We Americans have turned the worship service into another day of labor. Someone said, "The Christian faith is the only world religion where God gives to man, instead of man giving to God."
That would be a Means of Grace perspective, almost absent in the Lutheran Church, but staging a minor comeback in some places.
The Pentecostal-Evangelical tradition turns the worship service into a recruitment drive. From that point it has degenerated into a time of entertainment and manipulation. Most of us ministers are not that entertaining, so that sends the majority into bouts of plagiarism to keep up with demands.
God has a marvelous way of tripping people up in their conceits, or perhaps it is Old Scratch hisself, leading false teachers along and betraying them at the end.
Robert Schuller claims to have invented the Church Growth Movement, and I believe he has strong claims in that area. Situated near Fuller Seminary, he had the chance to influence Fuller as a successful TV minister instead of just writing about it, as McGavran and Wagner did.
Schuller got to gloat about all his victories in Your Church Has Real Possibilities.
His empire is declining rapidly now. Purpose-Driven Rick Warren, profoundly influenced by Schuller, is rolling in money and enjoying his influence.
The multi-site ministers have the Syn Conference pastors slavering and slaving to be just like them. Loving praise, these Emerging Church boys invite people to copy them, and thereby enjoy the sincerest form of flattery.
Schuller is selling off his properties, including part of his own main campus. Ditto the old D. James Kennedy property. The other personality cults will do the same, eventually. They only prove that weed seeds do grow well.
Recipe for Pastoral Work
All the Lutheran churches need to do is provide liturgical worship with home-made sermons (ingredients: KJV, Triglotta, Luther's sermons, Lenski).
Add pastoral visitation instead of committee meetings and mission/vision planning sessions.
Add adult and youth education.
Subtract all parish activities. The pastor is not the social director of the Love Boat.
Subtract community events. Local leaders see ministers as handy volunteers.
Subtract most other activities to spend time with the family.
Clock Roll-backs Are a Mistake
Some people want a denomination which is like the one they remember from 20 years ago. Unfortunately our brains are better at Photoshopping than the software is.
A stricter version of Pietism is still Enthusiasm, and it will end up in a few years just like that bad old denomination which was left for good.
Missouri is almost identical to the LCA I knew in the 1960s because the LCMS is a Pietistic sect. Missouri will catch up with ELCA unless the leaders begin taking the Book of Concord seriously.
