Bethany Lutheran Mission in the Philippines - Pastor Jordan Palangyos -Temporary Roof, Expanding Outreach

 Pastor Jordan Palangyos leads the worship service.

In the first stage of building, the mission congregation began putting together the base of the building. Donations made possible the concrete structure and steel supports.

Donations provided a printer for producing educational materials.

Click here - How to Send Money to the Bethany Philippine Mission

They now have a temporary roof over the chapel and want to use steel and iron to protect the area.

They trust the efficacy of the Gospel Word. "I planted. Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." 1 Corinthians 3:6

 The main floor, newly built, is already crowded.

 We met member and Bethany attorney Glen Kotten and worshiped with long-time friends Pastor Jim and Chris Shrader - in Sioux Falls. 

 They are building and improving as they continue worship and education.

 They need to replace this temporary roof before the next rainy season.

Another view of the upstairs shows the temporary roof supports.

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 Pastor Jordan Palangyos and his PhD wife Amabel.

 In the Philippines, Glen ordered two eggs over hard. But they were quail eggs.

Books Needed for December, January, February

 Henry Eyster Jacobs - A Summary of the Christian Faith

We will use this after each of three Advent services in December. I hope to have a study guide for the book. If that works out, I will cite Jacobs based on these page numbers.

Jacobs' Summary of the Christian Faith is a masterpiece - clear, plainly written, and faithful to the Scriptures.

 John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is the most read book, after the KJV Bible, in the English language.

My high school English teacher said we were ignorant if we had never read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. That gnawed at me for a long time. At my favorite antiquarian book store in Phoenix, I found  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress from the Limited Editions Book Club. That edition is so beautiful that we have given it to friends to read and enjoy. If you want that edition, let me know and I can fill you in on its merits and the cost in the used market. The club went out of business. Some of their books cost $2,000 to $3,000 used because they are in such demand. Pilgrim's Progress is one of the bargains.

 Stephen W. Paine Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach

can be found at a decent price, $20 - 35, used, from Amazon, Alibris, or other sources.

 This is a basic commentary on John's Gospel. It is available as a free PDF, Kindle, and author's cost print book.

Stephen W. Paine Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach will be our textbook for the Gospel of John class, which starts Ash Wednesday. We will start slowly, assuming we have newcomers. This is also useful for those who have taken the course before or taken some Greek elsewhere. We will concentrate on the content and reading. 

We learn grammar and vocabulary by reading, not by memorizing lists of grammar rules (snore) and vocabulary (not relevant to the brain). No culture teaches babies how to speak with grammar rules and vocabulary flash cards. Moreover, those who read a lot of worthwhile books will acquire knowledge of grammar and an impressive vocabulary.

Hooked on reading worked for me - Miller's Analogy Test, ACT, SAT, Grad Record Exam. Those tests won me a lot of free tuition - Augustana College BA, Notre Dame MA, PhD. 

Greek and Latin are essential for knowing our culture because all the great English writers were raised on Latin and Greek.

Has Ichabod Become the Palantir? Lazy Lutheran Discussion Sites Are Catching Up - A Decade Later

Most of the discussion sites for alleged Lutherans are filled with trivia and ennui, but I still look them over for glimmers of news. They would never post that a cross-dressing Church and Changer is going to lead a national synodical conference. So they publish the obvious, long after everyone has noticed the same trends.

Years ago, I predicted the closing of SynCon Lutheran colleges. Now SpenerQuest is discussing the same topic. WELS hastened to have their teacher's college, DMLC, take over their pastor's college, NWC. The math is simple: 1 + 1 = .75. Nevertheless, they still have MLC, Bethany (ELS), and Wisconsin Lutheran College within a short drive - not to mention the LCMS colleges.

They may deny it, but LCMS-WELS have a morganatic merger where they plan together, such as deciding which units to close down.

All the schools of higher education decided to grow their buildings from student loans and jacked up tuition prices. The result is overbuilt colleges just in time for online education that requires no buildings. Many students have concluded that they do not need to spend $40,000 to $60,000 on two years of required courses that are available in community colleges. If everyone has to work full-time to pay for college, online courses are necessary to keep up the cash flow. That drains the campus of cash-flow from renting dorms and selling wretched school food.

St. Ignatius Loyola Seminary is primed for a wave of MDiv students.

On a brighter note, the ALPB Online Forum (a cure for insomnia) has posted membership losses.

LCMS - From 1970 to 2012 - 877,349 fewer baptized members.

Roughly half of that loss came between 2010 and 2018, with Matt Harrison as the Synod President.

One way to grow WELS is to publish an open letter about ELCA being so radical and weird. ELCA would gladly feature cross-dressing at their high schools, colleges, seminaries, and parishes. That was WELS? I forgot.

Mirthless Mark Schroeder became WELS SP in 2007, the blessed year of this blog's birth. I do not have the WELS shrinkage rate for those years, but Schroeder recently bragged that Missouri was losing members twice as fast as WELS. Imagine what would have happened without Church and Change, Change or Die!, and the constant drumbeat of Willow Creek insights derived from Fulleroid diplomas!

The totals for WELS are bound to be much lower. They never grow out of GA/HB hazing tricks.

 The pseudo-confessionals want us to believe that their Calvinist studies do not yield Objective Justification and Church Growth.