You Need To Be Unstuck - The Latest Gimmick WELS Is Buying - Maybe LCMS/WELS Too?

Experience

• 

  Founder & Lead Strategist

  Company Name

  The Unstuck Group

  Dates EmployedApr 2009 – Present

  Employment Duration 11 yrs 5 mos

  LocationGreater Atlanta Area

  > Provided consulting services to over 200 churches across the country and in the United Kingdom, Canada and Costa Rica.
  > Started coaching networks to equip and encourage hundreds of church leaders.
  > Author of five books published through Group Publishing, B&H Publishing and Thomas Nelson.
  > Self-published six eBooks that have been downloaded and viewed over 100,000 times.
• 

  Pastor on Lead Team

  Company Name

  West Ridge Church

  Dates EmployedSep 2009 – Mar 2012

  Employment Duration2 yrs 7 mos

  LocationDallas, GA

  > Served with the Senior Pastor and four other pastors on the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). The SLT provides ministry and spiritual leadership for the church.
  > Responsible for overseeing the multi-site strategy and the opening the second location in western Paulding County.
  > Led the church through a merger with Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia to become a third campus.…
• 

  Chief Strategic Officer

  Company Name

  NewSpring Church

  Dates EmployedFeb 2007 – Apr 2009

  Employment Duration2 yrs 3 mos

  LocationAnderson, SC

  > NewSpring was identified by Outreach Magazine as one of America's top 100 largest and fastest growing churches with over 10,000 in attendance.
  > Serve with the Senior Pastor, Executive Pastor, and three other pastors on the Senior Management Team (SMT). The SMT provides ministry and spiritual leadership for the church.
  > Responsible for implementing a multi-site strategy and helping the church open new campuses in Greenville, Florence and on the Internet.
  > Developed the church's communications strategy and implemented a new web strategy.
  > Responsible for marketing strategies to promote the church's annual leadership conference.…
• 

  Pastor of Administrative Services

  Company Name

  Granger Community Church

  Dates EmployedSep 1998 – Jan 2007

  Employment Duration8 yrs 5 mos

  LocationSouth Bend, Indiana Area

  > Outreach Magazine identified Granger as one of America's top 100 fastest growing churches in the 21st century.
  > Served with the Senior Pastor, Executive Pastor, and three other pastors on the Senior Management Team (SMT). The SMT provides ministry and spiritual leadership for the church.
  > Helped provide leadership as church has grew from 1,400 to over 4,500 in attendance.
  > Responsible for overseeing these operational functions: facilities, grounds, technology, web strategy, communications, accounting, budget administration, office management, human resources, and business administration. Lead a paid staff of 26 and approximately 300 volunteers.
  > Obtained $15 million in financing to support four construction projects including two auditorium expansions, the new children's center, land acquisition, and office and café remodeling projects.
  > Launched WiredChurches.com, Granger's ministry to other church leaders in 2002. WiredChurches.com was equipping church leaders through an annual conference, workshops, newsletters, and other resources.
  > Led the development of the websites for both the church (GCCwired.com) and WiredChurches.com.
  > Helped initiate systems to streamline budget development, purchasing, staffing, facility scheduling, membership tracking, and ministry and small group connections.…
• 

  City Administrator

  Company Name

  City of Niles

  Dates EmployedJan 1998 – Sep 1998

  Employment Duration9 mos

  LocationNiles, MI

  > Niles was a community of 13,000 with a $20 million budget and 150 employees.
  > Initiated strategic planning retreat with the Mayor and City Council.
  > Initiated organizational study to review the consolidation of the City and Utility Department finance functions.…
• 

  City Manager

  Company Name

  City of Knoxville, Iowa

  Dates EmployedSep 1994 – Dec 1997

  Employment Duration3 yrs 4 mos

  LocationKnoxville, IA

  > Knoxville was a community of 8,500 with a $6.5 million budget and 50 employees.
  > Initiated application process for Knoxville to be named one of only 30 finalists in the 1995 All-America City competition.
  > Prepared three budgets that lowered the City's property tax rate from levels.
  > Completed the City's first budget document that was submitted to the Government Finance Officer's Association for formal review.
  > Moody's rating upgraded from A3 to A2 during tenure.
  > Completed the hiring process for the police chief, public works director and finance officer positions and appointed a new volunteer fire chief.
  > Reduced from 9 to 5 the number of departments in the organization by creating a consolidated public works department.
  > Oversaw the completion of several street, traffic signal, and sanitary sewer capital improvement projects.
  > Developed and implemented a formal goals and objectives program for the City Council.
  > Established the City's first five-year capital improvement plan (CIP) and a vehicle/equipment replacement program.
  > Developed a policy statement to use tax increment financing to promote residential development.
  > Coordinated City's emergency response to June 1997 windstorm that resulted in a Governor's disaster area declaration.…
• 

  Administrative Assistant to the City Manager

  Company Name

  City of Galesburg, IL

  Dates EmployedFeb 1992 – Sep 1994

  Employment Duration2 yrs 8 mos

  LocationGalesburg, IL

  > Galesburg was a community of 33,500 with 225 employees.
  > Coordinated all personnel functions including hiring, labor negotiations, contract administration (AFSCME, IAFF and police unions), training, policy development and ADA, FMLA and FLSA compliance.
  > Developed and helped implement the organization's TQM effort.
  > Responsible for development of $13 million personnel budget.
  > Developed financial trends analysis report to analyze financial position of the City and recommended financial policies for Council's adoption.
  > Negotiated 15-year cable television franchise agreement and responsible for cable rate regulation.
  > Assisted the City Manager with administrative duties, council support functions, developing and tracking council agenda items and special projects.…
• 

  Administrative Intern

  Company Name

  City of Northwood, OH

  Dates EmployedJan 1990 – Jan 1992

  Employment Duration2 yrs 1 mo

  > Northwood was a community of 5,500.
  > Assisted with preparation of budget, financial reports and grant applications.

From Facebook:

We help churches get unstuck.

THE UNSTUCK GROUP·FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 2019·

For 14 years, Tony Morgan served on the senior leadership teams of Granger Community Church, NewSpring Church and West Ridge Church. In that season, he started writing about leadership at tonymorganlive.com, while also authoring books and articles featured by Catalyst, Pastors.com and the Willow Creek Association.

His experience and writing often focused on having a clear strategy for ministry—a word few churches were embracing at the time.

In 2008, he started coaching pastors across the country. Through these coaching relationships, a theme became clear: Pastors felt stuck. In the following year, Tony was able to serve 10 churches, but more were requesting help getting unstuck than he could serve alone. So, he started building a team and developing a process that could help many more churches get unstuck.

Most organizations start, grow, thrive, lose momentum, decline and eventually end. We believe God desires that every church lives out its purpose at the pinnacle of sustained health. Our process is rooted in that belief, and we filter every aspect of our work through the lens of helping churches find health and effectiveness.

The Unstuck Group has served 300+ churches in the years since Tony first ventured out, and we continually work to refine and improve our process to serve churches’ needs better. It’s a spiritual endeavor of coming together as a ministry team to clarify where God’s called your church to go and how you’re going to get there. We walk with you through the process in four phases. Learn how our Unstuck Process helps churches get unstuck.

***

GJ - I would be shocked to find him mentioning the efficacy of the Word. Or faith.

Readers may recall that Ski and Bishop Katie went to Granger, Indiana to discover the secrets lodged therein. One of the members of Granger, not exactly Lutheran, had been a member of St. Peter WELS in Freedom, Wisconsin. It is an easy transition when the home church has has already removed all evidence of Biblical, Lutheran doctrine.

Ski and Katie were all over the US, attending conferences, often with Tim (do you know who my uncle is?) Glende. The three amigos worshiped with Andy Stanley, the Babtist gay activist minister. WELS was well represented there.

Mark and Avoid Jeske seems to be the epicenter of Church Growth fads, women's ordination, and merger with ELCA.

We can expect great things from Unstuck - great embarrassments, great costs, great cases of amnesia after everything has blown up or collapsed.

Martin Luther College - the WELS School of Ministry.
This graduate posted a Satanic symbol on Facebook.

Geritol Is Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine

 

I began this blog to discuss apostasy, and many were deeply offended that I wrote about apostasy and quoted them.

Here is a post from 13 years ago, over 18,000 posts ago.

Once I wrote about Mass Bells breaking up that old gang of mine, but now it is retirement.

Rolf Preus is retiring, after wearing out his Objective Justification slogans. The Preus Crime Family won, the Walter A. Maier Family lost - but another judgment comes when politics carry no weight.

 Did Rolf share any concerns with Wayne?

Dan Preus was upgraded to temporary St. Louis Seminary Prez. Doubtless the clan is agitating for the conquest of a seminary. They have some expertise in that area.

Richard Star, once the head WELS missionary to Brazil who could not speak Portugese, according to DP Buchholz, has retired.

Brownie Schmitzer, on the board of Michigan Lutheran Seminary (a high school), yet defending students abusing fellow students to his wife, has retired. At least he did not laugh about a student being dropped head-first from an upper level dorm window, as John Lawrenz did. Boys will be boys.

Frosty Bivens has retired at Mordor? How can they tell?

Jack Cascione retired some years ago, which I thought would lead to a sudden increase in LCMS membership.

 "You won't recognize WELS in a few years."

John Seifert retired some years ago too, previously saying, "You won't recognize WELS in a few years." He helped to make that happen.

As Melville Wrote, The Pulpit Still Leads the World

 From the movie, starring Gregory Peck, with Orson Welles as the preacher.

What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 8




I must have been 8 when our family went to see the 1956 movie, Moby Dick. The whaling scenes were thrilling and terrifying, but the pulpit scene was puzzling and dark.

We visited Melville's home, where he wrote the novel, where he viewed the mountain's shape from his study as a whale breaching the surface of the ocean.

Between those mile markers was the requirement of reading the novel and reporting on the novel's collection of rhetorical devices, a odious chore. But at his home, I bought a new copy and read it through. For various reasons, the book got me to finish Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant.

The apostasy of the Church, Roman and Protestant, is a perfect example of the preacher's concluding words in chapter 8. As I told one member last night, ELCA paved the way for rainbow ordination and marriage. They passed their new edict in 2009, after 22 straight years of ELCA quotas and propaganda. The retired bishops finally took notice of their cowardice and formed a new Lutheran church body, decades late.

Examine the histories of the Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians. They did the same -

"Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow."

Obama did not lead the change - the denominations did. That includes the so-called conservative Lutherans who paid lip-service to the Scriptures while imitating ELCA every possible way.

Rolling history back, here are some important milestones that got all of America on this track:

1. 1880s - Inventive and erroneous text editing allowed the Protestant Left to remove the ending of Mark's Gospel, a task completed by LCMS' Concordia Publishing House with its gold-plated Mark commentary. Seminex won, because the Preus Crime Family only fought to win office, not to change anything.
2. 20th century - The denominations accepted Evolution over Creation and invented many verbal contortions to merge the two, a sugar coating for a poison pill.
3. After changing the name of the Communist Federal Council of Churches, the re-baptized ecumenical lobby became the National Council of Churches, aligned with the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland. The NCC was no less Marxist but more palatable with a different label.
4. Yes, it was this National Council of Churches that gave us the Revised Standard Version removal of the Virgin Birth from Isaiah 7. They backtracked from the national firestorm, but put "or young woman" in the footnote. That itself was an important step, making the removal of divine action routine by changing a few words. So the Federal Council became the National Council from their Communist scandal, and this NCC became the sponsor of the RSV Bible, hailed by the Left-wing denominations. Footnotes matter - see where the ending of Mark is tolerated but attacks on the text put below in tiny italics with a tiny font.
5. NCC activism worked to leaven the seminaries so the Word of God was really a call for secular "peace, justice, and radical reform."
6. Victory Lap. Universities, seminaries, and denominations reject the traditional text of the Bible. The KJV and various modern KJV publications are off the table for discussion. Elite dummies use the ESV while those with even lower reading comprehension score use the NIV.
7. Unstuck.