Didja ever wonder why all the Chicanery churches are relational and transformational? They get their deep, deep, deep spiritual insights from seminars at Fuller and Willow Creek, from traveling road shows led by crypto-Babtists Stetzer and Andy Stanley.
"MYTH #3: MOST PEOPLE BECOME BELIEVERS THROUGH EVANGELISTIC PREACHING. Many think that if you can bring an unbeliever to church, the pastor can 'save' them. The reality is that they are much more likely to come to faith in Christ through friends or family. The survey reveals that only one of eight people came to faith because of a preaching presentation." Rev. Michael Ruhl, "Here Are Five Evangelism Myths..." The Michigan Lutheran, January 1996 Board of Evangelism and Church Growth. [GJ - LCMS, I recall, and also felony stupid about Lutheran doctrine.]
"George Barna is a Christian researcher/author/marketer/social analyst who tends to 'turn a lot of heads' when he speaks. He usually couches his provocative and interpretive comments to the church with honesty and reality. On occasion he has been retained by leaders of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to facilitate mission interpretation from an outside perspective." Rev. Michael Ruhl, "Here Are Five Evangelism Myths..." The Michigan Lutheran, January 1996 Board of Evangelism and Church Growth. 1 Thessalonians 2:13. [GJ - Cite an efficacy passage, touch base with Holy Mother Synod, and promote a parasite of the CGM, Barna.]
"Church. An assembly of professed believers under the discipline of the Word of God, organized to carry out the Great Commission, administer the ordinances, and minister with spiritual gifts."
C. Peter Wagner, ed., with Win Arn and Elmer Towns, Church Growth: The State of the Art, Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1986, p. 283f. Matthew 28. [GJ - Many a WELS worker has joined the Pentecostal hive, leaving behind the Biblical Means of Grace in favor of ordinances, alleged gifts, and making disciples.]
"The means of grace are thus limited for Barth. The preacher descending from the pulpit can never quote Luther and say with joyful assurance that he has preached the Word of God. Of course, he can hope and pray; but he can never know whether the Holy Spirit has accompanied the preached Word, and hence whether his words were the Word of God. To know this, or even to wish to know it, would be a presumptuous encroachment of man upon the sovereign freedom of God." Hermann Sasse, Here We Stand, trans. Theodore G. Tappert, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1946, p. 161.
(1) "Almighty Father, bless the Word Which through your grace we now have heard Oh, may the precious seed take root, Spring up, and bear abundant fruit. (2) We praise you for the means of grace As homeward now our steps we trace. Grant, Lord, that we who worshiped here May all at last in heaven appear." Scandinavian, The Lutheran Hymnary, 1913, Lutheran Worship, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982, Hymn #216. Mark 4.
"Hence, too, the lack of emphasis, even in the best of Reformed preaching, upon the divine Word as the vehicle of regenerating grace and on the Sacraments. The office of the Word, then, is merely to point to the way of life, without communicating that of which it conveys the idea. The Word and Sacraments are declared to be necessary; their office in the Church is a divine institution; but they are only symbols of what the Spirit does within; and the Spirit works immediately and irresistibly." "Grace, Means of," The Concordia Cyclopedia, L. Fuerbringer, Th. Engelder, P. E. Kretzmann, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1927, p. 298.
"The doctrine of the means of grace is a peculiar glory of Lutheran theology. To this central teaching it owes its sanity and strong appeal, its freedom from sectarian tendencies and morbid fanaticism, its coherence and practicalness, and its adaptation to men of every race and every degree of culture. The Lutheran Confessions bring out with great clearness the thought of the Reformers upon this subject."
"Grace, Means of," The Concordia Cyclopedia, L. Fuerbringer, Th. Engelder, P. E. Kretzmann, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1927, J-101 p. 299. [GJ - Name a Shrinker who believes, teaches, and confesses this basic Biblical doctrine.]
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Friends Are the Means of Grace - No, Really - Full...":
This post reminded me of the following information that I ran across while researching the MLC homosexual romp video. It's a flyer for the January 21, 2009 Evangelism Day at WELS' Martin Luther College.
http://www.mlc-wels.edu/home/administration/pastor/evangelismday/evanday2009sched/
The long list of workshops the students are subjected to are provided by the Who's Who in the Emergent Church Growth movement. The topics and descriptions are also full of CGM's solutions to their belief that the Holy Spirit's work through Word and Sacrament alone is not supremely and solely efficacious.