Tuesday, January 20, 2009

CGM Troglodytes: The Sausage Factory, Class of 1970



John Huebner, Board Member, Church and Change.



Wayne Mueller taught at The Sausage Factory, became head of Parish Services (a job created for him), and became First VP of WELS. One of the first Church Growth gurus of WELS, he denied there was any CG in WELS.



Ron Ash, chairman of the board, Church and Change, godfather of Ski's latest cool adventure: CORE.




Harry Hagedorn has been head of American missions forever.
Like Norm Berg before him,
he has championed all the fads of Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek:
open communion, women teaching men, felt needs, non-Lutheran worship.



Paul Kelm, 64, is the elder statesman of Reformed doctrine in WELS. Always in trouble but never out of an influential job, Kelm is back at The Love Shack, proving "a dog returns to his vomit." (2 Peter 2:22)


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James Radloff and David Valleskey, both Church Growth gushers, were in the class of 1962.

Some interesting associations can be found in the class of 1971: Richard Stadler, John Trapp, Forrest Bivens, Adolph Harstad, and John Brug. The doctrinal attitudes of this group run from "No problems with women's ordination" (Brug) to double back-flips for Church Growth (Bivens, who went to Fuller Seminary before he never went to Fuller Seminary).