or more to bail out Detroit auto unions
via the Big Three.
Ford can be bought today for $2 billion.
GM for around the same amount.
The Church Shrinkage Movement in WELS is far older than the stealth agency called Church and Change. Nevertheless, Church and Change is now the official arm of the radical rejection of Lutheran doctrine and worship in WELS.
The key figures in the Church and Change lodge go back 30 years. Starting TELL magazine with Ron Roth as the editor was the first warning shot. Their journal, The Pope Speaks (aka WLQ) even announced that TELL was begun to promote the Church Growth Movement. SP Naumann wrote an introduction for TELL, which was printed at The Love Shack.
The comatose clergy failed to notice.
For the last three decades Church Shrinkers have installed themselves in every possible nook and cranny of the sect. Every Evangelism Secretary has been Church Growth, starting with Paul Kelm. Every Parish Consultant has been trained at Fuller Seminary (Huebner, Kelm, Olson). Every head of Parish Services, American and world missions has been Church Growth. Church Growth professors are the weevils at MLC (nee DMLC) and The Sausage Factory. WELS got rid of Northwestern College because it was the last bastion of resistance to Church Growth doctrine. However, no one wanted to admit it. The NWC faculty surrendered passively and marched off to New Ulm to be rendered the capons they already proved themselves to be.
The Church and Changers are not an open-minded, loving, forgiving bunch. They are vindictive, vengeful, and obsessed with finishing their take-over the synod. They almost did it, but their finger-puppet, SP Gurgel, got tossed by popular demand. Next, President-in-Waiting Wayne Mueller quit in a huff because his sovereignty was denied. Wayne is known for insisting on the last word in every debate. Some are gone but not forgotten: Wayne is forgotten but not gone.
Let's go back a few years. The Love Shack broke into a collective sweat when St. Marvin of Schwan suddenly reached room temperature. I was one of the first to know. I phoned Otten, and he said, "What? Are you sure?" I said, "Well, don't run with it until you check it out, but yes, I am sure."
Why the sweat at The Love Shack? An insider told me that Schwan checks arrived there but they were not booked with everything else. One official took the check from the staffer and said, "I will take care of that." That money was never recorded officially. I could tell you who told me that story. He is well known in the synod.
The Paul Kuske report on synod funds--which doubtless helped Gurgel face retirement (or prison)--is still one of the most popular pages on Ichabod. The report shows how money was mismanaged by The Love Shack. That is but one reason why WELS is broke again.
Another reason is the way The Love Shack blew through all the Schwan Foundation funds and then some. I will not say, "They spent money like drunken sailors," because sailors spend their own dough. The Love Shack drones spent millions and millions on their pet projects, trying to be a big synod when they are really a shrinking sect.
Not content to use up the Schwan funds on Wild Hair Projects, they went through millions in designated funds until the Treasurer of the synod stopped them. Gurgel fired his friend and blamed his friend for the mess. The next story they told was about an accounting glitch. Sure.
So SP Schroeder is trying to make up for years of financial mis-management. WELS wants to be big but spending its way into bigness has not worked. One thing is needful, and the majority of the leaders have abandoned that in the name of growth, prosperity, and another trip around the world to inspect missions.
Meanwhile, the Church Shrinkers have laid waste to the sect for decades. WELS has kicked out pastors for favoring the KJV over the NIV (heresy!), for questioning involvement in and subordination to Thrivent (show them the money), and for scowling at Church Growth doctrine (their one true love, besides themselves).
Every victim of Church and Change has an extended family. When they all get their appeals (if they still belong), do they empty their wallets for more of the same treatment? I doubt it. More likely, they say, "I still remember..."
I know relatively few WELS members and pastors, but I know a lot of families devastated by the synodical leaders forcing the head of the family out of the ministry. WELS pastors have no marketable skills, so that throws them into poverty. Betrayed by the leaders and abandoned by so-called friends, these men have to sell aluminum siding or cars until they are broken down enough to be allowed back in.
Based on population growth alone, WELS should be much bigger today than it was 30 years ago. Instead, the core givers and attenders are ready for the rocking chair or eternal life. WELS has driven out too many people to survive another 20 years.
The only solution is something left unused and untried for a generation or more - the efficacious Word combined with faithfulness to the Confessions.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Change - Why WELS Is Broke Again":
Dr. Jasckson,
Don't you know how wrong your argument is with respect to the financial crisis in WELS ?
The 2007 convention found that it did not need to make any type of major cuts. Everything could still be funded. All is well.
We are told again and again that "money is not the issue" in WELS.
Our pastors, with their education in classical Greek, Hebrew and Latin are in high demand in private industry for their much in-demand translation skills.
We are even now building a cathederal at Martin Luther College, a science wing at MLS (which we saved at the 2007 convention), and a new dormitory at Luther Prep (each student should now be able to have a private room).
Why do you continue to be a scare monger, Dr. Jackson?
Napolean Bonaparte
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GJ - Scaremonger? My little Corsican lieutenant, I am just talking about reality. The edifice complex you mentioned is a good example of little WELS trying to be a big synod.
