with the elected Synod President. The WELS laity and pastors are.
The Church Shrinkage Movement leaders (aka Church and Change) are organizing a coup to get rid of Synod President Mark Schroeder, my sources tell me.
Blatant antagonism from Rev. Bruce Becker (Bored Member, Church and Change) was obvious in the calling of Paul Kelm to The Love Shack. No entity was supposed to call anyone, due to budget restraints. SP Schroeder advised against calling and especially against calling any polarizing figure. No one is more polarizing than copycat Kelm.
Church and Change cheerleaders tried to pretend SP Schroeder knew about the call before it appeared on the call list. Repeated contacts with him, from people I know, have shown that he did not know. Church and Change would lie? Shocker.
Church and Change arranged for Babtist Ed Stetzer to be the main speaker for their confab in 2009. Stetzer twittered this fact in July, bragged about in in August, and posted the date and information on his website. The COP discussed it, and furrowed their massy brows, but did nothing. Then Church and Change denied there was a conference and a date with Ed Stetzer. They wouldn't be lying again, would they? That would be so-o-o-o out of character for them.
Pastors and laity will have to support sound doctrine if they want to get rid of this cancer called the Church Growth Movement, Church and Change, Becoming Missional, Purpose Driven, or whatever fleece they want to hide under.
For the last 20 years confessional Lutheran pastors (if they can be called that) have been content to throw their own under the bus. If they remain gutless, motionless, and speechless, The Love Shack will win and WELS will become another Unitarian sect in a few years.
The WELS Church Shrinkage leaders have been: Ron Roth, Hartman, Valleskey and Bivens, Paul Kelm, Hagedorn, Wayne Mueller, Bruce Becker, Larry Olson (DMin, Fuller), James Huebner, and many more. Some of the newer ones to emerge are Mark Jeske, Don Patterson, Ski, Stelljes, Doebler, Gunn, Rick Johnson, and Borgwardt. Martin Spriggs was a WELS pastor addicted to Willow Creek. Now he is charge of technology at The Love Shack.
There are plenty more Shrinkers: just connect the bread crumbs to the ones listed above.
What do the Shrinkers love and promote?
- Willow Creek Community Church.
- Andy Stanley's Baptist Northpoint Church.
- Management by Objective.
- Marketing the Gospel.
- Fuller Seminary (Olson's DMin, the seat of learning for all the world and American mission board people. Valleskey's and Bivens' alma mater.)
- Waldo Werning, embalmed or not.
- Kent Hunter, DMin, Fuller Seminary.
- Leonard Sweet.
- Hiding the name Lutheran.
- Hiding the sacraments.
- Rock and roll music.
- Cell groups.
- The ordination of women.
