Dated Essay - Still Germane Today

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROBLEM TODAY





Table of Contents

I. Proof of Corruption.............................. 4

A. The Gospel Persecuted, Misconduct Rewarded... 4

B. Unionism with ELCA.......................... 4

C. Church Growth Movement....................... 5

D. Denial of the Efficacy of the Word.......... 5

1. Pietism, Enthusiasm, Revivalism........ 5

2. Hidden Doctrines in Neutral Methods.... 6

E. Results of Denying the Efficacy of the Word.. 6

1. Gadarene Swine......................... 6

2. Clergy Sex Offenders.................... 8



II. Lutherans Have Gone A-Whoring with the Reformed, Again........................................... 8

A. McGavran and Fuller Seminary................ 8

B. C. Peter Wagner, Pentecostal Faith Healer... 10

C. WELS Sneaks in Fuller and McGavran Slowly.... 11

D. Ocsar Naumann Promotes TELL.................. 11

E. Valleskey "Spoils the Egyptians"............. 12



III. Where It Started............................... 12

A. Fuller Seminary.............................. 12

B. Harold Ockenga............................... 13

C. Fuller Attacks Biblical Inerrancy............ 13

D. Fuller Attacks Salvation through Christ...... 14

E. Fuller Attacks Pauline Authorship............ 14

F. Fuller and Pentecostalism.................... 15

1. C. Peter Wagner......................... 15

2. John Wimber............................. 15

G. Fuller, Cho, and the Occult.................. 16

1. Results of Denying the Means of Grace... 16

2. No Authority Left to Judge the Spirits.. 16

3. Cho and the Occult...................... 16

4. Cho and Robert Schuller................. 18

5. Schuller, Napoleon Hill, and the Occult. 19



IV. Fuller and Conservative Lutherans............... 21

A. "Mark and Avoid" Becomes "Register and Attend" 21

B. Lawrence Olson Brags about His Alma Mater.... 21

C. Fuller and WELS.............................. 22

D. Fuller and the Missouri Synod................ 22

1. Waldo Werning, Fuller Student........... 22

2. Kent Hunter, D. Min. (Fuller)........... 24

3. Stephen Wagner, D. Min. (Fuller)........ 25

4. Elmer Matthias, D. Min (Fuller)......... 26

5. Roger Leenerts.......................... 26

E. Selling Pentecostal Books

in The Northwestern Lutheran............ 27



V. False Doctrines from Fuller, Endorsed by WELS, ELCA, and the LCMS.................................... 28

A. Church Growth Defined........................ 28

B. False Doctrine: Conversion through the Word. 29

C. False Doctrine: Management by Objective..... 31

1. Luther versus MBO and SMART Goals....... 32

2. Doubt in the Word....................... 34

D. False Doctrine: Church Growth Eyes.......... 34

1. Luther versus Church Growth Eyes........ 36

E. False Doctrine: Soil Testing

and Receptivity Rating Scales........... 36

F. False Doctrine:

Entertainment Evangelism, Friendship Sunday,

and Seeker Services................ 38

G. False Doctrine:

Community Churches and Adiaphora.......... 43

H. False Doctrine:

Lay Pastors and Cell Groups............ 45

I. False Doctrine: Everyone a Minister........ 47

J. False Doctrine:

Women Usurping Authority over Men

and Teaching Men.................. 48

K. False Doctrine: Making Disciples............ 49

L. False Doctrine: Unionism.................... 54



















I. Proof of Corruption



A. The Gospel Persecuted, Misconduct Rewarded



The district mission board said to the council of a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod congregation, "Fire your pastor!" They said, "Why should we? We like our pastor." The board said, "Make up something or we will cut off your funds." Under pressure, the council fired the pastor, who had served faithfully many years in the deep South. He was not guilty of sexual misconduct or false doctrine, but he was critical of the Church Growth Movement. He was denied ministerial status, even when he appealed.



In another Wisconsin Synod district, a pastor was caught with the wife of a church member. He was removed from the ministerium but was immediately given a quasi-pastoral job by a Wisconsin Synod agency in the same state. The adulterous pastor has been known for years as the ultimate Church Growth pastor in the district. He was always held up as the example for other pastors to follow.



Pastors and laity in the Wisconsin Synod and Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod are deeply disturbed by the poor leadership evidenced by their district and synodical presidents. Money is mismanaged. Clergy sex abuse is not only tolerated, but rewarded.

The church periodicals, which mulitply like rabbits, serve as platforms for promoting every kind of false doctrine and unionistic practice. The official theological journals offer sly support for the same trends or remain diplomatically silent.



B. Unionism with ELCA



The Missouri and Wisconsin Synods have become poor imitations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, laying up for them­selves treasures on earth while the Biblical doctrines entrusted to them are allowed to rust and decay (Matthew 6:19-20). In fact, the leaders of WELS and the LCMS are only too happy to work with and under the leadership of ELCA, in evangelism, worship, and many other areas. The district presidents and synod presidents of WELS and the LCMS cannot be convinced that their stated doctrinal positions are true, if they are so glad to ape ELCA in thought, word, and deed. The mission boards leaders of all three Lutheran bodies, 99% of all Lutherans in America, all look to Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, for their doctrine. Walther's dream of doctrinal unity among all Lutherans in America has been turned into a nightmare. WELS and LCMS leaders pretend to oppose the ordination of women, homosexuals, and lesbians, but they plan joint religious activities with them, proving their doctrine by default.



C. Church Growth Movement



How can things be so dreadful, even among the Lutheran church bodies which want to be called conservative? I began looking at the problem in Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure. I was serving a Wisconsin Synod congregation at the time and learning how to use a computer and database. Realizing that the database was the ultimate note card system, I began adding my favorite Lutheran quotations to IBM's Professional File. Then, when Rev. Wayne Mueller denied that there was any Church Growth in WELS, I started adding citations from Church Growth materials from WELS, Fuller Seminary, the LCMS, and ELCA.[1] There was and still is a great demand for the comparisons which I continue to assemble from the database of 2200 citations.



The exercise was not academic for me. I wanted to know why supposed Lutherans were so antagonistic toward the liturgy, Lutheran hymns, the Confessions, and Luther's doctrine. The Michigan District of WELS started two congregations, Pilgrim Community Church and Crossroads Community Church, which tried as much as possible to be non-Lutheran. The first one flopped under the leadership of an adulterous pastor. The second one left Lutheranism with its WELS trained pastor and 50 former WELS Lutherans.



D. Denial of the Efficacy of the Word



Clearly the LCMS and WELS leaders do not trust in the Means of Grace, adopting instead the position of the Reformed, as will be detailed later. Even more importantly, they deny the doctrine of the efficacy of the Word, which is foundational for all Lutheran doctrine. There are only two positions possible about the Holy Spirit. One is clearly taught in the Bible, the Church Fathers, the Lutheran Reformation, Lutheran hymns, and the old Synodical Conference: the Spirit never works apart from the Word, the Word never works apart from the Spirit. (Isaiah 55:8-11) The other position, which Lutherans call Enthusiasm, separates the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word.



1. Pietism, Enthusiasm, Revivalism



Historically, the denial of the efficacy of the Word in Lutheranism has one primary starting point - a movement called Lutheran Pietism, started by Philip Spener and August Francke. It surfaced again in American Lutheranism in the 19th century, under the name of revivalism or New Measures. Enthusiasm has had its most recent and destructive impact in the Church Growth Movement, which has been adopted wholesale by the LCMS and WELS, as well as ELCA. Pietism, revivalism, and the Church Growth Movement have so much in common because all three deny the same doctrine of the efficacy of the Word.



2. Hidden Doctrines in Neutral Methods



All three movements pretend to be non-doctrinal and therefore pose the greatest danger to Lutheranism. Lutheran doctrine will defeat any false doctrine, but Lutherans have trouble with a-doctrinal positions. When a false teacher says, "We are only giving you methods for helping your denomination grow," he is lying. The actual doctrines are deeply hidden and must be brought to light, just as anaerobic infections need air to be cured. If an anaerobic infection is not cut open and drained, blood poisoning will soon kill the hapless victim.



Those who claim to promote methods and not doctrines are secret unionists. Either they want all denominations in one visible church, or they have no love at all for pure doctrine. They slip away from any discussion about doctrine by flattering potential critics. One pastor said about a Church Growth leader, "It's easier to pick up soap in a shower than it is to find out what he really thinks." One unionist, who organized the ELCA/WELS/LCMS evangelism program, simply agrees with anyone who disagrees, leaving everyone confused.



E. Results of Denying the Efficacy of the Word



1. Gadarene Swine

So many Church Growth pastors have tumbled out of Lutheranism that they have infringed the copyright of the Gadarene swine (Mark 5:1ff). Pastor Steve Quist (Evangelical Lutheran Synod) started Seeker Services (see Willow Creek and David Valleskey's We Believe) in Naples, Florida, and was ousted by ELS President George Orvick. The visibility of Quist popped the Church Growth bubble in the ELS.



Pastor Rick Miller, trained at Willow Creek Community Church, founded Crossroads Community Church as a WELS mission, with the approval of District President Robert Mueller. Miller left Lutheranism with his members when a few of us objected to his doctrine and practice.



Pastor Kelly Voigt, WELS, trained mission pastors for the synod and conducted Seeker Services before he left Lutheranism with his WELS congregation in Tallahassee, Florida. The congregation no longer exists. Voigt was called to Crossroads to conduct Seeker Services.



Pastor Mark Freier promoted Reformed doctrine as a member of the WELS Youth Commission and pastor at St. Peter's in Plymouth, Michigan. The WELS Kingdom Workers funded a call for him in Coral Gables, Florida, with Pastor Randy Cutter and Pastor Robert Timmerman. All three pastors became charismatic and left Lutheran­ism with their congregation, leaving the district with a building, a huge debt, and no members. Pastor Freier is now serving at Crossroads Community Church, a non-Lutheran congregation with three pastors trained in Church Growth by WELS.



Pastor Dan Kelm organized Seeker Services in Indianapolis, Indiana, and served as a WELS expert on cell groups. As a missionary to Bulgaria, he began worshiping with non-Lutherans and was returned to the States. He announced he had a job with Campus Crusade, but he was called to serve a Missouri Synod congregation one month after he joined it.



Three WELS pastors and a lay worker serving in Taiwan feathered out and began speaking in tongues. The Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary faculty said it was permissable, as long as they did not promote tongue-speaking. The charismatics left Lutheranism anyway, and their fate is not known. Raising the issue with a Lutheran leader will drop the room temperature 20 degrees and stop all conversa­tion.



Pastors Richard Stadler, Iver Johnson, and Michael Albrecht circulated their famous screed "Heirs Together" (nicknamed "Errorists Together") for years in the WELS. Stadler and Mark Freier were featured speakers at the WELS international youth rally in Columbus, Ohio. Stadler was also the main speaker at a national WELS Lutherans For Life meeting. Johnson served on the WELS commission which created the feminist Christian Worship hymnal. Albrecht is an editor of the feminist, pro-homosexual Lutheran Forum Letter (ELCA/LCMS) and an editor of the somewhat conservative Logia journal. They were all ousted from the Wisconsin Synod. They took their congregation out of WELS, and instituted open women's suffrage in place of the covert suffrage of the past. Stadler was known for his support of Church Growth and women's ordination.



Dorothy Sonntag was not the first woman editor serving a Lutheran denominational magazine. The Lutheran (LCA and then ELCA) had women on the staff, but women did not write editorials for ELCA, as Sonntag did for WELS before quitting and joining the ELCA and serving as a minister of sorts. Because feminist causes, especial­ly women's ordination, are so important to Fuller Seminary and Church Growth, Sonntag's case is worth noting.



2. Clergy Sex Offenders

Many Church Growth pastors, WELS and LCMS, have been caught with their pants down, sometimes with the same sex. Clergy sexual abuse is not limited to Church Growth advocates, but they seem over-represented on the list. One WELS district president is serving time in prison for molesting little girls in his congregation over a span of decades. The pastors with the best people skills are able to blame their adultery on their wives and remain in the ministry, even in the same congregation, with a new victim as a spouse. Infidelity to the Word is the fuse which ignites marital infideli­ty, as Luther pointed out:



No work is so evil that it can damn a man, and no work is so good that it can save a man; but faith alone saves us, and unbelief damns us. The fact that someone falls into adultery does not damn him. Rather the adultery indi­cates that he has fallen from faith. This damns him; otherwise adultery would be impossible for him. So, then, nothing makes a good tree except faith."

Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, I, p. 475. Matthew 7:15‑23.



II. Lutherans Have Gone A-Whoring with the Reformed, Again



A. McGavran and Fuller Seminary

The Church Growth Movement is so intimately connected with Fuller Theological Seminary and Donald McGavran that one cannot understand the collapse of Lutheranism today without considering the toxic influence of the man and the school.



Donald McGaran is dead, but he rules American Lutheranism from the grave through his disciples in the Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod, and ELCA. He was a missionary in India for the Disciples of Christ, a large, ecumenical, liberal denomination which opposes infant baptism. McGavran worked with the ultra-liberal denomina­tion and with the radical leftist World Council of Churches all his life.



Donald C. McGavran died at home home in Altadena, California, on July 10, 1990. He was 92 years old. Dr. McGavran is widely recognized as the founder of the church growth movement, a movement which has sought to put the social sciences at the service of theology in order to foster the growth of the church. In August of 1989 I borrowed a bicycle and pedaled several miles uphill up from Pasadena to Altadena. I found Dr. McGavran in his front yard with a hose in hand, watering flowers.

Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller),

"See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth and the Church," EVANGELISM, February, 1991, Professor, Martin Luther College (WELS), p. 1.[2]



An Enthusiast to the core, McGavran was informed by God that he was not concerned enough about numbers when he was a missionary in India.



I was thinking some hard thoughts about my Presbyterian friends when the Lord said to me, "Donald, you sat on the executive committee of the Indian Mission of the Disci­ples of Christ for twenty‑five years, didn't you?" I said, "Yes, Sir." He said, "How much time did you spend describing the growth or nongrowth of your church?"

Donald A. McGavran and Winfield C. Arn, Ten St­eps for Church Growth, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, p. 65.



Unfortunately, McGavran's liberal theological training was worsened when he earned a Ph.D. in education at Columbia University in New York. The guiding light of education at Columbia was John Dewey, an atheist who signed the Humanist Manifesto. McGavran was heavily influenced by statistical analysis, which secular authorities claim can predict the future and diagnose current problems. Unlike peering at sheep entrails, statistical analysis requires hours of tedious work, inspiring awe rather than ridicule.



McGavran's first effort at combining mission work and statistical analysis resulted in The Bridges of God, 1955. His second work, Understanding Church Growth, became the Bible of the Church Growth Movement, very much like the Book of Mormon, often mentioned and seldom read, due to its extraordinary dullness. McGavran's genius was not in writing books, but in promoting his cause through thousands of letters. He was ready to give up completely (mark this well) when someone wrote him a letter encouraging him to stay the course.[3] Letters written to faithful Lutheran pastors can have the same effect.



McGavran labored in obscurity for years at Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, until he was hired in 1965 to head the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary, where he moved his portable Institute of Church Growth. McGavran's maiden speech to assembled bigwigs and potential donors was larded with statisti­cal analysis, alarming the master of ceremonies so much that he broke the spell by urging an impromptu group rendition of "Beauti­ful Sunshine."



The leverage of the Church Growth Movement in Lutheranism can best be understood by the clever way it was introduced to all denomina­tions, from the top down.



The conscious attempt to apply church growth philosophy to America was stimulated in the fall of 1972 by Pastor Charles Miller, then a staff member of Pasadena's Lake Avenue Congregational Church. At Miller's urging, I organized and asked McGavran to team‑teach with me a pilot course in church growth designed specifically for American church leaders. We did it only as an experiment, but the results were remarkable: One of the students, Win Arn, left his position with the Evangelical Covenant Church and founded the influential Institute for American Church Growth.

C. Peter Wagner (study questions by Rev. John Wimber), Your Church Can Grow, Glendale: G/L Regal Books 1976, p. 15.



B. C. Peter Wagner, Pentecostal Faith Healer

C. Peter Wagner, a Pentecostal Baptist, studied under McGavran in 1967 and became the Donald A. McGavran Professor of Church Growth at Fuller Seminary in 1984, the same year he founded the North American Academy for Church Growth. Wagner and McGavran converted Win Arn, as portrayed movingly by Arn himself:



To acquire more expertise in Church Growth thinking, I visited the School of World Mission and Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary. When I inquired concering resources and materials for American Church Growth, I found that Dr. Donald McGavran and C. Peter Wagner were team‑teaching a course applying world principles of Church Growth to the American scene. I immediately became a part of that group. As I listened and learned, I realized here was the effective approach to evangelism for which I had been search­ing. In those hours, I experienced my third birth‑‑"conversion" to Church Growth thinking. [Winfield C. Arn]

Donald A. McGavran and Winfield C. Arn, Ten Steps for Church Growth, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, p. 12.



C. WELS Sneaks in Fuller and McGavran Slowly

There is no doubt that McGavran, Wagner, and Arn successfully recruited the world mission executives in the LCA, ALC, LCMS, and WELS first, then converted the American mission and evangelism board members. They have left a paper trail which cannot be erased. The world missions professor at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary was already taking note of McGavran and Church Growth in 1974.



Dr. Donald McGavran, Dean Emeritus and Senior Professor of Mission at the Institute of Church Growth, Pasadena, California, is very much concerned about the Two Billion. He severely censures the leaders of the World Council of Churches as having 'betrayed the Two Billion.'

Ernst H. Wendland, "Missiology‑‑and the Two

Bil­lion," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1974, vol. 71, p. 9.



D. Ocsar Naumann Promotes TELL

By 1977, Church Growth was being promoted uncritically in WELS through an official newsletter, TELL, from WELS headquarters, the first issue featuring a cover article by Synod President Oscar Naumann.



TELL has served the church faithfully for 15 years. Three editors have served; Ronald Roth (1977‑84), Paul Kelm (1985‑88), and the undersigned since 1989...The lead article in the first issue of TELL was titled 'Church Growth ‑ Worthwhile for WELS.'...The author of this article in April 1988 issue of TELL concludes, 'It's obvious by now that I believe we in WELS can profit greatly from the writings of the church‑growth leaders.' ... TELL as a separate publication ends with this issue. Nevertheless, the focus of The Evangelism Life Line will continue for years to come as an integral part of the new Board for Parish Services journal ‑ PARISH LEADERSHIP.

Rev. Robert Hartman, TELL (WELS Evangelism) Summer, 1992.



The interlocking nature of world missions, American missions, and evangelism can be seen in Wendland's favorable mention of TELL.



The publication TELL ("The Evangelism Life Line") has been inaugurated to promote the cause of church growth.

Ernst H. Wendland, "Church Growth Theology," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, April, 1981, vol. 78, p. 105.



Professor Wendland also wondered whether WELS should adopt Church Growth principles.



In the light of church growth principles as they are promulgated in many mission schools these days, the question naturally arises as to whether or not our approach to world mission work is in need of reassessment or improvement.

Ernst H. Wendland, "Church Growth Theology," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, April, 1981, vol. 78, p. 108.



E. Valleskey "Spoils the Egyptians"

Professor David Valleskey, who attended a Win Arn seminar at Fuller, left no doubt about the answer to Wendland's question.

He was already teaching Church Growth in his evangelism course at the seminary and at the 1986 summer school for pastors.



There is a fourth option, which is the choice of this writer. It is the same kind of approach Lawrence Crabb, a Christian counselor, advocates over against the use of secular counseling resources. He calls it "spoiling the Egyptians" (Exodus 12:36, KJV), after the action of Israel at the time they left Egypt, when they took from the Egyptians what would stand them in good stead on their journey...Yet this writer is confident we won't go astray in adopting a "spoiling the Egyptians" approach to the various Church Growth Movement sociological prin­ciples and the research that produced them.

David J. Valleskey, "The Church Growth Movement: An Evaluation," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1991 88, p. 115f. Holidaysbu­rg, Pa, 10‑15‑90. [Larry Crab is a favorite author of the Church Growth Movement.]



In Valleskey's new book, We Believe, Therefore We Speak, all the major themes of Enthusiasm and the Church Growth Movement are endorsed, including the anti-confessional, anti-Lutheran, anti-Christian Seeker Service from Willow Creek Community Church. All the pastors who have tumbled out of Lutheranism were trained by Valleskey to "spoil the Egyptians" at Fuller Seminary.



III. Where It Started



A. Fuller Seminary

Fuller Seminary was founded in 1947 by Charles Fuller of "The Old Fashioned Revival Hour." Fuller was an orange grower who studied at a Bible institute and was ordained. His radio broadcast was quite the sensation of its time, and he seemed to be quite unlike the priapic televangelists of our day, men who invent doctrines as strange as their lives. Fuller was a Fundamentalist, so he began a school which would teach the inerrancy of the Bible.



Fuller Theological Seminary was founded in 1947. It was brought into being through the efforts of Charles E. Fuller of the "Old Fashioned Revival Hour." He secured the services of Harold John Ockenga, then minister of the Park Street Church in Boston, as president of the fledgling institution. The school opened its door with four faculty members: Wilbur Moorehead Smith, Everett F. Harrison, Carl F. H. Henry, and myself.

Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, Grand Rapids: Zonderva­n, 1976, p. 106.



From the beginning it was declared that one of the chief purposes of the founding of the seminary was that it should be an apologetic institution...It was agreed from the inception of the school that through the seminary curriculum the faculty would provide the finest theologi­cal defense of biblical infallibility or inerrancy. It was agreed in addition that the faculty would publish joint works that would present to the world the best of evangelical scholarship on inerrancy at a time when there was a dearth of such scholarship and when there were few learned works promoting biblical inerrancy.

Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible, Grand Rapids: Zonderva­n, 1976, p. 106f.



B. Harold Ockenga

Rev. Harold Ockenga took pride in not talking about doctrinal differences. The institutions he was most indentified with in his lifetime, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Christianity Today, and Fuller Seminary, turned liberal with amazing speed. Fuller Seminary gave up its doctrinal position only 15 years after it was founded. Charles Fuller's son, Daniel, who studied under the adulterous Swiss theologian Karl Barth, was instrumental in turning Fuller away from its original position on inerrancy. The conservative faculty members left (Charles Woodbridge in 1957, Wilbur Smith in 1963, Harold Lindsell in 1964, and Gleason Archer in 1965), making Fuller even more vulnera­ble to the winds of false doctrine.



C. Fuller Attacks Biblical Inerrancy

David Hubbard became Fuller's president with the support of Charles Fuller and his son Daniel. Charles, like Eli, refused to see his son's error. (1 Samuel 2:12) Hubbard also studied in Switzerland and adopted the liberal view of the Bible as "contain­ing God's Word," a vague and self-serving concept. Daniel Fuller and David Hubbard succeeded in turning Fuller into an anti-inerrancy school in a few years. Note the hostility in Hubbard's own tract:



Where inerrancy refers to what the Holy Spirit is saying to the churches through the biblical writers, we support its use. Where the focus switches to an undue emphasis on matters like chronologi­cal details, the precise sequence of events, and numerical allusions, we would consider the term misleading and inappropriate. Its dangers, when improperly defined, are: 1) that it implies a precision alien to the minds of the Bible writers and their own use of Scriptures; 2) that it diverts attention from the message of salvation and the instruction in righteousness which are the Bible's key themes;...5) that too often it has undermined our confidence in the Bible we have... 6) that it prompts us to an inordinate defen­siveness of Scripture which seems out of keeping with the bold confidence with which the prophets, the apostles and our Lord proclaimed it.



We resent unnecessary distrac­tions; we resist unbiblical diver­sions.. Can anyone believe that all other activities should be susupended until all evangelicals agree on precise doctrinal statements? We certainly cannot.



David Allan Hubbard, "What We Believe and Teach," Pasadena, California: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1‑800‑235‑2222, Pasadena, CA, 91182.



D. Fuller Attacks Salvation through Christ

Even if Fuller continued to teach the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the school would still be staffed by false teachers who deny the Means of Grace, the Holy Spirit working through the Word and Sacraments to bring us forgiveness of sins and eternal life. But the departure of sincere Biblical professors and their replacement by slippery followers of Karl Barth meant that Fuller's fall from truth accelerated. Charles Kraft, a Fuller professor of world missions, denied openly that Christ was the only way of salvation. How delicious, to travel around the world for Fuller, denying the message one is called by God to deliver for the salvation of souls.



Similarly, he [the Muslim] doesn't have to be convinced of the death of Christ. He simply has to pledge alle­giance and faith to God who worked out the details to make it possible for his faith response to take the place of a righteous­ness requirement. He may not, in fact, be able to believe in the death of Christ...." [Dr. Charles Kraft, consultation in Mar­seilles, France]

Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979, p. 226.



E. Fuller Attacks Pauline Authorship

As I have stated above, the Church Growth advocates in WELS and the LCMS are often lobbyists for women's ordination. Their professors at Fuller were women, which is no problem for someone who denies the inspiration of the Pastoral Epistles. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence (1 Timothy 2:12)."



Ralph P. Martin is Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theologi­cal Seminary...Professor Martin engages in guess work and patch‑qu­ilt organization to explain away the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals.

Harold Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979, p. 228.



F. Fuller and Pentecostalism

1. C. Peter Wagner

Another repulsive effect of Fuller's apostasy can be seen in the growth of Pentecostalism and the occult along with rationalism at the school. Rev. C. Peter Wagner, is the best example of these hot air merchants. In one of his many books, he endorses snake handling and drinking poison:



The preacher, in fact, was a fascinating combination of eloquent and illiterate (by his own testimony). In the services I saw fervent singing, joyous clapping of hands, dancing in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, testimonies, prophecies, preaching of the Word, and as a climax the handling of deadly poisonous snakes and drinking of strychnine. I discussed this with several members of the congregation. When I asked why they handled snakes they replied, simply, "Because Jesus told us to do it as a sign." Another sign of the kingdom.[4]

C. Peter Wagner, Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, New York: Harper and Row, 1981, p. 23.[5]



2. John Wimber

Preceding Wagner at Fuller was John Wimber, the founder of Vinyard, a wildly Pentecostal sect. He is also associated with Promise Keepers, which gathers men into unionistic rallies and cell groups.



In January of 1982, he [Wimber] taught a course at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is an adjunct professor, called "Signs, Wonders, and Church Growth." Wimber taught this course for four years and it became one of the most popular courses at Fuller.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 275.



"Signs and Wonders" was so far-out, even for Fuller, that the course was cancelled, as reported in Christianity Today. However, when Wagner taught one of his own courses later, as Lawrence Olson wrote to me, he began the class with praying and faith healing. The Church Growth experts reason that their phony miracles will attract people to their services, so little do they trust in the Word.



G. Fuller, Cho, and the Occult

Pentecostalism, for all the sweating, dancing, falling on the floor, maniacal laughing, and tongue speaking, gets boring in time. The only alternative left, besides the Means of Grace, is the occult, belief in using the power of the spirit world. Fuller has strong connections with Rev. Paul Y. Cho, who was kicked out of the Assemblies of God for false doctrine connected with worshiping the dead.[6]





1. Results of Denying the Means of Grace

When religious leaders deny and despise the divinely appointed Means of Grace, two errors will necessarily follow: rationalism and irrationalism. Fuller Seminary first promoted rationalism by its attacks on the truths of the Bible and salvation through Christ alone. Once the canonical authority of the Scriptures was demolished by the son of Fuller's founder and his friend, and the bad old faculty members were gone, McGavran was free to set up a new world missions school which promoted Pentecos­tali­sm. Is it an accident that the last of the original faculty members left the same year (1965) McGavran arrived?



2. No Authority Left to Judge the Spirits

If we take away the authority of the Scriptures, as Fuller did before McGavran came to the campus, then there is no way to judge the spirits. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world (1 John 4:1)."



3. Cho and the Occult

The Pentecostalism of Wimber and Wagner seems calm and sedate compared with the occult paganism of Cho, whom I met at Wheaton College. He was uncommonly flat as a person, which seems to be true of many cult leaders when they are not on stage. Cho teaches his benighted followers some of the basic principles of Asian occult spiritualism. One concept is that the spirit world (The Fourth Dimension) hugs our planet, ready to give us exactly what we want if only we know how to ask for it.



Since the spiritual world hugged the third dimension, incubating on the third dimension, it was by this incubation of the fourth dimension on the third dimension that the earth was recreated.

Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plain-fiel­d, NJ: Bridge Publish­ing, 1979, I, p. 39.



This is what happened when when Cho did not get a table, a chair, or a bicycle he had been praying for:



"Yes," God said, "I have given them to you potentially. But you have been asking them of me in such vague terms that I cannot fulfill your request. Don't you know there are a dozen kinds of tables, a dozen kinds of chairs and a dozen kinds of bicycles? Which ones do you want? Be very clear. I have so much trouble with my children, because they keep asking me and asking me and asking me, yet they themselves do not know what kind of thing they want. Make your request very specific, and then I'll answer."

Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho with Harold Hostetler, Success­ful Home Cell Groups, Plainfield, NJ: Logos Internation­al, 1981, p. 163f.



The principle of incubation is directly connected with envisioning the results. They cannot be separated.



After praying for him, I taught him the principle of visions and dreams. I said, "Go back to your bakery, Mr. Ho. Begin to see its success. Start to count the money in the empty cash register and look at all of the people lining up outside to get into your crowded store."

Dr. Paul Y. Cho (with R. Whitney Manzano), More Than Numbers, Waco: Word Books, 1984, p. 107.[7]



Cho's perverted concept of prayer would be laughable, if his books were not sold in all the Christian book stores in the country.



Then I said, "Close your eyes. Can you see your husband now?" "Yes, I can see him clearly." "Okay. Let's order him how. Until you see your husband clearly in your imagination you can't order, because God will never answer. You must see him clearly before you begin to pray. God never answers vague prayers..." They were happily married in that church, and on their marriage day her mother took that paper written with the ten points, and read it publicly before the people, then tore it up.

Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plain-fiel­d, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979, I, p. 20f.



Cho is able to turn the beautiful story of Abraham into a goofy lesson on Management by Objective and occult visioning.[8]



They had a clear‑cut goal ‑ to have a son...Eventually God gave them a promise, and when they received the assurance, God immediately changed their names: "You are no more Abram, but Abraham, the father of many nations".­..Abraham protested to God, "Father, people will laugh at us. We don't even have a puppy in our home, and you mean you want us to change our names to 'father of many nation,' and 'princess'? My, all the people in town will call us crazy."

Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plain-fiel­d, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979, I, p. 28f.



4. Cho and Robert Schuller

Cho's infantile prattling is no barrier to the growth of his business. Rev. Robert Schuller endorsed his concepts and preached at Cho's congregation.



I count it a great honor to write these words as a forword to this exciting book by my brother in Christ, Paul Yonggi Cho. I am personally indebted to him for spiritual strength, and for insights I have received from God through this great Christian pastor. I was minister­ing to his huge congregation in Seoul, Korea...." [Robert Schuller]

Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plain-fiel­d, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979, I.[9]



Well known leaders taught by Cho, according to Cho, include: Charles Stanley, former Southern Baptist president; Jess Moody, whose church was featured in the Newsweek cover story on Church Growth;[10] and Robert Tilton, who claimed to pray over the prayer requests sent to him but simply had his hirelings bank the gifts and throw the requests away, unread.



People may assume that conservative Lutheran synods would have no use for Paul Y. Cho, but I heard the Rev. Dr. Lawrence Olson speak glowingly of Cho and Schuller at a WELS evangelism seminar in 1987. Another WELS Church Growth leader, Pastor Jim Witt, brought a case of Cho books to sell to pastors at a seminar on cell groups sponsored and paid for by WELS.



Cho's influence at Fuller Seminary is continued through his lectures there, his followers on the faculty, and his fellowships which pay for Fuller students to travel to Korea for additional indoctrinat­ion.



5. Schuller, Napoleon Hill, and the Occult

Cho's occult delusions are not unique to Asia. Another version is promoted by the Napoleon Hill Foundation, where Robert Schuller is a board member. Hill's Think and Grow Rich can be found in the business section of most book stores.



"I have come," said the voice, "to give you one more section to include in your book. In writing this section you may cause some readers to disbelieve you, yet you will write honestly and many will believe and be bene­fited. The world has been given many philosophies by which men are prepared for death, but you have been chosen to give manykind a philosophy by which men are prepared for happy living...I come from the Great School of the Masters. I am one of the Council of Thirty‑Three who serve the Great School and its initiates on the physical plane." [Hill explains]: "That is the school of wisdom which has persisted secretly in the Himalayas for ten thousand years...From the remotest days of antiquity, the Masters of the Great School have communicated with each other by telepathy."

Napoleon Hill, Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967, p. 158f.



One should not be surprised to hear the wisdom of Napoleon Hill quoted at the Kiwani's luncheon: "Whatever THE MIND OF MAN can CONCEIVE and BELIEVE it can ACHIEVE."[11] His theological views are worth noting.



FAITH. VISUALIZATION OF, AND BELIEF IN ATTAINMENT OF DESIRE. The second step toward riches. Faith is the head chemist of the mind. When faith is blended with thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, translates it into its spiritual equiva­lent, and transmits it to Infinite Intelligence, as in the case of prayer.

Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1937, revised 1960, p. 49.[12]



We must face the tragic fact that Hill and Cho are the most important theologians for the Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Synod, and the Assemblies of God. All three groups have adopted almost identical mission vision statements which are the fruit of the Hill/Cho thought process:

1) God will not accomplish anything more than we demand through our SMART goals;[13]

2) Our goals have to be big, Big, BIG!

3) We will not tolerate any obstacles to our Holy Spirit anointed plans.



IV. Fuller and Conservative Lutherans



A. "Mark and Avoid" Becomes "Register and Attend"

Fuller Seminary would not even be a footnote in Lutheran history if the conservative Lutherans had observed and avoided the false teachers there. The Missouri and Wisconsin Synods have translated this key passage on unionism as "Register and attend, using synod offerings."



Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. {18} For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:27-28)



The pivotal role of Fuller Seminary is noted by a critic of Church Growth who became a Roman Catholic priest:



Then there is the church growth movement, which has made more devastating headway in LCMS than in ELCA (although it is evident enough in the latter). Today, it is said, Missouri has three seminaries‑‑ St. Louis, Ft Wayne, and Fuller Seminary in Califor­nia, the hothouse of church growth enthusiasms. The synodical and district mission offices are frequently controlled by church growth technocrats...But the idea that Word and Sacrament ministry is somehow validated by calculable results is utterly alien to the Lutheran Reformation...The triumph of style over substance, however, is all too evident in LCMS congregations that look like Baptists with vest­ments. As we have noted before, second‑rate Lutherans make fourth‑rate Baptists.

Rev. Richard Neuhaus, (ELCA at the time), Forum Letter, 338 E 19th Street, New York, NY, 10003. November 26, 1989 p. 2.



B. Lawrence Olson Brags about His Alma Mater

Olson crowed about the lamentable influence of Fuller among Lutherans, but failed to list all his colleagues who attended the school.



The church growth movement has made inroads into nearly every denomination in America. Once considered only the turf of conservative evangelicals, you will now find church growth practioners in the United Methodist Church, in the Presbyterian Church in the USA, and among the Episcopalians. The LCMS has more pastors enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry program at Fuller Theological Semi­nary, the seedbed of the movement, than are enrolled in the graduate programs at their Fort Wayne and St. Louis seminaries combined, and most of them include church growth as part of their studies.

Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller), "See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth and the Church," EVANGE­LISM, February, 1991. Parish Consultant for the WELS Board of Parish Services and his district's Coordinator of Evangelism, before becoming Professor of Lay Ministry at Martin Luther College, WELS. p. 1.



C. Fuller and WELS

WELS leaders who have admitted attending Fuller Seminary, Church Growth seminars at Fuller, Win Arn's Church Growth Institute, Hunter's Church Growth Center, or other Church Growth satellites are: Seminary professors Joel Gerlach (now a parish pastor), David Valleskey, Forrest Bivens; WELS consultants Paul Kelm, Lawrence Olson, James Huebner; former home mission board chief Norm Berg; district mission board chairman Wally Oelhafen; TELL contributor Reuel Schulz, and lone critic Robert Koester.



Olson neglected to say that Church Growth is taught in the evangelism course by Valleskey at the seminary, promoted by the youth, evangelism, stewardship, world and home mission boards, then forced upon the newly ordained after one year of pastoral service, in a special re-education program taught by Olson, Kelm, and Huebner. The Church Growth experts in WELS are known for being conspicuous failures in pastoral work, unreliable in doctrine, as will be shown below.



D. Fuller and the Missouri Synod

There is no question that key Missouri Synod leaders have played a significant role in bringing Church Growth into WELS, which had to be secretive about its love affair with Fuller. Valleskey noted with some pride that five LCMS clergy are listed in the prestigious "Who's Who in Church Growth" chapter in Wagner's Church Growth: The State of the Art.[14] The five are discussed below.



1. Waldo Werning, Fuller Student

Waldo Werning is director of the Stewardship Growth Center of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and an adjunct professor at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne. He teaches a seminar course and conducts seminars which focus on 'supply side stewardship,' integrating church growth principles with a stewardship program."

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 274. Who's Who in CG citation.



Delos Miles' gushing tribute to Fuller, Church Growth, A Mighty River, includes an unintentional send-up of Waldo Werning, who draws from everywhere, even the Lutheran tradition.



A second example of this homogenization is Waldo J. Werning's Vision and Strategy for Church Growth, pub­lished by Moody Press in 1977. Werning is a Missouri Synod Lutheran execu­tive. Although Werning's denomin­ational publishing house did not publish his book, it is never­theless an attempt by Werning to create an instru­ment for church growth among Missouri Synod Lutherans. If you read Werning, you can readily see that he is exceedingly eclectic, drawing from everywhere, including his own tradition."

Delos Miles, Church Growth, A Mighty River, Nash­ville: Broadman Press, 1981, p. 33f.



Werning, who admitted to me that he studied at Fuller and later denied it vehemently, is highly regarded by WELS Church Growth leaders.



There are other church growth programs which have been developed along more conservative lines. Here we are thinking of adaptations of McGavran's principles such as developed by Waldo J. Werning of The Lutheran Church‑

Mis­souri Synod. In his study entitled "Vision and Strategy for Church Growth" Werning has modified some of McGavran­'s extreme positions. Using some of his own adaptations Werning has conducted many seminars and workshops in applying church growth principles to a local congrega­tional setting in America."

Ernst H. Wendland, "Church Growth Theology," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, April, 1981, 78, p. 117.



Werning, Waldo, Vision and Strategy for Church Growth, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1977) ‑ Werning, active for years in LC‑MS stewardship work, explains the foundations, presuppositions and principles of church growth and then shows how a congregation can benefit from making use of certain church growth principles ‑ of the two books listed in this category, Werning's is the more practi­cal.

Prof. David J. Valleskey, Class Notes, The Theology and Practice of Evangelism, PT 358A p. 6.



Werning was at a Columbus conference of the unionistic National Association of Evangelicals on Wednesday during Lent. He left a message on the phone machine that he was in town and we were invited to his hotel. He expressed surprise that we were not at home when he called. I said, "I was conducting a Lenten service."

His response was interesting, "I worshiped at the conference." During the evening he brought up Church Growth and said the only worthwhile pastors in WELS were Paul Kelm and James Radloff.



Later, when I published articles about the doctrinal problems of Church Growth, Werning began a crusade against me which culminated in printing in Christian News a series of bogus charges against me, which he sent to WELS President Carl Mischke. Many WELS friends were tickled that Werning placed himself in charge of the Wisconsin Synod. Werning displayed the same Fulleresque love toward his colleagues at Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne: David Scaer and Robert Preus. Werning went ballistic over Pastor Steve

Scheiderer­'s thesis at Concordia, which was critical of Church Growth.



The advantages of networking among WELS and LCMS Church Growth leaders are clear:



I would not say this publicly, but I will tell privately that I received a phone call from a WELS pastor who said that some claim that there are several WELS pastors in your Circuit who are into church management and some kind of church growth (and possibly even funded by some agencies) and that some believe that you are trying to get at them and a few others in WELS, and that is why you are writing the articles. Whatever the facts are, your entering into this fray, it seems to me, will not open up channels for God to use your very good talents in WELS in profitable ways.

Waldo J. Werning, Letter to Gregory Jackson, August 23, 1989 (Letter stamped in red: CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDEN­TIAL).



If the secret of Werning's success is not his charm, then why has he influenced so many in the LCMS and WELS? He was willing to phone and visit people to recruit them into his seminars. By adding a few Lutheran phrases to his Church Growth books, he was able to market books to LCMS and WELS mission leaders. For instance, when District Mission Chairman Wally Oelhafen visited Pastor Tim Buelow, he dropped off a load of Werning books to read. I and many others wondered why the evangelism and mission boards did not promote Luther and Walther at all, but fell all over themselves to get us to read Werning, Wagner, Cho, and Schaller (Lyle, not John). In effect, the WELS boards pronounced doctrine unimportant and irrelevant.



2. Kent Hunter, D. Min. (Fuller)

Kent Hunter is director of the Church Growth Center, Corunna, Indiana... Hunter sees his major contribution to the Church Growth Movement in the area of theology...Kent Hunter contributed two chapters to this volume: chapter 7, "Membership Integrity: The Body of Christ with a Backbone," and chapter 11, "The Quality Side of Church Growth."

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 240f. Who's Who in CG citation.



Hunter, as I will show later, is far worse than Werning in adopting and promoting the errors of Enthusiasm, yet has even more influence in the LCMS. I met him when he was going into the LCMS Interna­tional Center, apparently to address the Council of Presidents, who have become his best salesmen for the Church Growth Center. Valleskey also promotes Hunter's books and doctrine at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.



Introduction to the Church Growth Movement by Lutheran authors, Hunter, Kent R., Foundations for Church Growth (New Haven, MO: Leader Publishing Co., 1983) ‑ the author, an LC‑MS clergyman who has now set up his own church growth consulting service, performs the valuable service in this 204 page book of presenting an introduc­tion to church growth goals and terminology.

Prof. David J. Valleskey, Class Notes, The Theology and Practice of Evangelism, PT 358A p. 6.



3. Stephen Wagner, D. Min. (Fuller)

Stephen A. Wagner is senior pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Carrollton, Texas. In addition he serves as chairman of the Church Growth Task Force of the Texas District, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod...He is the author of Heart to Heart: Sharing Christ with a Friend (Corunna, Indiana: Church Growth Center). He is also a contributing author to the Church Planting Manual (North American Missions Department of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 1985), and he has written articles for denominational publications. Currently he is a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry degree in church growth from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 274.



Although Forrest Bivens (Fuller) tried to deny it, Paul Kelm (Fuller) gave Kent Hunter (Fuller) a written endorsement for the pan-Lutheran workshop given by Kent Hunter (Fuller) and Stephen Wagner (Fuller), and funded by fraternal insurance.[15]



Lifestyle evangelism is the merger of visual and verbal witness, by the people Jesus intended, in the way that He modeled. It's the primary element in a church's strategy to win the lost.

Rev. Paul Kelm, Evangelism, WELS, "Your Invitation!" Kent Hunter, (D.Min., Fuller; S.T.D., Lutheran School of Theology Chicago, ELCA) Church Growth Center, Corunna, Indiana, 46730. Phone 219‑281‑2452. Invitation for Heart to Heart Work­shop.



4. Elmer Matthias, D. Min (Fuller)

Elmer Matthias is associate professor of practical theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, an institution of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod...While serving the parish [Zion, Anaheim, California] he enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry program in church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, receiving his degreee in 1977. At Concordia Seminary he became the first trained church growth seminary instructor in Lutheran circles, teaching church growth, evangelism, and parish administration.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 250. Who's Who in CG citation.



The Doctor of Ministry programs at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and Concordia Seminary in Ft. Wayne are heavily influenced by Church Growth. Pastor J. Kincaid Smith (co-author of What's Going On Among the Lutherans?), Evangelical Lutheran Synod, said to me, "The D. Min. program at Ft. Wayne was all Church Growth." Bethany Lutheran Seminary (ELS) is critical of the Church Growth Movement, but Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, the two Concordia seminaries, and the ELCA seminaries all promote Church Growth doctrines. The practical professors with little theological training and the world missions professors seem to be the most vulnerable to Enthusiasm.



5. Roger Leenerts

Roger Leenerts is an executive with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, serving as associate executive secretary for North American missions on the Board for Mission Services. He has been a key instrument in introducing church growth principles and practices into the LCMS through sponsoring church growth seminars and workshops for key denominational personnel. Under this new emphasis, church planting became the primary mission emphasis for the synod. In the mid seventies only twenty new congregations were being started per year. Currently the number is over 100, and the goal for 1990 is 500 new congregations per year.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 246. Who's Who in CG citation. [Note the SMART goal of 500 new congregations per year.]



The Leenerts citation can be compared to the work of earlier liberals who introduced the historical-critical method to Lutherans through special workshops and to those who promoted the Social Gospel Movement by using the agencies of the Lutheran Church. We can only guess how many millions of dollars of offerings (from Missouri, WELS, and ELCA) have been diverted to Fuller Seminary, Win Arn's Church Growth Institute, and Kent Hunter's Church Growth Center. No wonder the Fuller professors are so willing to flatter their disciples:



Waldo Werning has made an outstanding contribution to the church growth movement in America with Vision and Strategy for Church Growth...Working out of the models established by Donald McGavran and the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary, Waldo Werning breaks new ground in developing ways that church growth principles can be applied directly to American churches.

Waldo J. Werning, Vision and Strategy for Church Growth, Second Edition, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, p. 5.



E. Selling Pentecostal Books

in The Northwestern Lutheran

C. Peter Wagner has never had anything good to say about Lutheran doctrine. But Lutherans are only too happy to help him sell his Pentecostal books.



Bob: "..I'd like to share with you a book I came across the other day. It's interesting, easy to read, and may be the answer to our problem..."

"Its title is [C. Peter Wagner's] Your Church Can Grow, and it's filled with all sorts of practical hints that could help us turn things around here."

Author: "Bob didn't realize it at the time, but in his browsing he had stumbled upon one of many similar books written from the perspective of the church growth movement, books with such titles as How to Grow a Church, Ten Steps for Church Growth, Church Growth: Strategies that Work, and Leading Your Church to Growth."

Prof. David Valleskey, "The Church Growth Movement, Just Gathering People or Building the Church?" The Northwestern Lutheran, May 5, 1991, p. 184.



A member in Columbus paid me to attend a Church Growth seminar, where I learned the mathematics of false doctrine. One thousand people paid $80 to attend the one day affair ($80,000 gross), but many left with more than $100 in Church Growth books and audio tape sets. The second day, optional, cost a little less, and featured the magic of cell groups. I estimated that two days of Church Growth nonsense vacuumed $250,000-$350,000 out of the Ohio economy, although call girls probably got some of it back before the Fuller staff left town.



I published a critical article in Christian News and soon got a phone call from Fuller. They did not want to pounce on me (their disciples could do that for them, and they did). They wanted me to sign up for their D. Min. program. The charming saleswoman said, "You'll learn so much that your head will hurt." I said, with great conviction, "I have no doubts about that." I left the Columbus seminar sick to my stomach, with a headache registering 7.5 on the Richter scale. It pained me that so many Lutherans were being seduced by such twaddle, with the encouragement of WELS and LCMS professors, mission board leaders, and district presidents.



V. False Doctrines from Fuller, Endorsed by WELS, ELCA, and the LCMS



A. Church Growth Defined

Church growth is that science which investigates the planting, multiplication, function and health of Chris­tian churches as they relate specifically to the effec­tive implementation of God's commi­ssion to "make disci­ples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19‑20 RSV). Church growth strives to combine the eternal theological principles of God's Word concerning the expansion of the church with the best insights of contemporary social and behavioral sciences, employing as its initial frame of reference, the foundational work done by Donald McGavran.

[Consti­tution, Academy for American Church Growth]

C. Peter Wagner, Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, New York: Harper and Row, 1981, p. 75.



Lutheran members of the North American Society for Church Growth: Harold S. Drageger, Grace Lutheran, Visalia, CA; Bradley Hoefs, King of Kings Lutheran, Omaha, NE; Kent Hunter, Church Growth Center, Corunna, IN; Elmer Matthia­s, Emeritus, Concordia St. Louis, MO; Dale Olson, Cross of Hope Lutheran, Ramsey, MN; Waldo J. Werning, Stewardship Growth Center, Ft. Wayne, IN; Gregory L. Jackson, Columbus, OH.

Doris M. Wagner, Fuller Theological Seminary, December 10, 1991. [They refused to give me names unless I joined, so I paid $50 and endured Hunter's Church Growth Journal for a year, one of the benefits of joining this distinguished group of clergy, one of whom was arrested for homosexual sex.]



B. False Doctrine: Conversion through the Word

The Bible teaches that people are converted to faith in Christ exclusively through the Word. Although some have been converted by reading the Scriptures, most conversions take place among adults through the spoken Word. Babies are converted by the Word connected with baptism. The Holy Spirit uses the Law to prepare and soften hardened hearts so that people see the need for a Savior because they are convicted of their sin.



And when he [the Holy Spirit] is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: {9} Of sin, because they believe not on me; {10} Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; {11} Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. (John 16:8-11)



The Gospel alone has the power to plant faith in the hearts of hearers, whether in a baby through baptism or in an adult through teaching and preaching. Ironically, one of the best and clearest expositions of this doctrine of the efficacy of the Word can be found in the conversion of a Unitarian, Grace Payton Fuller, the wife of the founder of Fuller Seminary:



Mrs. Barnhill looked at me and said, with such a loving look in her gray eyes, "Oh, Grace, Christ said, 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,' and, my dear, you have no way of approach to a holy God unless you come through Christ, His Son, as your Saviour." "The Scripture which she quoted," Mrs. Fuller continues, "was the Sword of the Spirit, and at that moment Unitarianism was killed forever in my heart. I saw the light like a flash and believed at that moment, though I said nothing. She had quoted God's Word, the Spirit had used it, and, believ­ing, I instantly became a new creation in Christ Jesus. She might have talked and even argued with me about it, but instead she just used the Word."

J. Elwin Wright, The Old Fash­ioned Revival Hour and the Broadcast­ers, Boston: The Fellowship Press, 1940, p. 54.



The wholesale destruction of Christian doctrine did not come from Charles and Grace Fuller, but from their son Daniel, whom God graciously saved from death when he was a child. Gratitude is not a common characteristic of our race.



Ingratitude for Lutheran education is especially abundant in the published works of Rev. Paul Kelm, who cleverly weaves the Reformed doctrine of the Word into his papers. The Reformed believe that the Word needs human help in order to be effective, because they separate the Holy Spirit from the Word.



Thesis One: Sound Doctrine Sounds Good When Good People Sound it. Normally, people respond to other people before they respond to doctrine.

Rev. Paul Kelm, "How to Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects," p. 7.



Kelm, who endorsed "Friendship Evangelism," (above), selected a Reformed title for his paper and began it with the most obnoxious

works-oriented concept of conversion. Good people need to make the Word sound good. People do not respond to the divine Word, but to the appealing qualities of the soul-winners, according to Kelm.



Thesis Seven: Sound Apologetics Can Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good...Logic never converted anyone; but Christian­ity is logically defensible, once one makes reason ministerial to God and His Word...Read C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and Josh McDowell for practical apologetic tools. In fact, lend your copy to the prospect whose intelligence and education have become his curse. Once you've read Josh McDowell's "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" argument for the deity of Christ, you'll find yourself using it.

Rev. Paul Kelm, "How to Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects," p. 14.



Kelm's double-talk, a familiar feature with WELS Church Growth gurus, suggests that logic cannot convert anyone (the Biblical, Lutheran view) while arguing specifically for using the rationalis­tic approach of Josh McDowell, who is Reformed. Kelm also points WELS pastors to the Reformed works of Clive Staples Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, but not to Lutheran works at all. Grace Fuller did not have to choose whether Jesus was a) crazy; b) deceitful; or c) the Lord. The Word convicted her of the sin of unbelief (worse than any carnal sin) and planted faith in her heart at the same instant.



For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)



In contrast, Rev. Dr. Olson carves away at the efficacy of the Word by promoting the methods he learned at Fuller Seminar.



While only the Word is effica­cious, the methods we use to minister to people with that Word may vary in their effectiveness.

Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller), "See How It Grows: Perspec­tives on Growth and the Church," EVANGE­LISM, February, 1991, Parish Consul­tant for the WELS Board of Parish Serv and his district's Coordinator of Evangelism. p. 2.



How can we explain that a graduate of Concordia Seminary (LCMS) in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, would talk about conversion as "inviting Jesus into your heart," except that the author graduated from Fuller Seminary with a D. Min. degree in Church Growth.



A most revealing illustration has occurred in the great city of Seoul, South Korea. The Rev. Paul Yonggi Cho was a Budhist youth when in medical school...He asked Christ to come into his heart and to heal him. He recoverd completely [from TB] and joined a church."

Kent Hunter, (D.Min., Fuller, Th.D. ELCA's LSTC), editor, Global Church Growth, Jan‑Feb., 1992 Church Growth Center, Corunna, Indiana Donald McGavran, "House Churches: A Key Factor for Growth," p. 5f.





These methods, which are admittedly from non-Christians, will somehow enhance the power of the Gospel. We can see the influence of modern education and statistical analysis upon McGavran, reflected in the wide eyes of Olson.



Contemporary social and behavioral sciences are a working out of the reason which God has given to humani­ty. Granted, the assump­tions of some sociologists or anthro­pologists may be inconsistent with the Christian faith. That calls for discernment, but it does not invalidate the proper use of the social sciences by the church; it is, however, essential that they be used in a "mini-steri­al" manner.

Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller), "See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth and the Church," EVANGE­LISM, February, 1991, Professor, Martin Luther College, (WELS), p. 3.



C. False Doctrine: Management by Objective

Peter Drucker published Management by Objective in 1954, setting in motion forces which would blind Lutheran leaders decades later. The book was written for businesses, to help them become more successful by focusing their energies. No one would argue for a badly managed denomination, but one WELS circuit pastor, pushed out of the ministry, had this to say, "The more we study how to be a good organization, the worse off we are as an organization. We were better run when the leaders worried about being faithful to the Word."



McGavran fell in love with number crunching, and he passed his passion on to church executives who want to be practical, show results, and computerize their problems. Fuller trains leaders in Management by Objective and in forming a corporate vision state­ment. Positive signs of MBO infection are: teaching pastors about SMART goals, encouraging every congregation and entity to have a mission statement, passing a mission/vision statement at the national convention (LCMS, WELS, Assemblies of God).



3. Establish your goals. a. definition: goals are those things that are required for an organization to carry out its objectives ("How") 1) short‑range targets 2) SMART, Specif­ic, Measur­able, Acceptable, Realistic,

Time­d....

Prof. David J. Valleskey, Class Notes, The Theology and Practice of Evangelism, PT 358A p. 101.[16]



"PLANNING, long‑range or short‑range, should be

S‑M‑A‑R‑­T...specif­ic, measurable, accepted, realis­tic, timed­...." Paul Kelm, editor, The Evangelism Handbook, WELS Evangelism p. 3.



Mission outreach and church growth are thwarted and retarded by too much dependence on paid workers, by too little training and participation of lay people, by too little sensitivity to the authority and strategy of the Holy Spirit, by acceptance of small results long after the large response should have been expected. The church is also hurt when goals are inarticulate, inadequate, immeasurable, or unattainable.

Waldo J. Werning, The Radical Nature of Christ-ianity, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 158. [William Carey was started as a Church Growth publisher for Fullerites.]



These Church Growth leaders allow little room for the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments. Some quotations by Martin Luther explain why the LCMS and WELS have lost members and decreased in attendance during the gradual takeover of the Fuller alumni.



1. Luther versus MBO and SMART Goals



The difference between a Biblical theologian and a Drucker derivative is plain enough when we read Luther:



Those, however, who set the time, place and measure, tempt God, and believe not that they are heard or that they have obtained what they asked; therefore, they also receive nothing.

Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 172. John 16:23‑30.



In like manner, St. Paul says that God's ability is thus

proved, in that He does exceeding abundantly above and better than we ask or think. Ephesians 3:20. Therefore, we should know we are too finite to be able to name, picture or desig­nate the time, place, way, measure and other circumstances for that which we ask of God. Let us leave that entirely to Him, and immov­ably and steadfastly believe that He will hear us.

Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 179f. Fifth Sunday after Easter. Ephesians 3:20.



If the world were willing to take advice from a simple, plain man‑‑that is, our Lord God (who, after all, has some experience too and knows how to rule)‑‑the best advice would be that in his office and sphere of juris­diction everybody simply direct his thoughts and plans to carrying out honestly and doing in good faith what has been commanded him and that, whatever he does, he depend not on his own plans and thoughts but commit the care to God. Such a man would certainly find out in the end who does and accomplishes more, he who trusts God or he who would bring success to his cause through his own wisdom and thoughts or his own power and strength.

Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, III, p. 1151. Luke 5:1‑11.



For people come to the preaching of the Gospel as if they

were honest pupils. But under this guise they are seeking

nothing else but a full belly and their own benefit. They consider the Gospel an economic teaching, designed to teach one to eat and drink in plenty.

Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, I, p. 304. John 6:26‑27.[17]



He who holds fast to the Word alone, trusts and abides in it, does not doubt that what the Word says will come to pass; he who does not dictate aim or time or means and ways, but resigns all freely to God's will and pleasure as to when, how, where, and by whom He will fulfill His Word; he, I say, has a true living faith which does not nor cannot tempt God.

Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, I, p. 367. Epiphany, Matthew 2:1‑12.



2. Doubt in the Word

Doubt in the efficacy of the Word lies behind the promotion of Management by Objective, SMART goals, and mission/vision staements. A Jewish rabbi proved it to me by saying, "The congregation I am serving has lost a lot of families. They need to get organized. They need a mission statement." If a rabbi thinks the cure is a mission statement, then a mission statement is not the cure for a Lutheran congregation.



D. False Doctrine: Church Growth Eyes

One phrase of McGavran can be found in many of his followers' writings: Church Growth Eyes. The concept is based upon Mc-Gavran­'s faulty understanding of "discerning the body," which concerns the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. As an Enthusiast, McGavran interpreted the passages in 1 Corinthians 10-11 as applying to the visible church as the body of Christ.



But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. {29} For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discern­ing the Lord's body. (1 Corinthians 11:28-29)



Church Growth Eyes Sometimes the term is used in conjunction with the phrase, "discerning the body." Professor McGavran uses the terms almost synonymously. Both phrases are examples of how church growth science appropriates the medical model to express itself. Church growth eyes are "a characteristic of Christians who have achieved an ability to see the possibilities for growth, and to apply appropriate strategies to gain maximum results for Christ and His Church." [McGavran and Arn, Ten Steps for Church Growth, p. 127, recommended by Valleskey in his article in The Northwestern Lutheran.]

Delos Miles, Church Growth, A Mighty River, Nash­ville: Broadman Press, 1981, p. 51.



The leading Church Growth thinker of the Missouri Synod fell into line with McGavran's thinking, creating this cocktail of confusion.



Students of Church Growth realize that a good structure for the church that really wants to grow is the organiza­tion of celebration plus congregation plus cell. When we see the importance of the organization of the church we are looking with "Church Growth Eyes." We are looking from an x‑ray perspective and understanding the internal organs of the body of Christ‑‑the Church!

Kent R. Hunter, Launching Growth in the Local Congrega­tion, A Workbook for Focusing Church Growth Eyes, Detroit: Church Growth Analysis and Learning Center, 1980, p. 81.



Werning's magnum opus, The Radical Nature of Christianity, sold by Northwestern Publishing House, is subtitled Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church. The book endorses a host of Reformed programs and quotes McGavran at great length, almost to the point of xerography.



Pastor Floyd Stolzenburg, who was removed from the Missouri Synod for cause, taught the following in Columbus:



We have discovered that the Early Church was an institu­tion that unknowingly saw its world through Church Growth eyes. We have some benefits they did not have in that we can look back today and analyze their successes and failures.

Floyd L. Stolzenburg, "Church Growth ‑ the Acts of the Apostles," Taught at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Colum­bus, Ohio, (WELS).[18]



If a Bible study class cannot get across the message of the Enthusiasts, the pastor can always get out a $40 card game.



The Institute for American Church Growth has created a card game called "Church Growth Eyes." The game may be used in groups to learn how to see through church growth eyes.

Delos Miles, Church Growth, A Mighty River, Nash­ville: Broadman Press, 1981, p. 51.[19]



The worst aspect of this jargon concerns the appeal it has for a special group of Lutheran insiders who "know" what the term means and are convinced they have Church Growth Eyes. My experience with Church Growth Eyes is that these people have scales over their eyes which prevent them from seeing the efficacy of the Word or the Means of Grace. When I told Rev. Robert Hartman that a former ELCA member was contacting all his family members about leaving apostasy, Hartman replied, "McGavran would call that people movement."



1. Luther versus Church Growth Eyes

They [the false teachers] fared like a man who looks through a colored glass. Put before such a man whatever color you please, he sees no other color than that of the glass. The fault is not that the right color is not put before him but that his glass is colored differently, as the word of Is. 6:9 puts it: You will see, he says, and yet you will not see it.

Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 644.



E. False Doctrine: Soil Testing

and Receptivity Rating Scales

The concepts of soil testing and a receptivity rating scale are so typical of Fuller Seminary that they easily incriminate those who want to apply them to Lutheran congregational work. The origin of the concepts, which are closely related, is the doctrine of John Calvin and Huldreich Zwingli, both of whom separated the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word. It is easy for rationalistic followers of Zwingli and Calvin to imagine the Holy Spirit making people receptive before they hear the Word. They also believe they can judge the soil, when the point of the Parable of the Sower is precisely the opposite (Mark 4).



Soil Testing. An evangelistic strategy that seeks out those people who are open to receiving the gospel at the present time.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 300.

Winnable People. Those who are considered receptive to the gospel; those who will respond. See HARVEST PRINCI­PLE; RESISTANCE­‑RECEPTIVITY AXIS.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 302.



Felt Need. Describes the conscious wants and desires of a person; considered to be an opportunity for Christian response which stimulates within the person a receptivity to the gospel.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 290.



Fluxuating Receptivity. The responsiveness of individu­als and groups waxes and wanes due to the Spirit's peculiar activity in the hearts of people.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 290.



No one should be surprised that a Win Arn/Fuller student would teach future Lutheran pastors about the Zwinglian receptivity rating scale.



...a receptivity rating scale (adapted by Win and Charles Arn in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples, p. 91...." Prof. David J. Valleskey, Class Notes, The Theology and Practice of Evangelism, PT 358A p. 58.



Even worse, the Bible is misinterpreted to support the concept of soil testing the felt needs of receptive people.[20]



Finding the Receptive: People in Transition, by James Witt ‑ "The Bible illustrates the people‑in‑transition receptivity principle very well. Converts such as Naaman, a leper; Ruth, a widow; the woman at the well, a five‑time divorcee; the thief on the cross, a convict near death; were all people who in a period of transition were receptive to hearing the Gospel. The Receptivity‑

R­ating Scale shown at left..."

Paul Kelm, editor, The Evangelism Handbook, WELS Evange­lism Appendix III.



The official magazine of WELS insinuated Zwinglian principles into one of the primary parables about the efficacy of the Word, brazenly twisting its meaning in the search for "effective Church Growth principles."



What do people mean when they talk about effective church growth principles? Do we make God's kingdom come? "God's kingdom certainly comes by itself," Luther wrote. Ours is to sow the seed. We hamper the kingdom if we sow carelessly or if we do not sow at all. But we do not make it grow."

Mark Braun, "The Growing Seed, What Do People Mean When They Talk about Effective Church Growth Principles?" The Northwestern Lutheran, September 1, 1991, p. 300. Mark 4:26‑29.



Mark Braun fooled some students at Northwestern College (WELS) into thinking that he taught the Biblical doctrine of the Word, until I pointed out the phrase: "we hamper the kingdom if we sow careless­ly." The article is meant to promote "soil testing" and undermine what Martin Franzman­n, a professor for WELS and the LCMS, taught clearly in his great hymn.



(1) Preach you the Word and plant it home To men who like or like it not, The Word that shall endure and stand When flowers and men shall be forgot. (2) We know how hard, O Lord, the task Your servant bade us undertake: To preach your Word and never ask What prideful profit it may make. (3) The sower sows; his reckless love Scatters abroad the goodly seed, Intent alone that men may have The wholesome loaves that all men need. (4) Though some be snatched and some be scorched And some be chocked and matted flat, The sower sow; his heart cries out, "Oh, what of that, and what of that?" (5) Preach you the Word and plant it home And never faint; the Harvest Lord Who gave the sower seed to sow Will watch and tend his planted Word.

Martin H. Franzmann, 1907‑76, "Preach You the Word," Lutheran Worship, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982, Hymn #259. Mark 4.



Braun is trying to say, in another way: "Winning the winnable while they are winnable seems sound procedure."[21] In contrast, Franzmann trusts that the "Harvest Lord Who gave the sower seed to sow will watch and tend His planted Word."



F. False Doctrine:

Entertainment Evangelism, Friendship Sunday,

and Seeker Services

The most disgusting outgrowth of Satan's relentless assault on the efficacy of the Word can be seen in all its horror in its impact upon the Lutheran worship service. An ELCA pastor with a D. Min. degree from Fuller Seminary is considered the most eloquent spokesman for entertainment evangelism.



The key to reaching our world with the "good news" of Jesus is entertainment evange­lism... Entertainment‑

orie­nted churches are growing. The do‑what‑we‑have‑alwa­ys­‑d­one‑b­efore churches are dy­ing...Entertainment is a gift of God. Entertainment evangelism will fill up our churches. Augustine said empty churches do not please God...If Jesus were here today walking the face of the earth, he would without a doubt use the No. 1 medium of the day to tell his story. Jesus would become all things to all people to save some. He would use entertainment. Rev. Walther P. Kallestad, "Enter­tainment Evange­­­­­lism," The Lutheran, (ELCA), May 23, 1990 p. 19. Kalle-stad is pastor of Community of Joy Church.



The model for entertainment evangelism is Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, where I observed a "seeker service." Needless to say, Willow Creek is quite prominent among Church Growth leaders and also in the fast-growing Promise Keepers system of cell groups. The style of the Sunday service is obvious from an article copied for study and use in the WELS evangelism program.



"I hate God," the woman screamed, "Who have I been praying to?" Or the sketches can be comical...Only after 30 minutes of such entertainment does Mr. Hybels appear, prepared to deliver an upbeat sermon that, he says, has "high user value."

WELS Evangelism Workshop IV, LOCATING THE LOST, Tom Valeo, "Market Wise Pastor Strikes Deep Chords with Soft‑Sell Pitch," Crain's Chicago, p. C‑3.



The Lutheran magazine offered an interesting description of Willow Creek.



On a wintry Sunday morning in January, the auditorium at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., is filled with more than 3,000 people settling into theater‑style chairs. The upbeat music introduces an energetic six‑man singing group. The rest of the service is fast‑paced and entertaining: a Scripture reading, a Broadway style dramatic skit, an offertory (where visitors are asked to contribute only if they want to), and a lengthy, but compelling "message" filled with practical steps for living. This service is aimed at "seekers," those looking for answers to life's big questions. At Willow Creek, prime‑time Sunday is aimed at getting people in the door.

Daniel J. Cattau, The Lutheran, April, 1992 "Out­reach Experiment, 'Megachurch' to start in California," p. 30.



When the ELCA tried to start a meta-church in Texas, a pastoral rebellion forced them to move their experiment to Yorba Linda, where their Community of Hope Church, lavishly funded by Lutheran Brotherhood, failed miserably, in spite of injecting it with all the viruses known to the Church Growth Movement.[22] At Fuller Seminary, Carl George teaches eager but gullible Lutheran mission executives that they must build huge (meta) churches with large staffs, entertain­ment evangelism, and cell groups, dropping all references to the denomination.



Before going to Yorba Linda, the team will receive about six weeks of training at Community Church of Joy, whose pastor, the Rev. Walther Kallested has achieved notoriety in some Lutheran circles for his "entertainment evange­lism." With its 6,000 members, the Arizona church is unapologet­ic about relying on contemporary music, drama and practical sermons.

Daniel J. Cattau, The Lutheran, (ELCA) April, 1992 "Out­reach Experiment, 'Megachurch' to start in Califor­nia," p. 32.



ELCA officials had everything figured out, using all their earthly wisdom.



Years ago, the Southern Baptists tried the "flagship church idea," which is roughly similar to the megachurch proposal. But it did not have the same kind of financial backing that the ELCA plan has from Lutheran Brotherhood. Ten missions were targeted, Graham said, and "in almost every case it did not turn out as happy as it could have."

Daniel J. Cattau, The Lutheran, April, 1992 "Out­reach Experiment, 'Megachurch' to start in Califor­nia," p. 30.





No one would imagine that the crusty old Wisconsin Synod, with such strict fellowship principles, would fall for the Willow Creek/Fuller model. Pastor Dan Kelm, brother of WELS Church Growth leader Paul Kelm, fell hard.



Bored with church? Think it's irrelevant? Turned off by religion because of a bad experience in your child­hood? Well, Divine Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church has a deal for you.

Carol Elrod, "Pastor Hopes Seeks Will Find Way to Special Church Service," Indianapolis Star, May 12, 1990.



We are supposed to believe that Dan Kelm, who left WELS and joined the LCMS, was converted to entertainment evangelism by watching a video tape.[23]



The role model for this carefully choreographed and rehearsed service, referred to by Rev. Kelm as a "seeker service," is Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Ill., near Chicago, an independent congregation formed 14 years ago...Rev. Kelm said he viewed a videotape of a service at the Chicago‑area church before planning the first seeker service for Divine Savior, which is affili­ated with the Milwaukee‑based Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Carol Elrod, "Pastor Hopes Seekers Will Find Way to Special Church Service," Indianapolis Star, May 12, 1990.



Worship is a good indication of doctrine. Those who love Enthusi­asm will get rid of the historic liturgy, just as their mentor Huldreich Zwingli did in Switzerland.



When planning the service, Rev. Kelm and the worship committee decided immediately that there wouldn't be any organ music and that the usual Lutheran liturgy wouldn't be used.

Carol Elrod, "Pastor Hopes Seekers Will Find Way to Special Church Service," Indianapolis Star, May 12, 1990.

When the Michigan District of WELS formed a new congregation, the new congregations's love for Willow Creek was public knowledge. The pastor and congregation left Lutheranism in a formal sense, not long after forming.[24]



You may not have noticed, but Crossroads has changed its name!...Why the change [from Crossroads Christian Church]? First, we were told that the original name implied a denominational affiliation. Also, we believe that the "community" label identi­fies us more closely with the philosophy of ministry at Willow Creek Community Church. We want to begin referring to ourselves more and more as a "community" of fully devoted followers of Jesus.

Pastor Rick Miller, (former WELS), Crossroads Community Church, News and Information for January, 1992, p. 1.



WELS Pastor Kelly Voigt did not accept the call quoted below, but he later joined the staff. Voigt left Lutheranism in Florida and took his congregation out of Lutheranism as well, before it disbanded. A third pastor at Crossroads, Mark Freier, also left WELS with his congregation in Florida.



CROSSROADS CALLS SECOND PASTOR. On January 5th, Cross­roads extended a call to Kelly Voigt, currently pastor of a mission church in Tallahassee...Kelly would be respon­sible for heading up outreach activities and the prepara­tion needed before Seeker Services can begin. He would be the speaker for the Seeker Services, while Pastor Rick would continue delivering the New Community messages." Pastor Rick Miller, (WELS), Crossroads Community Church, News and Information for February, 1992.



The reason why so many WELS pastors and congregations have fallen for the Willow Creek model of Enthusiasm is that Professor David J. Valleskey has endorsed the seeker service in his classes, seminars, and his book.

quote



The LCMS has also promoted the seeker service and entertainment evangelism, especially through the writings of David Luecke, who once held a faculty position at Fuller Seminary. Luecke promotes services which consciously apes the Assemblies of God while avoiding any distinguishing marks of Lutheranism. The marks of the Church, according to the Confessions, are preaching the Word in its purity and truth and administering the Sacraments according to the Scriptures. The marks of Luecke's own Community Church are: a stage band, pop music, a Gospel singing group, no Creed, no liturgy, no robes, and no Lutheran hymns.



G. False Doctrine:

Community Churches and Adiaphora

The zeal for creating Community Churches is directly connected to the Church Growth Movement, Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek Community Church, and Schuller's Garden Grove Community Church. Rev. Lyle Schaller, who is highly respected by Church Growth advocates, also favors hiding the denominational affiliation.



Schaller urges churches to downplay their denominational affiliations and begin new life in geographical areas where new Christian prospects are moving if they really want to attract the fencesitters in the church market. He applauds United Methodist churches, for example, that leave the words "United Methodist" off the signs in front of their new buildings.

Laura Haferd, "A Place Where Men Can God, People not creeds, attract, churches told, Akron Beacon Journal, October 8, 1988, p. C‑3.



Deceiving people for a good cause was excused with the odd notion that the name Lutheran was an adiaphoron, a matter of indifference, even though we are living in a time of doctrinal crisis.



Our decision not to use the name Lutheran in the name of the congregation seems to have caused some concern. We point you to the Lutheran confessions which clearly state that a name is an adiaphoron. So only when not using the name is a denial of what the name stands for is there a problem. We reject the inferences that have been drawn that have been drawn that it is our intention to deny the biblical teach [sic] (ibid. conservative Lutheran teaching). Put in very practical terms our question is: Can we reach more of the unchurched if we can begin with sin and grace, guilt and forgiveness, rather than having to deal with lodge, scouts, the vagaries of ELCA, etc. at the beginning.

Pastor Paul Kuske, WELS, Letter to the Ohio Confer­ence, Pilgrim Community Church, sponsored from Grove City by Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, Fall Conference, Gibsonia, 1989.[25]



I pointed out to the Ohio pastors, to no avail, that Community Church was not a good name to use, since it has always meant "anti-confessional."



Interdenominational Churches. The Community Churches. The community churches, also known as union or federated churches, are described as follows...No one is asked to give up any religious opinion or loyalty already formed. The only new thing in such a situation is the new spirit of toleration of religious opinion. (from What is a Community Church, by O. E. Jordan, p. 2)."

F. E. Mayer, The Religious Bodies of America, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1954, p. 368.



Pilgrim Community Church may have failed so quickly because people thought it was a homosexual congregation.



One other church‑‑Metropolitan Community Church, 1253 N. High Street‑‑exists specifically for homosexuals, but many of its members' backgrounds are with mainline Protestant churches.

Debra Mason, "For Gay Evangeli­cals, Worshiping Without Preju­dice," Columbus Dispatch, Religion Page March 4, 1989.



The Michigan District of WELS had two embarrassments with their community churches, but the LCMS and ELCA have had some large congregations develop with the Fuller/Willow Creek concept. For those who add up numbers, this is proof enough that it is a good idea. But we will see later, in looking at Lutheran history, that all union churches (where Reformed and Lutheran doctrine is merged, always in favor of the Reformed) become rationalistic and therefore atheistic. As Luther said in Galatians, the barren churches (small, orthodox) will be fruitful and the fruitful (large, Lutheran Community Meta-Churches) will be barren, producing no believers.



For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. (Galatians 4:27)





H. False Doctrine:

Lay Pastors and Cell Groups



When the history of Pietism is studied, one can easily see what lies behind the frantic promotion of cell groups--also called koinonia, share, care, affinity, prayer, and home Bible study--by ELCA, LCMS, and WELS officials. Lutheran Pietism, dependent upon the Reformed for its insights, disparages the Means of Grace and substitutes prayer for the Word and Sacraments. Lutheran Pietists consider their lay-led cell groups the true church and think of the congregation, with its pastor, liturgy, preaching, teaching, baptism, and communion a convenience for organizing their cell groups. The divinely called pastor is tolerated if he supports the cell groups, but the real clergy in a Pietistic congregation are the cell group leaders, men and women.



We probably think first of such groups coming into being in the late 1600s in connection with Pietism. Spener promoted them as a vehicle by which pious laypeople could be a leaven for good in reforming the "dead orthodoxy" of a congregation and its pastor.

Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 126.



The cell group is the organizing force of Pietism and continues to be at the center of Pentecostal, Methodist, and Baptist churches, as well as the Promise Keepers. Fuller Seminary has consistently promoted cell groups as the only way for a congregation to grow.



In an article on the small group movement, J. A. Gorman notes that "both the Church Growth Institute of Fuller Seminary and the American Institute of Church Growth became centers for influencing the use of this means for evangelizing." (Christian Education, Moody Press, 1991, pp. 509, 510) Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 126.



Cell. Sometimes called a kinship circle; a small group of 8‑12 believers; an important part of the church's struct which has the primary functions of spiritual accountability and intimacy and secondary functions of Bible, prayer, and healing.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 283.



Cho's occult church in Korea is known for relying upon cell groups and prayer as a means of grace.



The unrelenting growth is based on a multiplication of home cell groups led by lay leaders."

Harry Genet, "Big Trouble for the World's Largest Church," Christianity Today, January 22, 1982 p. 30.



Cho does not hide his dependence upon cell groups.



A cell group is the basic part of our church. It is not another church program‑‑it is the program of our church." Dr. Paul Y. Cho (with R. Whitney Manzano), More Than Numbers, Waco: Word Books, 1984, p. 42.



Cho's promotion of his ministry has added to the impact of Fuller's love for cell groups.[26]



The cell groups have probably become the universal trademark of Full Gospel Central Church...A cell group is a cluster of church members who meet weekly in a home, factory, office, or other place for the purpose of evangelism and Christian fellowship through singing, prayer, Bible study, offering giving, announcements, sharing of needs, and praises and ministry to one another.

John N. Vaughan, The World's Twenty Largest Church­es, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984, p. 44. [Written with "church growth eyes."]



According to the Missouri Synod's main thinker on evangelism, cell groups require Church Growth Eyes.



Students of Church Growth realize that a good structure for the church that really wants to grow is the organiza­tion of celebration plus congregation plus cell. When we see the importance of the organization of the church we are looking with "Church Growth Eyes." We are looking from an x‑ray perspective and understanding the internal organs of the body of Christ‑‑the Church!

Kent R. Hunter, Launching Growth in the Local Congrega­tion, A Workbook for Focusing Church Growth Eyes, Detroit: Church Growth Analysis and Learning Center, 1980, p. 81.



Another Missouri Synod leader, Waldo Werning, has discovered the cell group as the secret of growth in the Apostolic Age.



The New Testament tells of this koinonia as a together­ness to share, to participate together, with Jesus in the center. This it is that makes it the church and not just another organization.

Waldo J. Werning, The Radical Nature of Christiani­ty, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 92.



The Wisconsin Synod, after years of secretly promoting cell groups, especially Serendipty, had a seminary professor trained by a false teacher and then had him endorse cell groups.[27]



Home Bible study groups can and will be a blessing for all concerned only when the reason why they are formed truly supports this mission of the congregation and they way they are organized is planned and carried out by the congregation's leaders.

Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 131.



I. False Doctrine: Everyone a Minister

Rev. Oscar Feucht's 1974 book, Everyone a Minister, provided a slogan for Lutheran devotees of cell groups. Once the cell group concept has been adopted by leaders with Church Growth Eyes, the pastoral office ceases to have any significance other than to form and administer the lay-led groups which are "the real church," since those Lutherans who attend church without joining cell groups are not considered real Christians. Because prayer is counted as the cause for conversion (the "Sinner's Prayer" of the Reformed, inviting Jesus into their hearts), the Word and Sacraments are no longer the power of the Gospel. Therefore, the Pietistic need to pray fervently replaces the Lutheran desire to proclaim and teach the Gospel with the proper emphasis on all Biblical doctrines in the right balance of Law and Gospel.



WELS Professor David Valleskey has endorsed the Zwinglian doctrine of "everyone a minister."



Wouldn't it be terrible to sleep through the Second Reformation? Cell Group Churches. The New Lifestyle For New Wineskins. Cell Group Churches Are Really Different! A "Cell Group" Church is built on the fact that all Christians are ministers, and that there is no "professi­onal clergy" hired to do the work of ministry. According to Ephesians 4, God has provided "Gifted Men" to equip "Believers Who Are Gifted" to do the work of minis­try...The life of the church is in its Cells, not in a building. While it has weekly worship events, the focus of the church is in the home Cells."

Touch Outreach Ministries, P.O. Box 19888, Houston, TX, 77079, 1‑800‑735‑­5865.



The Fuller Seminary emphasis upon cell groups and spiritual gifts



J. False Doctrine:

Women Usurping Authority over Men

and Teaching Men

Too much emphasis has been placed on the issue of women's suffrage in the Lutheran Church, one application of doctrine, instead of defining the issue as St. Paul does, women usurping authority over men and teaching men.



But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. (1 Timothy 2:12)



The Lutheran who cannot place his trust in the efficacy of the Word will naturally be at the mercy of every fad which blows through the visible church. Too proud to accept God's will from the results of preaching and teaching, the anti-efficacy leader will always be anxious to achieve the the most impressive numbers.

cho quote on 50000 members



We live in the first age in which women are assumed to have a right to serve in the pastoral office, in spite of 19 centuries of teaching and practice to the contrary. The Pentecostals and cults were the first to have women pastors, followed next by the mainline or liberal denominations. Lutherans have been somewhat tardy in marrying the spirit of this age, first officially ordaining women (in the Lutheran Church in America) in 1970.



The Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod have tried to hold themselves apart from the doctrine and practice of the ELCA, in their public relations efforts, while working closely with ELCA and adopting practices which place women in authority over men. The LCMS allowed women to usurp authority already in 1969 and now fights a losing battle over the ordination of women. Women have preached the Word in LCMS pulpits and administered Holy Communion.

Examples abound and no one is disciplined in the least.



The Wisconsin Synod's Church Growth leaders have been promoting women's suffrage and women's ordination for years with impunity. For instance, Dorothy Sonntag not only served as an editor of the official WELS magazine, The Northwestern Lutheran, passing judgment on the work of pastors, but also served in leadership positions at the synodical level, before joining the ELCA as a lay minister.



Then the Lord distinctly answered me, "Yes, that is your idea. My idea is to use the women."

Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho with Harold Hostetler, Success­ful Home Cell Groups, Plainfield, NJ: Logos Internation­al, 1981, p. 25.



The promise of the Holy Spirit giving the ability to prophesy was not a promise to just men but also to women...I also noticed that women were more loyal and faithful than men in the ministry of Jesus...My advice to you then is, "Don't be afraid of using women."

Dr. Paul Y. Cho (with R. Whitney Manzano), More Than Numbers, Waco: Word Books, 1984, p. 43f.



K. False Doctrine: Making Disciples

Another direct result of Reformed influence upon Lutheranism is the current passion for "making disciples."

The term "disciples" could be an innocent word, but it has been subsumed and subverted by the Church Growth Movement. Pietism is the origin of the false concept of disciple, because Pietists have different levels of Christianity, even though the Bible only distinguishes between a) believers, and b) unbelievers. Pietists may have 3 to 7 levels of Christianity, something we see in Pente-costalism, where they talk about "just being a church member" and then later "being baptized by the Holy Spirit," and still later, "going to the top of the mountain."



Follow‑up Gap. The difference between the number of persons who make decisions for Christ in a given evange­listic effort and those who go on to become disciples.

C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns,

Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 290. (emphasis added)



The Word and Sacraments are not enough.



This means that the great commission is not merely to go to the ends of the earth preaching the Gospel (Mark 16:15), nor to baptized a lot of converts into the Name of the Triune God, nor to teach them the precepts of Christ, but to "make disciples"--to build men like them-selves who were so constrained by the commission of Christ that they not only followed, but led others to follow His way.

Robert E. Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, Old Tappan: Power Books, 1963, p. 108f. (emphasis added; over 580,000 copies in print)



At the former WELS congregation modeled after Willow Creek Community Church, discipleship is a key term:



PHILOSOPHY OF MINISTRY AT CROSSROADS...Conduct seeker services... Provide small group leadership. At Cross­roads, as people come to know Jesus they are encouraged to participate in groups of 8 to 10 people who meet weekly for 2 years of fellowship, holding one another accountable, discipleship training, encouragement and support. 1 Thess. 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up.

Pastor Rick Miller, (former WELS),

Crossroads Community Church, 1 Thessalonians 5:11. (emphasis added)



The parachurch group started by the Michigan District of WELS also emphasized "making disciples."



Lutheran Parish Resources, Inc. (LPR) is dedicated to the concepts of the Church Growth movement only insofar as they agree with the Scriptures and as taught by the WELS‑‑that is, Church Growth with Lutheran theology rather than Evangelical, and without the typical Church Growth emphasis on quantitative measurement of growth. Kent R. Hunter's definition of "Church Growth" justifies the use of this term in describing LPR: "Church Growth: That science which investigates the nature, function and health of Christian churches as they relate specifically to the effective implementation of God's commission to make disciples of all peoples (Matt. 28:19). Church Growth is simultaneously a theological conviction and an applied science,...." Foundations for Church Growth, p. 187.

David G. Peters, "Lutheran Parish Resources: Pilot Program in Church Growth," Mequon: Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, April 27, 1987 p. 1. (emphasis added)



Your church will grow by God's grace because members will want it to grow in obedience to God's will and because you are using strategy and methodology in making disci­ples. Then nongrowth will be called nongrowth, and growth will be accepted as a gift from God.

Waldo J. Werning, The Radical Nature of Christiani­ty, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 159. (emphasis added)



A movie frequently shown by WELS leaders is "For the Love of Pete."



"For the Love of Pete,"...presents "The Master's Plan for Making Disciples"...."Planned Parenthood for Church­es"...Church growth principles are communicated with warmth and humor.

Donald A. McGavran and Winfield C. Arn,

Ten Steps for Church Growth, New York: Harper and Row, 1977, p. 132. (emphasis added, humor noted)



"For the Love of Pete" and The Master's Plan for Making Disciples have had quite an impact on WELS training. Pietists "make disciples" not through the Means of Grace but by creating lay led cell groups:



Introduction to Small Groups. Purpose of This Segment. 1. To introduce the concept of small group ministry. 2. To present the rationale (benefits and need for) small groups. 3. To impart a vision for small groups as a strategy for accomplishing our disciple‑making mission.

WELS Campus Pastors, Small Group Training Confer­ence, Jan. 7‑9, 1991, Madison. p. 2. (emphasis added)









As men, women, and children united in faith and worship by the Word of God, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod exists to make disciples throughout the world for time and for eternity, using the gospel to win the lost for Christ and to nurture believers for lives of Chris­tian service, all to the glory of God. (WELS Mission Statement, p. 220, emphasis added. Any Reformed sect could say the same thing. Nothing is mentioned about the Means of Grace or the efficacy of the Word.)



The Wisconsin Synod has turned a Gospel mandate into Law. It is more apparent if we paraphrase the statement and say, "The WELS exists to do good works throughout the world..." The pattern becomes even clearer when a Fuller alumnus writes about another Fuller alumnus' congregation, where they have hired a layman as a "Minister of Discipleship."



When Frederick Horn faced that situation, the Holy Spirit moved him to accept the call, and for the last few years he has served as the [lay] Minister of Discipleship for Grace Lutheran in downtown Milwaukee." (James Huebner, is pastor of Grace.)

Professor Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller), "Another Kind of Minister, There's a lot to do in a church, and a staff minister can do a lot of it," The Northwestern Lutheran, March, 1994, p. 9, emphasis added. (Olson is director of staff ministry at Martin Luther College, WELS.)



The difference in the translation of Matthew 28:19 may seem small at first, but it is life and death when we consider the Reformed view of the Word as opposed to the Lutheran view of the Word.



All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28: 18-20, NIV; the NET and RSV are similar)



And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. {19} Go ye there­fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: {20} Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (KJV)



euntes ergo docete (teach) omnes gentes... (Latin Vulgate)



Darum gehet hin und lehret (teach) alle Voelker... (Luther's German Bible)



The verb is related to the noun for disciple, so some translate it as "to make disciples." However, it would be more honest to say "to disciple all nations," since we do not have a compound verb in the Greek which includes both "to make" and "disciples."

Some WELS pastors have openly opposed this disciple-making mania of WELS, but they have been silenced by the seminary, the Council of Presidents, and the doctrinal board. All three entities support the Fuller translation and its implications.

The distortion in English is quite apparent to Lutherans. The object of the verb in Mt. 28:19 is not "disciples" but "nations." The apostles were not commanded "to make disciples," that is, not "to produce disciples," which is translated by Fuller as "to manufacture soul-winners who will build a megachurch as big as my ego." The apostles were commanded to teach all nations and trust the efficacy of the Word.

The error in Greek is hinted at by Valleskey himself, who acknowledges that in Matthew 13:52, the same Greek verb can only be translated as "instructed."



Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (KJV; RSV, NIV, NET similar)



It would be nonsense to make the verse say "every scribe which is made a disciple into the kingdom." If the participial form is "instructed," then the transitive form must be "to instruct, to teach."

Another example of the same verb is also found in Matthew.

Was he "made a disciple by Jesus" or was he a disciple of Jesus?



When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimath­aea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: (Matthew 27:57, KJV; RSV, NIV, NET similar)



The verb and the noun forms tell us that we are dealing with teaching and those who are taught, not with making someone into a disciple, that is, a convert. Some would have us believe that a disciple is always one who wins souls, follows Christ, and leaves his estate to the synod, but a disciple is a "learner" in some cases, someone who may fall into the Slough of Despond and make a fast exit.



From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:66, KJV)



We can also compare the last of four examples of the verb found in the New Testament. The NIV is very free with the sparse words used, creating a Fulleresque scene, winning the winnable while they are winnable (Win Arn).



And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch, (Acts 14:21, KJV)



They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. (NIV; NET, RSV, Lenski similar)



Considering the passages in Matthew, the best translation would be that the apostles "preached and taught many," which is the Biblical method of converting people with the efficacious Word and teaching them the whole counsel of God, which is more than can be done in a sermon or series of sermons.

Valleskey claims that:



matheteusate can mean nothing other than to make disci­ples, to turn unbelievers into believers; for that is the Spirit-produced effect of baptism. (p. 127)



So we would have to translate Matthew 28:19 as:



Go, therefore, and turn all nations into believers...



Soon after, Valleskey quotes Ylvisaker with approval, where Ylvisaker correctly translates the passage as "make all nations his disciples by baptizing..." (p. 134) I cannot harmonize Valleskey's explanation on page 127 with his approval of Ylvisaker on page 134. On page 137, Valleskey claims that to make disciples means both to reach out to unbelievers with the means of grace and to nurture believers with the means of grace. That is the correct interpreta­tion of Matthew 28:19, but it is not what he claimed before, when he said it means "to turn unbelievers into believers."

(I should add, "into believer beavers," a new puppet program cloned from Fuller and sold by WELS.) The ambiguity is caused by Valleskey weaving together good Lutheran texts and his favorite Church Growth authors. Oil and water do not mix.



In looking for Luther's ideas about "making disciples," we find the following citation, which will not be quoted in the Missouri Synod or WELS in the near future.



Firstly, we read that this was the disciple whom Christ loved. This means that faith alone makes the truly beloved disciples of Christ, who receive the Holy Spirit through this very same faith, not through their works. Works indeed also make disciples, but not beloved disciples: only temporary hypocrites who do not perse­vere. God's love does not uphold and keep them, for the reason that they do not believe.

Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, I, p. 250. John 21:19‑24.



L. False Doctrine: Unionism



The term unionism comes from the Prussian Union which was forced upon the Lutherans by the Reformed rulers who professed to find no significant difference between the two camps of Protestants, except that the Lutherans were to give up their distinctive doctrines: the efficacy of the Word, the Means of Grace, baptismal regenera­tion, the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper.



The Prussian Union accomplished what Melanchthon dreamed about: unification of the Lutherans and the Reformed, rejected by the Formula of Concord and by Martin Luther.







"McGavran leaned toward me and said, 'The fields are white unto harvest. But you can't harvest a field of what with a penknife‑‑you need a sickle, you need a scythe. Harvest intelligently."

Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, (D. Min., Fuller),

"See How It Grows: Perspectives on Growth

and the Church," EVANGELISM, February, 1991, Parish Consultant for the WELS Board of Parish Serv and his district's Coordinator of Evangelism. p. 2.















"All of the books you've read, tapes you've listened to, lectures you've attended, are no substitute for actually experiencing Korea and the CGI conference first‑hand!!! (exclamation marks in the orginal) When you actually see it, you will understand what Dr. Cho has been talking about...and how it really works. You will also discover what many of the churches in Korea and around the world have discovered..that the same methods and principles, when applied, succeed wonderfully in church growth anywhere!" Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho Invites you to the 13th Annual Church Growth Interna­tional Conference September 28‑October 6, 1992 Yoido Full Gospel Church, Seoul, Korea Dr. Peter Wagner, Fuller Theological Seminary, p. 2.

















"Now and again I have had evidence that unseen friends hover about me, unknowable to ordinary sense. In my studies I discovered there is a group of strange beings who maintain a school of wisdom which must be ten thousand years old, but I did not connect them with myself. Now there is a connection. I am not one of them!‑‑but I have been watched by them." Napoleon Hill, Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967, p. 158. check quote



"One day I overheard my stepmother say to my father: 'The only real devil that exists in this or any other world is the man whose business is that of making devils.' I accepted this statement instantly and never have departed from it."

Napoleon Hill,

Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967, p. 212.



"I do not even attempt to guess the over‑all purpose or plan behind the universe. So far as I can tell, there is no plan for man except to come into this world, live a little while, and go." Napoleon Hill, Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967, p. 213.







"Faith is the only agency through which the cosmic force of Infinite Intelligence can be harnassed and used by man." Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1937, revised 1960, p. 51.



"C. Peter Wagner writes that 'the indispensable condition for a growing church is that it must want to grow.'" [C. Peter Wagner, "What Makes Churches Grow?" Eternity (June 1974), 17.]

Waldo J. Werning,

The Radical Nature of Christianity, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 158.



"Mission outreach and church growth are thwarted and retarded by too much dependence on paid workers, by too little training and participation of lay people, by too little sensitivity to the authority and strategy of the Holy Spirit, by acceptance of small results long after the large response should have been expected. The church is also hurt when goals are inarticulate, inadequate,

immeasurable, or unattainable."

Waldo J. Werning,

The Radical Nature of Christianity, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 158.



"Dr. McGavran offers the following 'Ten Prominent Emphases in the Church Growth School of Thought.'" [Six and one half pages of direct quotes from McGavran follow.]

Waldo J. Werning,

The Radical Nature of Christianity, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 160.



"Cell groups of Christians fellowshiping together date back to the first century, for it was largely through the activities of little groups or cells of believers that the message of Jesus Christ spread throughout the Roman Empire." Waldo J. Werning,

The Radical Nature of Christianity, Church Growth Eyes Look at the Supernatural Mission of the Christian and the Church, South Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1975, p. 93.









"Small thinking churches typically budget to remain small." Rev. Paul Kelm, "How to Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects," See Waldo Werning and Robert Schuller for the same thought. Did the Apostles know this? p. 7.

















"Initial services will be less formal than our traditional worship services. LPR Director Roger Zehms has been requested by Beautiful Savior to serve as pastor of the new mission with Floyd Stolzenbu­rg serving as evangelist and music consultant. Please include this new approach project in your prayers." LPR UPDATE October, 1989



Yellow Pages, listing churches by denomination: "Churches ‑ Community. Metropolitan Community Church, 1253 N High Street, 294‑3026." Other examples: First Community Church, Gahanna Community Church, Praise Temple Holiness Church, Wonderland Community Church.





"Church music doesn't have to sound 'different.' It can sound just like the music people listen to every day. At Crossroads you won't find a pipe organ, but you will find great music appealing to a variety of tastes...Who says church has to be boring? In many of our services the Crossroads Drama Team makes us laugh or cry, and take a hard look at ourselves." Crossroads Community Church, Pastor Rick Miller (WELS),



"Would you be interested in a church that offers...Practical and Relevant Messages? Contemporary Music and Drama? Friendly People Who Are Interested in You? A Non‑threatening Environment Where You Can Investigate a Relationship with God? Maybe Crossroads Is For You!...Targeted for September, '92, Sunday morning 'seeker' service designed to introduce Christianity in the most practical relevant way possible!" Crossroads Community Church, Pastor Rick Miller (WELS),







"As an independent group it does not plan to use the name 'Lutheran' in its title. It will be known as The Crossroads Christian Church...For the present, Rick Miller is still a pastoral member of the WELS...At that time [January 31, 1992, submission of a constitution] the fellowship question will be determined on the basis of the group's doctrinal statements and practices." District President Robert Mueller, President's Report to the Conferences, Fall, 1991 p. 3.











"The point being made here is that the reason for having home Bible study in small groups seems to have shifted from the Pietists' or parachurch groups goal of creating cells of people who will reform the church to having small groups as an integral part of a congregation's work." Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 127.

"Are there some situations that might lead a congregation to consider home Bible study groups? Yes." Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 131.





"Cell Groups For Reaching The Unchurched Are Called...SHARE GROUPS. Touch Outreach Ministries has spent many years experimenting with the best way to train Cell Group members to form 'Sub‑Groups' called SHARE GROUPS which specifically target evangelizing the unchurched. SHARE GROUPS are 'pre‑Bible study' Cells, which bond relationships between three Christians and six unbelievers. A series of three small books are used over a 27‑week period of training. The first book, called 'BUILDING BRIDGES, OPENING HEARTS,' guides the SHARE GROUP Team through the first part of the strategy." Touch Outreach Ministries, P.O. Box 19888 Houston, TX 77079 1‑800‑735‑5865 p. 7.





INDEX

Calvin 36

cell groups 7, 15, 17, 19, 28, 39, 40, 45‑49, 51, 56, 58

Cho 16‑20, 24, 31, 46, 48, 49, 55

Christ 8, 9, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 25, 29‑32, 34, 35, 46, 49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 56

Church Growth 4‑12, 14‑16, 19, 21‑28, 30‑32, 34‑41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49‑51, 54‑56

conversion 11, 29‑31, 47

efficacy 5, 6, 29, 30, 34, 36‑38, 48, 51, 52, 54

everyone a minister 47, 48

Hill 19, 20, 55, 56

Holy Spirit 5, 14, 20, 29, 32, 36, 49, 51, 52, 54, 56

Kelm 7, 11, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 32, 37, 41, 57

Luecke 43

Luther 5, 8, 9, 15, 22, 24, 31‑34, 36, 38, 44, 52, 54

McGavran 8‑11, 16, 23, 27, 28, 31, 34‑36, 38, 51, 55, 56

Means of Grace 5, 14, 16, 36, 45, 46, 51, 54

Melanchthon 54

Olson 8, 9, 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 28, 30, 31, 52, 55

Pietism 5, 6, 45, 49

Prussian Union 54

Reformed 5, 7, 8, 19, 29, 30, 35, 44, 45, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54

revivalism 5, 6

Scriptures 14, 16, 29, 43, 50

Unionism 4, 21, 54

Valleskey 6, 12, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 32, 34, 37, 42, 48, 53, 54

Wagner 10, 11, 15, 16, 22, 24‑28, 36‑38, 46, 49, 55, 56

Werning 22‑25, 27, 28, 32, 35, 47, 51, 56, 57

Word 4‑6, 8, 13‑17, 21, 28‑34, 36‑38, 41, 43, 45‑49, 51‑54

Zwingli 36, 41



[1] "There is no Church Growth Movement Program in our synod.

Our church body is opposed to the false theology of the Church Growth Movement. We have no programs inside or outside the budget with that name. Nor do we have any programs with a different name which utilize Church Growth theology."

Wayne D. Mueller, Administrator for the BPS, WELS, "A Response to 'Saving Souls vs. New Programs,'" The Northwestern Lutheran, November 1, 1991, February 1, 1992, p. 50.



[2] "Please stop exaggerating the amount of study that I have done at Fuller. After four years of study at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, which involved sixty‑two different courses and a year of vicarage, I graduated in 1983. From 1987 to 1989 I took four courses where I was in a classroom with a Fuller instructor. That is the extent of my Fuller coursework...In addition, I have taken two courses at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and one at the University of Wisconsin‑‑Madison. Because of Fuller's liberal (would you expect anything else?) policy on transfer of credit, and because of two independent studies I undertook, I could complete the degree by simply writing a dissertation." Prof. Lawrence O. Olson, D. Min. (Fuller), "A Response to Gregory L. Jackson, Ph.D.," Christian News, 3‑28‑94, p. 23. Olson has a point. His D. Min. degree is considered a master's degree by graduate schools.

[3] God, Man, and Church Growth, A Festschrift in Honor of Donald Anderson McGavran, A. R. Tippett, ed., Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1973,



[4] Footnote ‑ See C. Peter Wagner, What Are We Missing?, formerly Look Out, The Pentecostals Are Coming, Carol Stream: Creation House, 1973, 1978.

[5] Professor Lawrence O. Olson, Martin Luther College, WELS, studied under C. Peter Wagner.

[6] "Big Trouble with the World's Largest Church," Christianity Today,

[7] "'But Honey, I've got all these five million dollars inside of me. They're growing now! Oh, inside me it's growing.' Suddenly those five million dollars had turned into a small pebble on my palm." Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publish­ing, 1979, I, p. 27.



[8] Pay attention to this shakedown of a bank president, from the pen of Cho himself: [To bank president]: "'Pick up the phone and call the police. Ask about the name Yonggi Cho, and you'll find he is the pastor of the lagrest church in Seoul...He can have all of them transfer their bank account to your bank for the new year. I will do this tremendous favor for you if you do one for me...' 'You write me a $50,000 check,' I told him." Paul Yonggi Cho, with a foreword by Dr. Robert Schuller, The Fourth Dimension, 2 vols., South Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979, I, p. 145.



[9] Schuller's mentor, Norman Vincent Peale, borrowed many of his "power of positive thinking" concepts from an occult author, according to a Lutheran journal. Peale's Guideposts magazine replaced the Bible and Lutheran magazines at the WELS Lutherans For Life pregnancy counseling center. When I objected to Peale's anti-Christian propaganda, Reformed women's magazines showed up next.

[10] December 17, 1990, issue.

[11] Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1937, revised 1960, p. 32.



[12] "There comes, now, a statement which will give a better understand­ing of the importance the principle of autosuggestion assumes in the transmutation of desire into its physical, or monetary equivalent; namely: faith is a state of mind which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of autosuggestion." Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1937, revised 1960, p. 49f.



[13] For additional information on SMART goals, see Valleskey's We Believe, Rev. Paul Kelm's conference papers, Peter Drucker's Management by Objective, etc.

[14] David J. Valleskey, "The Church Growth Movement: An Evaluation, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, vol. 88, Spring, 1991, p.90.

[15] I mentioned Kelm's endorsement in a paper given to the Northern Conference of the Michigan District, WELS, "The New Lutheran Church and Its Implications for Confessional Lutherans," p. 11. Bivens said he "wanted to defend Paul Kelm's good name," as if telling the truth about his endorsement was a violation of the Eighth Commandment. District President Robert Mueller virtually called me a liar when he denied, with great emotion, that Lutheran Parish Resources, Columbus, had anything to do with the Church Growth Movement.

[16] The Lutheran Church in America trained pastors and laity in evangelism by having them learn how to lead their congregations in forming SAM goals: specific, achievable, measurable.

[17] "Must Lutheranism be shorn of its glory to adapt it to our

times or our land? No!"

Charles P. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and Its

Theology, Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication

House, 1871, p. 208.



[18] Stolzenburg studied Church Growth under Kent Hunter. Stolzenburg recruited around 45 members of St. Paul (including the pastor and vicar) to attend the Win Arn Church Growth seminar which was held in Columbus. He convinced George Skestos to fund Lutheran Parish Resources, which hired him and Roger Zehms to promote Church Growth among the WELS churches in Columbus. Stolzenburg also began Pilgrim Community Church with District Vice-President Paul Kuske. When that flopped and LPR ran out of support, Stolzenburg was hired as the pastor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, formerly ALC, in Columbus.

[19] "Some persons are blind to possibilities for growth, while others have eyes like eagle Scouts. If you can see the potential for growth, you have church growth eyes. If you are blind to the possibilities, you need church growth eyes." Delos Miles, Church Growth, A Mighty River, Nashville: Broadman Press, 1981, p. 51.



[20] "Non‑Christians usually become good prospects for personal reasons or as I like to say: 'They come for sociolog­ical reasons and stay for theological reasons.'" Rev. Paul Kelm, (WELS), "How to Make Sound Doctrine Sound Good to Mission Prospects," p. 4.



[21] Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1980, p. 291. McGavran and Wagner teach their disciples that sociological analysis will determine when people are "winnable" or "receptive." Did the risen Lord know Saul was winnable on the Road to Damascus? (Acts 9:3)

[22] "Outreach officials are well‑aware that some Lutherans are quite skeptical of the megachurch idea. These critics say the ELCA's flirtation with the church growth movement shows a failure of confidence and they believe these megachurches are not really Lutheran in liturgy or substance." Daniel J. Cattau, The Lutheran, April, 1992 "Outreach Experiment, 'Megachurch' to start in California," p. 33.

[23] When WELS tried to convert people with videotapes in Brazil, results were dismal. A farmer said incredulously to the head missionary, "People come in and you give them a videotape to watch?" The argument was that preaching and teaching the Word would take too long to build up a huge mission.

[24] "Since several brothers have asked about the status of Rick Miller, I provide the following information. Rick has asked for a release from his call at Huron Valley Lutheran High School in order to serve a group of people as their pastor and to help organize them as an independent Christian congregation. The group is composed of some former members of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Plymouth, of some former members of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Livonia, and some people who have left LC‑MS churches. The group has stated that it has a different philosophy and style of ministry, which includes drama, contemporary music and a thematic form of worship and liturgy, which allows for greater personal participation by its female members. The group has also stated that it would like to retain fellowship relations with our Wisconsin Synod." District President Robert Mueller, WELS, President's Report to the Conferences, Fall, 1991 Note: the congregation has women lectors p. 2f.



[25] A major part of LPR involvement currently centers around assis­tance with Beautiful Savior's establishment of a new experi­mental mission on the west side. Named "Pilgrim Community Church" by the committee from Grove City, the new congregation will maintain solid Lutheran doctrine without an up front emphasis on the Lutheran name. All materials identify sponsorship by Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church. [note: in very, very small print. On the same page, artwork for the area Reforma­tion service at St. Paul's: "STANDING WHERE LUTHER STOOD"] LPR UPDATE, October, 1989.



[26] "Some 15 years ago, Peter Wagner's equation read 'Cells + Congrega­tion + Celebration = Church.'" Ken Sidey, "Church Growth Fine Tunes Its Formulas," Christianity Today, June 24, 1991, p. 46.



[27] "This writer's acquaintance with this current phenomenon is threefold: 1) he has attended one of the workshops held by Lyman Coleman [a false teacher]; 2) he has read about a dozen books in the last ten years coming from evangelical sources [i.e. false teachers] that deal with small groups either wholly or in part; 3) he has also inquired about why a number of WELS congregations have begun to conduct small group Bible study and how they have structured these groups." Prof. David Kuske, "Home Bible Study Groups in the 1990s," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Spring, 1994. p. 127.

Michigan Lutheran Seminary Could Close:Thank Your Church and Change Leaders - Like Radloff

The Michigan District's Church Growth buddies have finished off MLS.
That is how the Chicaneries treat their friends:
Kuske, Oelhafen, Adrian.

Saginaw News

Michigan Lutheran Seminary, a private residential high school on Saginaw's West Side, dodged the threat of closure in 1992 and 2007. Can it do so a third time?

About 400 voting delegates of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod will convene on the campus, a neighborhood mainstay at 2777 Hardin, from July 27-31, for their biennial convention. On tap: Deciding on a budget that could include closing the school.

"I'd say there's a real chance the school could close -- not this year, but possibly after next school year," said teacher Jim Wooster, 57, of Saginaw Township.

Wooster was a delegate two years ago, when synod leaders rejected a proposal to shut down the private school.

Delegates must choose between two budgets, said Joel W. Hochmuth, spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, based in Wauwatosa, Wis. The difference between them "is essentially how $1 million is apportioned," he said.

"In one budget proposal, that $1 million goes to ministerial education," Hochmuth said. "In the other proposal, the $1 million is allotted to home missions and world missions.

"It's under that second proposal that Michigan Lutheran Seminary is not viable."

A neighborhood mainstay

The possibility of closure is a concern for neighbors such as Dianne L. Felsing, 76, who lives at 2826 Hardin, across the street from the school that has 124 years of tradition.

"I'm hoping and praying that it doesn't close," said Felsing, whose daughter, Catherine Felsing, and granddaughter, Jamie Jurek, both graduated from Michigan Lutheran Seminary and work as Lutheran schoolteachers.

MLS students come from Michigan and other states, with some students living in dorm rooms on campus.

Two years after its founding near Adrian, German Lutherans moved Michigan Lutheran Seminary to Saginaw in 1885. The 8-acre campus includes a dormitory as part of its 126,400-square-feet of space. A related divinity school closed in 1910.

"That school is a godsend," said Robert F. Reed Jr., 53, who lives a few yards from the school softball diamond. "The seminary kids are great. They respect their neighbors. They walk on the sidewalks and don't cut through your yard, and they don't litter."

Saginaw City Manager Darnell Earley said he hopes the synod can find a way to keep financing seminary.

"They've been a valuable part of the community," he said.

Cuts already

In a nod to the budget crisis, seminary has cut 13 jobs -- including six teaching positions.

It had 60 staffers two years ago; today's staff size wasn't immediately apparent.
About 197 students attended at the start of last school year, and school officials expect about the same enrollment this fall. The population peaked in 2001 at 381 students.

If delegates approve a budget requiring closure, the coming academic year would be the high school's last, Hochmuth said.

Teachers losing their positions in the June cutbacks included Timothy Malchow, Marcus Manthey, Kenric Peterson, Daniel Retberg, Larry Seafert and Steven Westphal, the MLS Web site reports.

The synod operates two "preparatory schools": Michigan Lutheran Seminary in Saginaw and Luther Preparatory School in Watertown, Wis. Both schools train future ministers and teachers, though that doesn't mean all students end up attending Martin Luther College, the synod's worker-training college in New Ulm, Minn. Some pursue other careers.

Tuition is $4,725 for commuter students, $7,925 for those who live on campus.
The synod also runs a fourth school, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wis., which prepares future pastors over four years after those men graduate from Martin Luther College.

The synod's budget for the new fiscal year that began in July declined by 21 percent from last year -- from about $38 million to $30 million, synod officials said.

"You can't go from a $38 million budget in one year, to a $30 million budget the next year, without making some stark choices," said Rev. Paul Wendland, a member of the WELS Board for Ministerial Education.

Two years ago, WELS convention delegates came up with their own budget proposal rather than approving a plan to close seminary, Hochmuth said.

"Two years ago, it was more along the lines of restructuring our synod and doing a better job of stewardship with the money we had," Wooster said. "This time the issue is, in fact, financial.

"The monies the synod counted on are not arriving, so that puts additional pressure on the synod."

Felsing believes that the denomination's members will keep the school open.

"Everybody's got to dig a little deeper for some money, and it can be done," she said.

***

GJ - The Shrinkers have been digging a little deeper...a grave for MLS for the last 15 years. Gurgle/Mueller blew through all the money and millions in restricted funds to "get the synod going." Funny how no one thought about education serving as a good and permanent investment for the future.

Some Free Books Online

Bengel, whose Gnomon influenced many generations, is connected with Pietism.

J. Gerhard's Loci. He is often confused with the hymn-writer, Paul Gerhardt. Remember the "t" in The Lutheran Hymnal and you will do better than some Lutheran teachers.

Bengels Gnomon of the New Testament has had a huge impact on theology, not necessarily for the good. Bengel had the theory that Christ's blood was stored in heaven and used for justification.

Bengel's son-in-law was the first one (I know about) to discover Universal Justification, called General in German, where General means "every single person."

DK On Socialized Medicine in America

The new Obama plan will vastly increased taxes while reducing medical care - except for illegals.

DK has left a new comment on your post "Another Pyrrhic Victory for Church and Chicanery":

Howdy Professor. Please publish this Front page. Thanks.

Ichabodians must, for the briefest moment switch gears from theology to public policy.

Is everyone staying informed about Obama and the Democrat's Health Care reform Bill? I hope that you are fully aware of what it entails. I also hope you are writing your Representatives and telling them to VOTE NO!

Obama's Health Care reform bill, H.R. 3200, along with offering free national health care to every American, would require every employer to give private health insurance to every employee. This will bankrupt hundreds of thousands of small businesses, or cause them to reduce the size of their labor force. That means YOUR job is at risk.

The reason that Obama's plan includes the requirement of private insurance offerings by employers is because if it didn't, many employers would drop their private plans. This mass number of people suddenly thrown into the nationalized plan would instantly bankrupt it. Beyond that, one can imagine that the Medical Insurance lobby is lining the appropriate pockets too.

This is the biggest 'soak the rich' move that the US government has ever made. It will threaten free market capitalism and further erode our economy. Do you want free health insurance so badly that you're willing to see 3 out of every 10 people lose their jobs? Are you sure you're not on the chopping block? Did you ever imagine that you'd see the US with 24% unemployment rate and a 70% under employment rate? It is coming and it's coming fast. (these percentages are not scientifically compiled statistics, but my own rough estimates based on a realistic analysis done by me...) It doesn't take a genius to guess that this H.R. 3200 could destroy the fabric of American Business. Want a depression? Do nothing! Rahm Immanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff paraphrased someone recently. He said "Never let a crisis go to waste." They want to push us over the brink of socialism! Fight it!

WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES NOW! Tell them how you'll relish voting them out of office! Send them this simple email four or five times:


"Dear __________

Vote no on H.R. 3200 or I will do my part to make sure you never hold public office again.

Yours menacingly

DK"

***

GJ - I am licensed in life insurance and health insurance, with a CLU to boot. This plan is worse than Hillary's previous attempt; the bi-partisan Medicare D drug plan paved the ways for this monstrosity.

Another Pyrrhic Victory for Church and Chicanery

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and ...":

I don't know if Fairview is down to its conservative member or not, and that is why the CG pastor had to go. However, it should be noted that CG pastors regularly come and go from their churches and mega-churches. Of course, some pastors are more or less permanent. If Aderman went, would it just be a changing of the CG guard, or would they receive a confessional pastor?

***

GJ - I believe the Fairview conservatives would be like the Canadian conservatives. In Canada, there are liberal socialists and less liberal socialists. At Fairview, after years of Shrinkage work and frog-kissing, very little would be left. In an apostate denomination or congregation, the more discerning tend to leave, making it easier for the radicals to stay in power. The United Methodist Church is a prime example, with conservative sects leaving to establish a true Methodism and leaving Holy Mother Church like a hot-air balloon with no ballast. The hot-air balloon climbs even faster into the stratosphere of Marxism, Unitarianism, and gaiety.

The phrase 'pyrrhic victory' is an allusion to the battle. John Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Pyrrhus, 75 AD reports that:

"... they had fought till sunset, both armies were unwillingly separated by the night, Pyrrhus being wounded by a javelin in the arm, and his baggage plundered by the Samnites, that in all there died of Pyrrhus's men and the Romans above fifteen thousand. The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one other such would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward."

***

One more victory like this and the Chicaneries are undone. Mail your FICs back to The Love Shack and attach a note to the Synod President. Why should members subsidize a wolf posing as a shepherd? Aderman retired from the ministry. The district announced his retirement, doubtless with a sign of relief. Grabbing back the same call is a wee bit self-centered, even for a Shrinker. The only thing commending the move is the cost-savings in keeping the parish websty exactly the same.

Does Aderman actually believe the First Table of the Ten Commandments, as explained in Luther's Large Catechism? I suggest that all members review that section of the Book of Concord, which by itself defeats the Shrinkers one and all.

Yet Aderman is going to teach the Ten Commandments to WELS.

That is more absurd that Paul Calvin Kelm being a clergy member of the Willow Creek Association, via St. Mark Depere, and being called as a Consultant at The Love Shack.

Stetzer, Warren, and Sweet - Oh My!

Two Babtists at work: Warren (DMin, Fuller) and Stetzer (DMin, Beeson).

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Kitteh Laments":

How does Ichabod feel about W/ELS pastors and congregations using Rick Warren's Forty Days of Purpose, and getting their congregations placed on Saddleback's site as a recommended congregation?

Saddleback, according to their website clearly teaches decision theology and totally denies the Means of Grace.

How could any W/ELS congregation seek the sanction of such a church?

***

GJ - WELS Seminary professors have promoted Babtist authors ever since Valleskey, and probably before that. J. P. Meyer, whose toxic Ministers of Christ became the foundation for Kokomo, offered up Decision Theology in his book.

A graduate of The Sausage Factory in the 1980s said his library was all Reformed, due to the books suggested by the faculty. Someone else wrote in to say Jay Adams was all the rage when he was there.

The Wisconsin educational faculties and Love Shack drones have clearly lost their faith in the Word of God. Deformed doctrine, which they love, is shot through with rationalism. Once rationalism is introduced to Biblical doctrine, the Sacraments recede and disappear. Following that, Christ turns into an inspirational oracle, full of insights drawn from Napoleon Hill, Buddha, and Paul Y. Cho.

So what do I think of studying Rick Warren's book? That is worse than feeding poison to one's spouse and children, telling them it is for their own good.

There are some remarkable exceptions, but the typical WELS pastor is hopeless about the Book of Concord and doctrine in general. The best education in theology comes from slugging it out with false teachers. WELS pastors are taught to excuse false doctrine and advocate unionism, with loyalty to the institution more important than the Scriptures and Confessions.

I will compare it with Islamic history. I never took much interest in it until I had to teach it to college students who knew little about any religion or world history. Suddenly, every serious book about Islam and the Byzantine Empire became fascinating. I had a real hunger for those books and read through Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire twice. Questions in class made me want to read more. Take away the need to teach and the desire to study diminished.

That is the genius of unionism. Once unionism is established, no one wants to pursue doctrinal differences and no one will address those distinctions. Curiosity is gone. If anyone dares to whisper, "We are studying false teachers," someone will join Valleskey in hissing, "They are Christians and we can learn from them, too."

In Columbus, talking about false doctrine was denounced as "Christian bashing." The very nature of Christianity, to distinguish between sound and false doctrine, is extinguished by such slogans, and the charge for all pastors (from the Pastoral Epistles) is reduced to nonsense.

KJV 2 Timothy 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

There are more than a few similar passages:

KJV 1 Timothy 1:3 As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

KJV 1 Timothy 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; 11 According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

KJV 1 Timothy 4:6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.

KJV 1 Timothy 4:16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

KJV 1 Timothy 5:17 Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.

KJV 1 Timothy 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. 3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

KJV 2 Timothy 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

KJV Titus 1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; 8 But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; 9 Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. 10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: 11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

KJV 2 John 1:8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. 10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: 11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

KJV Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Stetzer, Warren, and Sweet - Oh My!":

Many in the WELS are astonishingly ignorant and apathetic. Apathy of course leading to vast and sometimes unmeasurable ignorance.

Light of Life Lutheran Church, Covington Wa. under Pastor Jared conducted their own Purpose Driven study when the occultic book first came out. (Pastor Jared was nurtured by the WELS Church Growth fanatics at Sem. With the help of the congregation wrote their own Creeds, studied under Baptist Reggie McNeal and wrote and promoted some horrendous CGM drivel).

The whole Rick Warren occultic, New Age, New World Order drive reminds me of how he is fullfiling the three stages of error.

Speaking to the Islamic Society of North America recently Warren said, "“People don't want to be tolerated, they want to be respected, they want to be listened to. They want to be valued." "I am not interested in interfaith dialogue, I am interested in interfaith projects," Warren said. "Talk is very cheap."

http://www.isna.net/articles/News/Rick-Warren-calls-on-Muslims-and-Christians-to-work-together.aspx

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/warren-convention-muslims-2483889-interfaith-want

When the only money available comes from and through the New Age Roman Catholic religion the faithless in the Lutheran Synods will embrace anything for their share. And the sheeple in the pews will coo their unwitting approval, "All for the love of lost souls!"

---

Another person wrote:

This article from a non Lutheran source is one which does a good job of laying out the final extreme result of what Spener might never have even imagined. To quote your series re: pietism, Warren's efforts stretch Bergendoff's motto to the max, "Doctrine divides, but service unites".....Warren's version is at the expense of Christianity itself.

I recommend this (http://www.newswithviews.com) article -- Paul Proctor -- Rick Warren: From Tolerance To Respect. You should check this out at, http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor183.htm

I am all for non unionistic working as a Christian Church for the love of lost souls. But if it's not done in, through and with the pure Word in doctrine and practice then it is not love. Then it harms and does not help. Just as Christ says Luke 17:1-2, "Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." Then it is not for love when what they bring is false teaching.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Stetzer, Warren, and Sweet - Oh My!":


The WELS on Rick Warren:

http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1518&cuTopic_topicID=941&cuItem_itemID=23728

Richard L. Gurgel, "My copy of The Purpose Driven Life proclaims: “Over Six Million Copies Sold.” Obviously many have read it and benefited. The temptation for us as Lutherans is to ignore such books, since in our justifiable fear of pietism1 we are sometimes timid about encouraging biblical piety."
http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1712&cxDatabase_databaseID=1&id=7090&magazine=Forward%20in%20Christ

Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and Doing a Ten-Article Series in Forward in Christ

If you kiss enough frogs, they sometimes kiss back.
"When was the last time you kissed a frog?...'Lifestyle Evangelism and Follow-up,' a Navigator video seminar for the church, makes a solid case for Christian frog kissing as a way of life."
James A. Aderman, The Evangelism Life Line (WELS), Summer, 1986 p. 2.

News flash

Church Shrinker Jim Aderman, recently "retired" after shrinking Fairview in half, has just announced his "unretirement" (even though the DP had announced publicly before the whole district last month that Aderman had retired). He was able to bring in enough supporters for another congregational meeting which asked him to come back. After "much prayerful deliberation" on his "call" he immediately accepted. And immediately after that Fairvew shrunk by another half dozen or so families, with no doubt more to follow.

So if we thought we were done with Aderman, we were fooled. Not only that. I just opened the August issue of FIC to see that it features the first article of a ten-article series by Aderman on the Ten Commandments. And once again a major Shrinker gets major billing in the FIC.

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Leadership (Past and Present)
Pastor, Trinity Lutheran, Englewood, FL
Member, Board for Parish Services, South Atlantic District
Director of Development, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee
Chairman, WELS Lutherans for Life-metro-Milwaukee
Pastor, Siloah Lutheran Church, Milwaukee
Member and chairman, Board of Directors, Wisconsin Lutheran High School
Pastor, Fairview Lutheran Church, Milwaukee
Founding member and vice chairman, Board of Directors, Calvary Academy, Milwaukee
Coordinator, WELS Southeastern Wisconsin District, Adult Discipleship Commission
Member and vice chairman, Church and Change
Chairman, Urban Pastors' Conference, Milwaukee
Circuit Pastor, Barnabas Circuit, Milwaukee

Author
Face the Facts, Northwestern Publishing House
Elijah, Northwestern Publishing House
Esther, Northwestern Publishing House
Editor, YouTHINK
Founding editor-in-chief, LivingBold (LivingBold.net)
Contributing editor, Forward in Christ magazine
Author for Partners magazine, WELS Leadership magazine, Forward in Christ magazine

Education
Bachelor of Arts, Northwestern College
Master of Divinity, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
Master of Journalism, Marquette University
Certificate of Website Design, University of Wisconsin-School of Continuing Education
Master of Practical Theology, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (in progress)

***

GJ - Dost thou doubt FIC being the Xerox room for Church and Chicanery? I knew it when Latte Lutheran Church (Randy Hunter) was featured in a glowing article.

If I were getting a subscription to the magazine, group or single, I would mail every copy back, addressed to the Synod President, giving reasons why. Canceled subscriptions would be a good message too.

Readers have been paying money to support Chicanery leaders, and the publication gives credence to Chicanery views copied from Fuller, Willow Creek, Granger, Drive, Exponential, and that space cadet Leonard Sweet (Kelm's guy).

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and ...":

Once again the pastor is not held accountable for his actions. I wonder what guilt trip was laid on the congregation to take back Jim Aderman as pastor. Almost certainly it was rationalized as a face saving measure for WELS while Fairview members needed to be humbled. The pastor must reign supreme even if useless and remiss in his duties.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

>>If anything good will come out of this though, perhaps now more and more people can see just how wretched and dangerous the Church & Changers are--stopping at nothing to destroy anyone who would dare oppose their demonic teachings.<<

Actually the C&Cers are control freaks who get off on subjugating others.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and ...":

Mark my words. Fairview will lose half of the remaining members due to taking Jim Aderman back as pastor.

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DK, with fervor has left a new comment on your post "Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and ...":

What, besides promoting Enthusiasm broadly as possible in the WELS, has Aderman done?, specific to Fairview?

Maybe I'm unaware of where to look, but after having searched Ichabod I was unable to find any information. (besides promoting Enthusiasm broadly as possible throught the WELS.)

Fairview has been a smoldering bed of Enthusiastic coals for 10 years at least. I went there in 1999, a period when I was being led down that path; Fairview was one of the 'hip' places.

So what has happened? Have the members at Fairview had an awakening of their consciences? Has someone been actively fighting Enthusiasm in Fairview? What Catalyst for the shift from pro-Aderman to anti-Aderman?

I for one would appreciate it if an anonymous poster (Fairview member?)would give Ichabodians the scoop.

I hope Pastor Jackson doesn't mind if I speak for all Ichabodians when I say that all conservative Lutherans here on Ichabod would like to extend warm and hearty encouragement to individuals who may be standing up to false teachers and errorists--take heart that though your plans may seem frustrated, God promises persecution to the faithful, and that through persecution you will be purified.

I encourage all Ichabodians to pray for those--at Fairview and many other places--who in spite of risk of being shunned, excommunicated, lynched, and otherwise defamed, continue to fight the good fight, bearing true witness to the truth, purity and Efficacy of the Holy Word of God.

God's Blessings!

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Breaking News - Aderman Is Back in His Parish and ...":

As a failed kamikaze pastor, Jim Aderman gets another chance to finish off Fairview. WELS leaders must feel like they are wonderfully forgiving.

Denominations Explained

1. The micro-minis loathe the bigger micros and long to be like them and have their money.
   
   
2. The Little Sect on the Prairie loathes the WELS and longs to be like them and have their money.
   
   
3. The Wisconsin Sect loathes the Missouri Synod and longs to be like them and have their money.
   
   
4. The ELCA only loathes the conservative Lutherans, while longing to be like the Church of Rome and have their money.

Kinder Kirche - Another Great Babtist Idea

***

GJ - The CORE should try Kafe Kirche in A-town, which enjoys a German heritage. Someone told me CORE is attending another expensive Schwaermer conference - about $380 per.

WELS Kitteh Laments

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Kitteh Laments":

"Why didn't my pastor offer a lecture series on the Confessions?"

WELS Tomkitteh: Maybe your pastor was busy getting ready to do Rick Warren's (Saddleback Church's) 40 Days of Purpose like the WELS congregation in Plymouth, MN did a couple of yrs ago. You can go there and feast on their 'blended' service on Sunday, too.

Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Daunting?

Erin Joy loved her swing. She acknowledged her baptismal grace, her faith in Christ many different ways.

Bethany was born a few months before I was accepted at Notre Dame. She poured out love for everyone.

Our daughters Bethany and Erin died of neurological degeneration. Mrs. Ichabod has something similar, but a lite version. She also has severe heart problems, diabetes, and cartilage loss.

A few ignorant people think recycled slime from their Shrinker friends will daunt me. The opposite is true.

Their source, Paul Kuske, left such a foul odor behind him wherever he went that his fellow pastors voted him out of office. (Ditto - Wayne Mueller) Robert Mueller, another CG thug, quit before being soundly defeated. Gerry Schroer, who also carried water for the Enthusiasts, did not stay in office.

Paul Kuske was suggested for the Shrinker's Spiritual Renewal Project in WELS, but DP Nitz told me about stopping it. Nitz made some phone calls and Kuske was blackballed. (Wait a few seconds for the denials to roll in.)

More importantly, lying and going against the Word of God are both fatal. I realize that the Shrinkers think the Word is dead unless they freshen it up with rock music, marketing, and espresso. However, God's opinion--which I value more--is just the opposite.

Three Shrinker clergy have already marked themselves with eternal death by becoming atheists.

WELS has committed institutional suicide by devoting itself to false doctrine and persecuting sound doctrine. My opinion does not matter. The facts speak for themselves.

I am glad the Chicaneries are using a few ignorant louts to channel their bilge. That allows everyone see that the Shrinkers have not changed in method since they slandered a dead pastor by calling him "brain-damaged" for saying the same things I published. Corky's essay is posted on the left for everyone to read.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

Luke 6:45, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh."

Matthew 12, 33-36, "Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment."

I was disgusted when I read the vile post on the imitation Ichabod 'is' site. The 'letter' was pure propaganda from a black demonic heart which tried to use the dear little children and their sickness and early death as a tool to attack Pastor Jackson. The 'team' of editors who manage that blog are, in my opinion, the authors of that same letter due to it's clear bent, similar terms and grammar and inarticulate wording (ie. "common wisdom"). And even if they are not the authors they posted the letter because it fit their objective and are accountable. They've since removed it as they have with other postings which show what their heart is made of.

It should make those in the WELS stop and consider what and who they are in fellowship with.

That site is spoken of by Christ, John 16:1-4, "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them."

In Christ,
Brett Meyer

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

When I read that trash on the Fake Ichabod site I couldn't believe it. It was absolutely sickening to think that my fellow WELS members (and likely fellow WELS pastors) could stoop to such a horrifying level. To use a man's dear daughters against him in a piece of shameless propaganda is simply evil.

Greg, I'd like to apologize to you on behalf of WELS members and pastors for the terrible thing that was done to you on the other site. I too have lost a child and know how I would have reacted if someone tried to use my child's death against me. You have handled it with far more grace and patience than I would be able to muster.

If anything good will come out of this though, perhaps now more and more people can see just how wretched and dangerous the Church & Changers are--stopping at nothing to destroy anyone who would dare oppose their demonic teachings.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

When I was in college, I came across Pastor Jackson's old website, on which he detailed the secrets of GA at the seminary. I was naturally concerned and talked to a professor at the seminary who told me to ignore everything that Greg wrote because "he went insane after his daughters died".

Well, my first year at the seminary, I soon found out that every single thing that Pastor Jackson said about GA was absolutely true, and that every single thing that the seminary professor told me was an absolute lie.

So, I can assure you, Pastor Jackson is absolutely sane. I'm not sure I can say the same about the seminary professor.

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DK has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

Anon 12:10

Stop being anonymous. Also please publish that professor's name. It would do you and him some good to put his name out there. If you're willing to call a Sem Prof. a liar (and I don't doubt that you're being truthful) then you oughta say it to his face. Opposed to what the C&Cers claim, this is not breaking the eighth commandment. When that man took a 'Divine Call' (Public Ministry) he opened himself up to higher standard and or higher level of criticism.

You'll be helping other laymen disseminate between truth and falsehood of those they supposedly can trust.

thanks

DK

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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Do You Really Think Your Recycled Slime Is Dauntin...":

This proves that the C&C/CGM/enthusiast group in the WELS is getting desperate. They cannot defend their actions and could never back them up from the Word. Over at Bailing Water, Rick Johnson took a cheap shot at Dr. Jackson. Needless to say, that opened up the floodgates. After GJ went for the jugular, the other bloggers began tag teaming him. It is unfortunate that we must all be so firm. This is much more than personal. Defending the proper doctrine ultimately prevents others from being led astray.

I recently found my copy of Angel Joy, from its first printing. Having a child that is handicapped, has special needs or is terminally ill can bring much hardship. Because of our Lord's providential and often hidden hand, it is difficult to understand what it is all about. There is great blessing in it. It bestows wisdom and tenacity which cannot be obtained easily by other means. You also develop a sense of courage that rivals that of soldiers in wartime.

In the oddest twist of all, it often exposes the rats and other vermin who would stoop so low as to use blessing against you.

Divorced Clergy in the Pulpit - The Unspoken Shift

Someone asked about the unrecognized shift in keeping divorced clergy in the pulpit. One mainline clergy database had to stop naming the spouse of the minister listed because the name changes came in so fast.

The case is easily made that divorced clergy should leave the ministry and no longer be listed as pastors. That policy was not debated - even in the liberal denominations a few decades ago. The history of that policy goes back to the pastoral epistles - husband of one wife - and the Old Testament: "I hate divorce."

In WELS, when someone is loses his call for one reason or another, he is automatically off the roster and must beg to get on again. I believe Missouri is similar, with CRM status meaning Can't Recall the Minister.

When I was in Columbus, three of the six clergy were divorced, and all three were Shrinkers. Of course, one was a pseudo-pastor and not a WELS member, but no one seemed to notice.

The new thinking on divorced pastors is now just as strong in WELS, the ELS, and Missouri as it is in the Methodist Church and ELCA.

This is doubly corrupting for all concerned. The man who gets divorced and stays in the ministry is the best liar--"Scriptural divorce!"--or best buddies with the District Pope. A convenient escape hatch is to promote the divorced man to headquarters when he paints himself into a corner with his own actions.

Someone argued years ago that political conservatives lost their credibility when they began divorcing their wives and marrying their mistresses. The same is true for conservative Lutherans, laity and clergy alike. When Marvin Schwan left his wife and married the wife of his manager, pastors said, "It was a Scriptural divorce."

I asked, "Is that like a Scriptural murder?"

The simplest solution is to follow the Word of God. Lenski observed from his years of serving as a district president - that men who are unreliable with the Word are unreliable in other ways as well.

I would not make someone denied custody of his own children the leader of WELS youth. I would not put his second wife on a LWMS board. I would not let him parade around as a pastor until he bought himself another job.

"The peacock is an image of heretics and fanatical spirits. For on the order of the peacock they, too, show themselves and strut about in their gifts, which never are outstanding. But if they could see their feet, that is the foundation of their doctrine, they would be stricken with terror, lower their crests, and humble themselves. To be sure, they, too, suffer from jealousy, because they cannot bear honest and true teachers. They want to be the whole show and want to put up with no one next to them. And they are immeasurably envious, as peacocks are. Finally, they have a raucous and unpleasant voice, that is, their doctrine is bitter and sad for afflicted and godly minds; for it casts consciences down more than it lifts them up and strengthens them."
Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 642.

"There is a false, ungodly, carnal zeal that does not come from God and is not produced by the Holy Spirit, but is rooted either in animosity against those who teach a different doctrine or in the selfish thought that a display zeal will bring the minister honor, at least in certain congregations, or in fanaticism. In the days of Christ, what zeal in the discharge of their office do we behold in the high priests, elders, scribes, and Pharisees who opposed Christ!"
C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, trans., W. H. T. Dau, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1928, p. 380.

VP-in-Waiting Jim Huebner Thought Stolzenburg Was Being Persecuted

Fuller-trained Jim Huebner came to Columbus at the instigation of Rich Krause--who was earning his union DMin under the supervision of Larry Olson. Huebner, like all the WELS officials, considered Floyd a victim of persecution.

Why did Doctrinal Pussycat Robert Mueller, VP Kuske, and the Michigan District pastors do nothing about Stolzenburg? The Columbus pastors almost had a cow when I suggested showing some friendship to Rev. Steve Archer, who was the legitimate called pastor at Emmanuel before Floyd got hired for a year to replace him. Floyd failed to tell his buddies on the Michigan District praesidium that he only had a provisional job for a year. It is ironic when liars are startled by lies from a brother wolf.

All this happened before the Bill Clinton scandals and the Roman Catholic Church priestly debacle. So, was I surprised about the cover-ups with either one? Not at all.

Step One
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg was forced to resign, for cause, from the LCMS ministerium and from his call at Salem in Florissant, Missouri. 1984.
Source: the District President who forced the resignation and preached for Floyd the next day. Other details were added by: Dr. J. A. O. Preus; Pastor Herman Otten; Floyd's assistant pastor; and a conservative LCMS pastor in Milwaukee.

Separation agreement, July 24, 1986. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg and Jane Dorothy Stolzenburg. Sole care, custody and control of the minor children given to Jane.

Lawsuit filed by Alvin E. Wendt, plaintiff, against Reverend Floyd Stolzenburg, 243 S. Stanwood Road, Bexley, Ohio, 43209; Salem Lutheran Church, 5180 Parker Road, Florissant, Missouri, 63033; The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, 1333 S. Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, Misouri, 63122. FS left Salem Dec 15, 1984 "19. Stolzenburg continues to hold an improper influence over Plaintiff's wife through Stolzenburg's affirmative acts of writing letters, sending gifts, and making phone calls to Vicki Wendt." p. 3.
In the Circuit Court of the County of St. Louis, Missouri.

Step Two

Floyd was promoting the Church Growth Movement at St. Paul, German Village, Columbus.

"IT'S COLOSSAL! IT'S GIGANTIC! IT'S SPECTACULAR! A PERSONAL NOTE FROM
WM. J. BRITTON, RE: CHURCH GROWTH SEMINAR, FEB. 24-25, 1985. Registration is
347! We prayed for response - the Lord gave it to us!...Win Arn says, 'We are
not here to make you work harder, but only to help you work smarter.'"
CG Conference, attended by St. Paul, Columbus, members and pastor.

46 from St. Paul's attended the Win Arn Church Growth seminar, including Floyd Stolzenburg, George Skestos, Vicar Mike Nitz, etc. March and April, 1985.

Stolzenburg Taught Church Growth at St. Paul, German Village.

"WELCOME TO CHURCH GROWTH. Our study is designed to help all of us gain a new perspective of what God has always had in mind for His Church. Church Growth is not new." Floyd L. Stolzenburg, "What the Bible Says about CHURCH GROWTH," Taught at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio p. 1.

"We have discovered that the Early Church was an institution that unknowingly saw its world through Church Growth eyes. We have some benefits they did not have in that we can look back today and analyze their successes and failures."
Floyd L. Stolzenburg, "Church Growth - the Acts of the Apostles," Taught at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio. [GJ - Doctrinal question: When did the Word of God ever fail? Floyd failed this question at a meeting and WELS kept him as a pseudo-pastor in his pseudo-pastoral position.]

"As you read, pick out the principles of Church Growth in this "FOCUS ON A GREAT CHURCH" (Acts 11:19-30)...11:26 tells us this studies the Word 'in great numbers.' How can we improve our numbers?"
Floyd L. Stolzenburg, "Church Growth - the Acts of the Apostles," Taught at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio January, 1986.

Step Three

Stolzenburg started looking for grants, because no church would hire him and no school system would let him work.

"He has served as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Charles, Missouri and Senior Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Florissant, Missouri...He is trained in the Bethel Bible Series, Church Growth program and Dialogue Evangelism. As a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Columbus, he now seeks a different form of Christian service, outside the pastoral office."
Floyd L. Stolzenburg, "The Homewood Church Enrichment Program."

"People Person: Have been recognized as a counselor and mediator. Brought harmony to what was once described as 'the most troubled Lutheran church in America. Personal: Born, December 6, 1941, Columbus. Married, three children. Spiritual gifts: Exhortation, teaching, administration and evangelism. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg 2904 Maryland Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43209-1157 614-235-5200.

Lutheran Parish Resources

"In the autumn of 1985 and the winter of 1985-1986, a truly momentous step was taken by the five Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) congregations in the metropolitan area of Columbus, Ohio. The five pastors and lay representatives of those churches organized and incorporated Lutheran Parish Resources, Inc., the first Church Growth institute in the WELS." David G. Peters, "Lutheran Parish Resources: Pilot Program in Church Growth," Mequon: Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, April 27, 1987 p. 1.

"Lutheran Parish Resources, Inc. (LPR) is dedicated to the concepts of the Church Growth movement only insofar as they agree with the Scriptures and as taught by the WELS--that is, Church Growth with Lutheran theology rather than Evangelical, and without the typical Church Growth emphasis on quantitative measurement of growth. Kent R. Hunter's definition of 'Church Growth' justifies the use of this term in describing LPR: 'Church Growth: That science which investigates the nature, function and health of Christian churches as they relate specifically to the effective implementation of God's commission to make disciples of all peoples (Matt. 28:19). Church Growth is simultaneously a theological conviction and an applied science,....' Foundations for Church Growth, p. 187.
David G. Peters, "Lutheran Parish Resources: Pilot Program in Church Growth," Mequon: Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, April 27, 1987 p. 1.

"CHURCH GROWTH. This program was basically the beginning of L.P.R. at St. Paul's. Certainly a church growth consciousness exists in all of the congregations which was not there four years ago. It is also evident that most of the congregations are not really willing to make church growth a major priority of their ministry. Some new people who visit our churches are turned off by the comments of church members. It would seem that many members will 'tolerate' growth if it does not upset the church's traditions."
Floyd Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources. [GJ - Kuske denied that LPR had anything to do with Church Growth. In Sheepshead, that is called mollering, but in WELS, it is called Muellering.]

"...Your share of Floyd's accommodations..." [Floyd Stolzenburg leading the Buckeye Circuit LWMS retreat]
Buckeye Circuit LWMS December 10, 1989.

"Most pastors and members do not seem willing to pay the price for growth and new life."
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources

"The area L.W.M.S. annual retreat has been created and led by L.P.R. General successes in this area have been very positive."
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources.

"There is a strong feeling of strength in tradition. Even non-doctrinal issues bring fear to the membership and an unwillingness on the part of staff to 'buck the system.' In a church that opposes other groups who trust in traditions, are we raising 'We've always done it that way' to the level of Scripture? Is it possible for our faith to be exciting and still be traditional?"
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources.

"In the doctrinal sense, the word 'fellowship' may have hindered some growth by the fear of new techniques and ministries. There seems to be an openness to new programs but also a fear that such new ideas may destroy some facets of the doctrine of church fellowship. Will that inevitably happen?"
Floyd Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources.

Pilgrim Community Church

"A major part of LPR involvement currently centers around assistance with Beautiful Savior's establishment of a new experimental mission on the west side. Named 'Pilgrim Community Church' by the committee from Grove City, the new congregation will maintain solid Lutheran doctrine without an up front emphasis on the Lutheran name. All materials identify sponsorship by Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church." [note: in very, very small print] On the same page, artwork for the area Reformation service at St. Paul's: "STANDING WHERE LUTHER STOOD"
LPR UPDATE October, 1989.

"L.P.R. is due to play a major role in the West Side Mission." [Pilgrim Community Church]
Floyd Stolzenburg, Consultant's Annual Report, 1-12-89 Lutheran Parish Resources

"Initial services will be less formal than our traditional worship services. LPR Director Roger Zehms has been requested by Beautiful Savior to serve as pastor of the new mission with Floyd Stolzenburg serving as evangelist and music consultant. Please include this new approach project in your prayers."
LPR UPDATE October, 1989. [GJ - I prayed all the time about Pilgrim, and my prayers were answered when three (3) people showed up for worship there.]

"Mr. Floyd Stolzenburg will serve under Rev Zehms providing such services as are appropriate for a person who is not 'CRM.' As a layperson Mr. Stolzenburg can under appropriate supervision do anything that a layman in your congregation can. -- We also reject any inference that Pastor Zehms will not be able to stand up to pressure from Mr. Stolzenburg, or from the donor who provides the funds for LPR. -- We also question the procedure in which the reason for Mr. Stolzenburg's resignation has been broadcast, even though the issues had been addressed by LPR." [GJ - Not true. People were told Floyd had a Scriptural divorce, that the divorce was the fault of his first wife.]
Pastor Paul Kuske Letter to the Ohio Conference Pilgrim Community Church, sponsored from Grove City by Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church Fall Conference, Gibsonia, 1989

"The administrative committee has applied to Lutheran Parish Resources for the services of Rev Roger Zehms. This application is the equivalent of a (limited) call. The committee has also applied for the services of Mr. Floyd Stolzenburg to act in a supportive role in the mission. Both of these applications have been approved."
Pastor Paul Kuske Letter to the Ohio Conference Pilgrim Community Church, sponsored from Grove City by Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church Fall Conference, Gibsonia, 1989

“I think it was the last letter I wrote you in which I said 'It would be a disaster if you left the ministerium of the synod.' I retract the entire letter. I have owed you great debts in the past. I consider them all discharged by the times I have protected you from the consequences of your own bad decisions. I'm not going to run interference anymore. Suffer your own consequences hereafter. Speaking of consequences, I have never heard, or heard of, one of our brethren getting a public reprimand in writing such as the one Kuske gave. I wonder who Kuske was talking about." [The reference is to Kuske's remarks supporting Floyd Stolzenburg and Pilgrim Community Church.]
Pastor Roger Kovaciny, Letter to Gregory Jackson, October 17, 1989.

"Are pastor's (sic) bound by the 8th Commandment? LPR knew about Floyd's background from the beginning. What right did Pastor Jackson have to assume that we were being duped? What right did Pastor Jackson have to investigate, without even asking people at LPR about their knowledge? What right did Pastor Jackson have spreading this investigative information to the young pastors of the Ohio Conference? What right did he have to spread it to the DMB?"

[GJ - I was not told the truth about Floyd being removed from the LCMS ministerium, neither by Paul Kuske, who led the call meeting at Shepherd of Peace, nor by Wally Oelhafen, who discussed the call with me. The mission counselor and others were told that Floyd had a Scriptural divorce. Pastors are supposed to protect their congregations from wolves, but the truth makes enemies, as Walther has said in Law and Gospel.]
Paul Kuske, Letter to Michigan District Mission Board, April 21, 1990 p. 8.

Kuske and Schumann Helped Floyd Get Himself Another Church

"I would also convey to you that I will continue to commune lodge members as long as I feel assured that they know and believe that their salvation is by faith." "Please feel free to contact Pastors Kuske or Schumann or come and hear for yourself."
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg Letter to Emmanuel, 9-20-91, Lutheran Parish Resources letterhead "Serving the congregations of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod"

"The church has not wavered from its theology: The Bible is the inerrant word of God, and everything in it is to be taken literally. Stolzenburg's theology is uncompromising. 'What is written in the Bible stands.'" [GJ - hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!]
Sylvia Brooks, South Side Lutheran Church Goes Its Own Way, Columbus Dispatch, August, 9, 1998 p. 2C.

"Consultant, Lutheran Parish Resources, Inc., Columbus, Ohio, 1985-1991, as a consultant for this program, I worked with the training of pastors and lay people for effective ministry in leadership skills, Sunday School organization and teaching, youth ministry, outreach, stewardship and care ministry. I continue to work with supervision of some of these programs. Senior Pastor, Salem Lutheran Church and School, Florissant, Missouri, 1976-1985. (nothing said about being removed from the ministry) Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church and School, St. Charles, Missouri, 1968-1976. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg 2904 Maryland Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43209-1157 614-235-5200.

ELS Happy To Be in Fellowship with Stolzenburg

"Pastor Kovaciny, obviously excited about the possibilities, has agreed that the new church would be named Emmanuel Lutheran and would have a picture of the 'mother church' prominently displayed in the new building." Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio #899 for August, 1999 1500 South Third Street Columbus, Ohio 43207 $50,000 to be raised

"In the midst of all the positive, exciting things Pastor Kovaciny had to say about the mission work being done in the Ukraine, he constantly mentioned the most pressing problem, a lack of space...As he spoke to us about the many needs, he mentioned the possibility of building achurch of the approximate square footage of our sanctuary (though not nearly as elaborate) for $50,000...Pastor Kovaciny, obviously excited about the possibility, has agreed that the new church would be named Emmanuel Lutheran and would have a picture of the 'mother church' prominently displayed in the new building."
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, "From the Mission Committee, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Kremnetz, Ukraine, Emmanuel Lutheran Church #899, August, 1999 1500 South Third Street, Columbus, Ohio 43207-1000

"About Missions" c. Thoughts of Faith through the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, d. St. Sophia Lutheran Seminary-Ukraine
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio August, 1996

"Pastor Kovaciny, in an effort to respond to our request, sent a copy of the third quarter treasurer's report of the Ukrainian congregation, signed by the treasurer and written in his own hand. We thought you might enjoy seeing it! You should be aware that our budget offering goes to pay for Pastor Kovaciny's salary and expenses through 'Thoughts of Faith,' the radio ministry which has been bringing the Gospel to the Ukraine for many years...." Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio January, 1995.

"EMMANUEL SAVES BIBLE SCHOOL! A SPECIAL MESSAGE was just received from Pastor Kovaciny to let us know that Emmanuel's Mission offerings have rescued their Bible School this summer!...[Pastor Kovaciny] writes to tell us about it. 'As we looked forward to an even more successful program this coming summer, we were told by our sponsoring organization that our Bible School budget had been cut by $8,000. It seems that some people in charge believe that we have been too successful and they need to put their funds toward programs in other areas which are lagging behind.' (Pastor Kovaciny)"
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio June 1998.

"From the Mission Committee...Good News from the Ukraine Reproduced at the bottom of this page is the masthead from the Ukrainian Lutheran, which has now been published by our mission in Ukraine for two years and grows in circulation with each issue." Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio November 1996

"All designated funds for Thoughts of Faith are spent on the program for which they are designated by the donor. Funds not designated by the donor are used to pay for administrative expenses. Thoughts of Faith would like to thank our congregation for our support towards this important work in spreading the gospel throughout the world." Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio November, 1995 Recording secretary, Christine E. Scheiderer; treasurer, Charlotte Proctor. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio November, 1995.

"...the Ukraine project of Thoughts of Faith (Pastor Kovaciny)" Use of mission funds. Charlotte Proctor, treasurer Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio November, 1995 "I

"Since the salary of Pastor Kovaciny and their basic expenses are paid through the 'Thoughts of Faith' ministry, we will continue to include the overall work in our regular budget." Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio October, 1994 Roger Kovaciny's letter about seed distribution Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Cornerstone, Emmanuel Lutheran Church Columbus, Ohio October, 1995