WELS Conference - About R2W | Return to Wittenberg

About R2W | Return to Wittenberg:



"Many young people struggle to find authenticity in the chaos of the world today. The lines between real-life and online, true and false, moral and immoral have become increasingly blurred. While church should be a source of reprieve, pop-Christianity usually offers very little to aid in the search for something “real.”

500 years ago a monk from the little town of Wittenberg, Germany, was also left asking life-and-death questions by a church that had lost its authenticity. The church in his day had invented new methods of “doing church” that were worlds apart from the Way of Christ and His Apostles. Under the pope in Rome, Christian worship became something people did for God rather than what God did for them. The focus of their worship was on man’s effort and action.

Unfortunately, this paradigm is not an isolated 16th-Century or papal phenomenon. It is reflected by modern church-goers who believe that “going to church” and “worship” are all about what they have to do for God. It is also present in the attitudes and motivations of those who place the emphasis on man’s desire for entertainment and novelty. In both cases, the heart and soul of the Church’s worship, and the church’s life together, is lost. In order to find it again, we will return to Wittenberg, and more precisely, to the clear exposition of Biblical truth found in the Lutheran Confessions, and re-discover the authentic Christianity that German friar and professor was blessed to re-discover nearly five centuries ago…

We use “Return to Wittenberg” not to describe a literal return to 16th Century Germany, of course, nor to represent the repristination of the same in the modern context, but rather to represent a periodic journey to review and be refreshed in the Scriptural teachings contained in the Lutheran Confessions—especially the Small Catechism.

Planning Committees
WORSHIP COMMITTEE

Pr. Dale Reckzin (Chair)
Pr. Benjamin Radtke
Mr. Daniel Baker (Organist)
Mr. David Moseley (Kantor und Kapellmeister)

PRESENTATIONS COMMITTEE

Pr. Nate Seelow (Chair)
Pr. Johann Caauwe
Dr. Joe Jewell
Mr. Chester Reinemann

LOGISTICS/PUBLICITY COMMITTEE

Mr. Jonathan Mayer (Visual Art)
Mrs. Jana Baumann (Publicity Coordinator)
Mrs. Jill Landowski"

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Scapegoat Studio Blog: Return to Wittenberg 2016. How Many Will Mark Schroeder Kick Out of WELS?

Scapegoat Studio Blog: Return to Wittenberg 2016:



"This past week I was privileged to be a part of the first Return to Wittenberg (R2W) conference, entitled “What Does This Mean?” The event was held at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, on July 26-29. Since this was the event’s debut, I’ll spend a little time explaining what R2W is before reviewing my experience.

Last fall I was invited by several WELS pastors and laymen to consider presenting at the conference and help with the planning. Much of the groundwork had already been laid, so I can’t claim to have contributed much more than a graphic identity. In the early planning stages, the conference was conceived of as an alternative to WELS youth rallies that would be recognizably Confessional and Lutheran. While that may be the easiest way to explain it, it would be an oversimplification to say that R2W is just a WELS knockoff of Higher Things. What it became was a conference focused on the catechism, aimed at teens through 30-somethings, with the intent that all ages would be welcome."



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