I Have the Secret Formula the Synods Are Seeking. I Will Give It Away Instead of Selling a False Version

 "You know what's wrong with us? We are colder than Eskimeaux delivering a Schwan order in a North Dakota blizzard. You gotta be friendly! Show some love!"

They have done many surveys. One big, expensive study showed that "nurturing" congregations grew, and that was in the Lutheran Church in America, about 30 years ago. No one quite knew how to develop a nurturing congregation, but they had an attractive booklet to study.

Fool Her Seminary jumped on the opportunity to provide sell a solution to the gullible, poorly trained, ambitious, and greedy. But alas, the more they poured the ice-water of the Law on their lupine customers, the worse things got.

Everyone talks about love, even about grace. I just saw another church anniversary - Fifty Years of Grace - the least original title since Watch Us Grow! Alas, "they know not that they know not."

Gospel is often in their speech but not anywhere else. Ask the millions who have left the shunning, abuse, and hatred. The numbers are so great the synods are adopting another program (!) suggesting those thousands who walked away for a reason - or received the Left Foot of Fellowship - could be coaxed back. The math is compelling: if the 50% who quit would come back in numbers, the bosses could measure growth from the low point to present. Stroh, a right strawy apostle, promised those results in one of his packaged programs with invented figures.

Here is the secret formula - not a secret at all. But it has been buried under so many layers of false doctrine that relatively few know it. Calvinism is growing fast among the Babtists, just as it has among the Lutherans of all stripes.

I learned this from a relatively obscure teaching of Jesus. I admit - I puzzled over it, and that blockage made it so much more intriguing to know.

John 16: 7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.

8 And when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

9 Of sin, because they believe not on Me;

10 Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;

11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

The Holy Spirit means the preaching of the Word, because the Spirit never works without the Word and the Word never lacks the divine and effective energy of the Spirit.

Here Jesus teaches in the plainest possible way that the foundational work of the Church's ministry is to teach faith in Him.
The tired, old, decaying mainline denominations - including all the Lutheran synods - teach the opposite.

Every time Schroeder and Harrison address their fading synods, they repeat the Objective Justification dogma they love so much. The WELS and LCMS originally taught Justification by Faith, but the Calvinists took over with unionism and Fullerism. Now they agree against the Gospel in the name of the Gospel.

Luther is also plain about this topic. Love does not convert - the Word does. He teaches faith in the Savior throughout his work, pointing out that love is necessarily the fruit of Justification by Faith, the first fruit named in Galatians 5 as a product of the Spirit teaching faith.

One must be a believer to teach this truth, and I am afraid the numbers are small, thanks to the seminary motto of "obfuscate to graduate." They might enter seminary with faith, but the political and elitist attitudes will drive that out of most.

If someone graduates with faith and starts a ministry, with or without a synod, the natural impulse will be to teach faith in Christ and face the consequences. For those too busy to read The Pilgrim's Progress, the section on Vanity Fair is enough.

Those who love the Word will love the one who brings it (Luther) and those who despise the Word will do whatever possible to eradicate it.

A faithful congregation will concentrate on teaching faith in the Gospel. They will reap the rewards promised in the Scriptures. Teaching faith will involve:

1. Emphasizing the efficacy of the Word
2. Means of Grace services with the traditional, Biblical liturgy, the Creeds, a carefully prepared Biblical sermon, the Sacraments, and hymns whose lyrics we can recite without blushing.
3. Taking the Word to the members and prospects by visiting.
4. Extending the Gospel with world missions when possible.

 The jury at Vanity Fair is the result of apostasy. The effective Word of the Gospel stirs up hatred.