribute absolutely nothing toward our salvation; it is effected alone by the grace of God.