Bishop Stephan Gave Way to the Infallible Pope Walther. Bishop DeJaynes, RIP, Was Replaced by the Omniscient Bishop Heiser.

CFW Walther took over from Stephan. As one person said, "A bishop landed in New Orleans, and later a pope emerged." Jim Heiser replaced DeJaynes and took the Waltherian "Repristination Press" with him, slowly gathering fellow Ft. Wayne graduates who had been removed from their calls. 

The parallels between Walther and Heiser are too remarkable to be ignored. Both ached to be the big cheese, even if the facts had to be buried, denied, and twisted in various ways.

About Emmanuel

Rev. Paul A. Rydecki, Pastor

Greetings! Emmanuel Lutheran Church has been gathering around God’s Word and Sacraments in Las Cruces since the late 1970’s.  We officially organized as a mission of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in 1987.  For awhile we met together in homes, at bridge clubs and at the local VFW, but since 1992 we have been gathering at our present facility on Highway 70. We became an independent Lutheran congregation in 2012, no longer affiliated with the WELS.

Rev. Paul A. Rydecki has been serving as our pastor since April, 2007. Pastor Rydecki graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2000 after completing eight years of pastoral training and was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry in July, 2000. He served as a WELS missionary in Puerto Rico and in Mexico from 2000 – 2007 and was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA) from 2013 until 2022, when he chose to become an independent Lutheran pastor. He is fluent in Spanish, and also has a love for German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

Jay Webber and Kincaid Smith, as ELS pastors and Ft. Wayne alumni, were there to draw the DeJaynes  Lutheran Confessional Synod into fellowship with the ELS and WELS. 

I talked to Heiser about why the LCS broke up, and he agreed that it was about infant communion, truly a fake cover-up story. He was furious about DeJaynes keeping the printed copies from Repristination Press but never mentioned criminal charges against DeJaynes. 

Many years later, one of our members discovered from the newspapers that DeJaynes was a public school teacher and a sex offender. That never came up in all the times I spoke with Heiser. Nor did Heiser explain how he graduated from Concordia, Ft. Wayne and started in the LCS with an ELCA pastor - DeJaynes - whose wife preached for him when her husband was away.

Notice the three pastoral popinjays

primping for a photograph when Christina Jackson was four days from passing into eternal life, only a few miles away. That is what ELDONA stands for - empty gestures, coveting real estate. How did the previous pastor walk off with $300,000 from parish equity? That pastor's wife was the treasurer! When I said the pastor's wife had a conflict of interest, I was hushed up by the deacon. After all, what did I know?

 Heiser parked the fish-hat, robes, and big stick for another merger with Objective Justification.

Knowing the Rolf Preus Synod was 100% Objective Justification, Heiser courted them to pump up the size of ELDONA.

Bishop DeJaynes - 

His Congregation's Decline

"After breaking away from the ELCA and adopting its own constitution and bylaws, the church did not prosper, and membership declined from several hundred to fewer than two dozen by 2001, according to circuit court records. Financial hardship followed, and that is when a further schism occurred."

+++

https://herald-review.com/news/local/lutheran-congregation-s-split-leads-to-final-service-in-church/article_a389d377-6925-59f2-8837-15da1ed68da8.html#tncms-source=login

DECATUR - The eight families that have been worshiping at Christ Lutheran Church, 34 S. Country Club Road, in recent years will hold their final service there at 9 a.m. Sunday prior to leaving the property under a court order to vacate.

Holy communion will be served and a thanksgiving service held for the blessings the congregation has received in recent years, said the Rev. Al Weidlich, who will lead the service.

The future of the property will be up to the board of directors, said Bishop Randy DeJaynes of the Lutheran Confessional Synod, the chief plaintiff in the lawsuit against the families. He declined further comment.

The Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court on Aug. 20 rejected the families' appeal of a Sept. 24, 2003, order issued by Circuit Judge A.G. Webber IV. The order awarded the church property to the Lutheran Confessional Synod. Christ Lutheran was the only church in that synod after breaking away from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in June 1994.

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After breaking away from the ELCA and adopting its own constitution and bylaws, the church did not prosper, and membership declined from several hundred to fewer than two dozen by 2001, according to circuit court records. Financial hardship followed, and that is when a further schism occurred.

The congregation divided with the families becoming defendants in a lawsuit seeking control of the property filed June 6, 2002, by church members Dorothy Tribbett, Heidi White, Rhonda Nichols and members of the DeJaynes family: Randy, Arlis, Christopher, Sara, Adam and Amy. Christopher DeJaynes is pastor of the church.

The lawsuit followed a congregational meeting on Sept. 16, 2001, to vote on a proposal to sell the church property. The families claimed the meeting was not properly called and walked out prior to the vote on selling the property, elected their own board of trustees and took possession of the church.

Those families reaffiliated the church with the ELCA.

Weidlich said the group is looking for another location to hold worship services. He said the defendants have until Tuesday to turn over the keys and vacate the church.

"The board tried to negotiate an offer on it, but nothing happened," Weidlich said. "We're hoping the ELCA can negotiate something. It's all happened so quickly in terms of how churches operate."

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/herald-review/name/randy-dejaynes-obituary?id=22940511

FUNERAL HOME

Brintlinger and Earl Funeral Homes - Decatur

2827 N. Oakland Ave.

Decatur, IL

RANDY DEJAYNES OBITUARY

Randy L. DeJaynes - Minus the LCS, etc.

Jan. 10, 1951 - Aug. 18, 2021

FORSYTH - Randy L. DeJaynes, 70, of Forsyth, Illinois, died Wednesday, August 18, 2021, at Decatur Memorial Hospital. Randy struggled for two weeks with a COVID-19 infection that resulted in pneumonia.

Born on January 10, 1951, in Macomb, Illinois, to Roy E. and Joan (Martin) DeJaynes, Randy grew up in the Plymouth, Augusta, and Bowen villages and graduated from Bowen High School in 1969. He met his wife, Arlis White, in 1973, and they were married January 18, 1975, in Quincy, Illinois. He later earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees (summa cum laude) from Western Illinois University in Macomb, where he taught at the university for several years. Later, he earned his M. Div. degree from Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, and he served as pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Decatur for sixteen years.

Randy and Arlis were blessed with two sons, Adam John and Christopher Nicholas, who were the lights of his life. Both sons reside in Decatur. Randy is survived by his devoted wife of forty-six years, Arlis: his sons: Adam (Sarah Hayes) DeJaynes and Christopher (Sara Hammann) DeJaynes, all of Decatur; his beloved grandchildren: Noelle (DeJaynes) Malkamaki, Christian DeJaynes, Caley DeJaynes, Avery DeJaynes, Mary Margaret DeJaynes, and Ella Smith; one brother, Roger (Gretchen) DeJaynes of Blandinsville, Illinois; one sister, Rhonda DeJaynes of Santa Rosa, California; numerous in-laws, 22 nieces and nephews, and his beloved Corgis, Huey and Taffy.

Randy was a simple man who loved simple things like his many flower gardens, fruit trees, his dogs, and his baking. He owned Daily Bread Bakery for several years. More than anything, he loved his family and being around them.

Services for Randy L. DeJaynes will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, August 23, 2021 at Sacred Heart Church, part of St. Katharine Drexel Parish, with a private family visitation preceding service. Burial will be at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in rural Illiopolis, immediately after service with a family luncheon at Grace United Methodist Church, in Decatur, Illinois after the burial. Memorials in Randy's honor may be given to Sacred Heart Church in Springfield or to his grandchildren's education fund c/o CEFCU.

The family is being served by Brintlinger and Earl Funeral Home in Decatur, Illinois.

No rainbow stole...yet.

 Here is a really expensive robe for Matt the Fatt, but no fish hat yet. Time to catch up with ELDONA: a fish hat and a really big stick.

The Right Reverend (his chosen title) Bishop James Heiser wears the full panoply of episcopalian finery, except he is only a circuit pastor in reality, not yet ready for those oh-so-cool Medieval titles, like His Beatitude, The Right Reverend STM. I enjoy seeing the Canadian lady bishops grasping their too thick sticks in their tiny feminine hands, equally awkward, given the tiny numbers of ELCiC members.

I have watched many church leaders and craven laity stand there and lie, sometimes on the phone, but also by mail.

I have often carried out searches on the Net, illuminating to me, boring to most. I searched one name and got eldona.org showing up - no content, just the website domain, which had to be formalized in some way. That is the domain they use today. Go ahead, try it.

Anything new going on? "No." Yet that same parson had decided on an organizational name and established a domain for the group. This same parson used to cling to the LCMS the way lint clings to black slacks. I thought it would take a SWAT team to get him out of the synod. He waited for his pension to vest - not exactly martyrdom!

I continue to be astonished at the way clergy leaders lie, as if God does not know anything and we are also easily fooled.

Look at the data. The braggarts of yesteryear are hiding the statistics today. The very nature of their pronouncements sound like they are holding back the anguish, depression, and terror - "How much worse will it get?"

The United Church of Christ, a goldmine of mergers, has incredible losses, which seem to be accelerating. 

***

First, I heard that Paul Rydecki was no longer in ELDONA, which was verified by Paul's own words on his website. 

Then I learned that others had left the stony vastness of ELDONA:

Pastor Sullivan - Ask the Pastor - is no longer affiliated with ELDONA and the Rogers Arkansas congregation has excommunicated those items from their website. I am not hip on social media defenestrations. Apparently, a video can be recommended as kosher one week and jettisoned another week. 

Pastor Carver - He was touted by ELDONA as a Missouri Synod pastor leaving the fetid swamps of that denomination. The little sect of Texas did not mention Heiser clinging to the Missouri Synod while waiting for his pension benefits to vest. Carver gave up his call, unlike Bishop Heiser, and is not in ELDONA. 

How Close Was the Hummingbird?

What is more delightful than a hummingbird sipping nectar, 18 inches away?

The drought was broken today, when a predicted light rain turned into hours of serious, cooling, enjoyable rain. 

I invited Sassy outside to observe the frantic activities of insects working the Joe Pye, Clethra, and Bee Balm.

I watered the new, scarlet Bee Balm - Fireball -almost every day during the drought, using the rain barrel in front down to the last drop.

 The smallest bird is the bravest. Synodical bullies should take note of that.

Today I was sitting on the bench with my leg crossed, my bare toe 18 inches from the red Bee Balm. A hummingbird came over to thank me for installing such an attractive, hummingbird-loving flower. It sipped every part of the flower and circled to make sure he had all the ports checked. Then he went to the next red Bee Balm, to sample the new one starting to flower.

As stunning as the hummingbird is, this photo delighted me even more.

A Response to a Post in 2018 about Eastern Orthodoxy

I read your posts from 2018 about my family and I leaving the LCMS for Orthodoxy. The debate between Lutherans on justification by faith and UOJ was not among the most important issues for me in the decision.  You published a comment by one of your readers that demonstrated my writing on "No Longer Sola" explained that well enough. 

Ecclesiology and Lutheran practices surrounding admission to the Eucharist were of much more importance for me. There is no Lutheran church body, there is no communion of Lutheran congregations that maintain a quia subscription to the Lutheran confessions. That subscription is essential for establishing the existence of the evangelical Lutheran church in any sense that isn't a useless abstraction.  From my point of view it's an objective fact that there is no Lutheran church, based on her own criteria for establishing the "what" and the "where" of the Church.

It is puzzling to me how little self-reflection some Lutherans seem to be willing to do about why Lutheran pastors and laity leave the various synods for Orthodoxy.  Rather than actually listening to what those who leave say about it, the choice to leave is usually dismissed as being caused by some defect in the man, which is easy and convenient, but unhelpful for a person who actually cares about the health and well-being of Lutheranism as a movement or church.  I think a significant reason that men continue to leave the various Lutheran synods for Orthodoxy is caused by Lutherans who are unwilling to seriously reflect on the problem and actually understand Orthodoxy on its own terms rather than understanding the Church filtered through Lutheranism's 500+ year fight with Rome. 

In Christ,

J.A.M.

 The original joke is - "The bishop also moves obliquely in chess." That means he or she never tells the truth or shades the meaning of everything so much that no one really knows. Ask Jim Heiser for tips on this, except he never tells the truth.

From Another Reader - with permission:

I read your latest post about the LCMS Pastor who became Eastern Orthodox. I am not sure it is solely because of UOJ. I went to his blog and read a couple of his posts. He is arguing that liturgy and practice do matter. This is going to continue happening. I say the same thing to my husband all the time. The Lutheran Church I grew up in was very strict in matters of liturgy and practice. Now I am being told that it is adiaphora. We can all worship how we are moved. For your church that may be with Keith Getty music, but it doesn’t matter. We are all one. To which I ask, “Are you really sure about that?”  What am I going to be told is adiaphora next? If we can just change practice depending how I feel, why not just change the whole thing?  I  believe the truth of Sola Scriptura, but worship and practice do matter. They are a mirror of our doctrine. They are a reflection of who we are. If we are not teaching that, we are failing. I am sure the Pastor who left has more reasons. I am sure the struggle for him was real. I find that the Lutheran Church does not want to address this. They are fine with the fact that they are fractured. How many more people are struggling inside?

***

GJ - The synods are happy to grab the tuition money, so they keep their eyes half-shut when a paying customer is in the seminary. Having someone leave afterwards is not so bad, because it opens up a slot. If anyone thinks the synod leaders care about the individual congregations...think again. I asked a prominent Concordia St. Louis professor about the "shortage" situation. He said, "I don't know and I don't care."

The adiaphora excuse only shows the apostates have not opened the Book of Concord for any reason. Or they simply despise the Confessions.

Formula of Concord - SD X:

10] We believe, teach, and confess also that at the time of confession [when a confession of the heavenly truth is required], when the enemies of God's Word desire to suppress the pure doctrine of the holy Gospel, the entire congregation of God, yea, every Christian, but especially the ministers of the Word, as the leaders of the congregation of God [as those whom God has appointed to rule His Church], are bound by God's Word to confess freely and openly the [godly] doctrine, and what belongs to the whole of [pure] religion, not only in words, but also in works and with deeds; and that then, in this case, even in such [things truly and of themselves] adiaphora, they must not yield to the adversaries, or permit these [adiaphora] to be forced upon them by their enemies, whether by violence or cunning, to the detriment of the true worship of God and the introduction and sanction of idolatry. 11] For it is written, Gal. 5:1: Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not again entangled in the yoke of bondage. Also Gal. 2:4f : And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage; to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with you. 12] [Now it is manifest that in that place Paul speaks concerning circumcision, which at that time had become an adiaphoron (1 Cor. 7:18f.), and which at other occasions was observed by Paul (however, with Christian and spiritual freedom, Acts 16:3). But when the false apostles urged circumcision for establishing their false doctrine, (that the works of the Law were necessary for righteousness and salvation,) and misused it for confirming their error in the minds of men, Paul says that he would not yield even for an hour, in order that the truth of the Gospel might continue unimpaired.]

I do not know where this reader worships, but the adiaphora argument was used constantly to excuse WELS chasing after the Evangelicals and Pentecostals. Visit any Assemblies of God congregation and you will find all the key ingredients of a Mark and Avoid Jeske church:

1. Praise band.
2. Stage - not a chancel. A table maybe, no real altar.
3. No pulpit.
4. Coaching sessions, no sermon. 
5. Hide the sacraments.
6. Screens here, there, everywhere.
7. Selling coffee - supposedly gourmet. Ha.
8. Parking valet. No, I am not kidding.
9. Digital giving, such as having an ATM in the narthex.
10. Clergy attire confused with going to a picnic.

Notice that the favorite motto of the Jeske circle - A Changeless Christ in a Changing World - is also employed by the apostate American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. It is the name of their history book about how they bravely abandoned Lutheran doctrine. So, is that a liberal thing? Yes, the motto is a liberal thing.

The other argument used by WELS is - "Perhaps we should not exercise our liberty, because that might harm those of you with a weak faith." A smirk would follow. There is no use citing the red section of Article X above, because that has as much meaning to them as Egyptian Book of the Dead in its original language.

Besides all that, Eastern Orthodoxy is long on ceremony, short on doctrinal clarity. The poor abused students of Concordia, Ft. Wayne graduate with two great loves - Eastern Orthodoxy and UOJ. UOJ paves the path to Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Church Growthism, and ultimately atheism. I know two WELS pastors who espoused Church Growth and UOJ only to become atheists - loud and proud - as their confused thoughts led them away from the Word.

The WELS-LCMS-ELS leaders, yea even the CLC (sic) have facilitated this loss of doctrine for the last 40 years plus.

The only WELS excommunication of a pastor for doctrinal reasons was DP Buchholz, SP Schroeder, and their DP allies extending the Left Foot of Fellowship to someone who defended Justification by Faith, the Chief Article of Christianity. How dare he?

 And your little dog too!

Reverse the Use of Food Categories for Good Blood Test Results. Suggestions for Mr. Green

We have a simple way to look at our health - the blood panel. After drawing blood, the diagnostic machine produces the mysterious numbers and explains what they mean.

The bad cholesterol is too high? Start eating one handful of walnuts or almonds each day. The good cholesterol will remove the bad stuff for great results on the next test. Avoid the party nuts with sugar or salt added.

High blood sugar on the A1C? Replace desserts, candy, and sodas with fresh fruits. Diet drinks are just as bad as sugared drinks: avoid them.

Blood pressure too high? Losing weight is the easy way to start lowering the numbers. Reducing meats, fish, milk, eggs, and cheese will lower the movement of fats from the plate to the waist.

Food cravings? Leafy greens - like spinach - by themselves will stop the eat-a-loaf-of-bread, box-of-chocolates, half-a-whipped-cream-cake food cravings. For example, note what happened after your last magical diet was over. Yes, several family members and the cat were knocked down in your mad rush to the freezer for ice cream.

A lifetime of bad food habits? That takes time to reverse, because we get away with a lot until we reach 60 or so. Weighing each day is a good way to track results. The first 5-10 pounds are easy. The rest of the loss comes from reducing the cravings for sweets, fats, and salt. 

Poor Folks Food - 

God's Answer to Obesity

My first grocery store stops after fresh fruits (apples, oranges, blueberries) are the frozen vegetables aisle, then the beans. I buy chopped frozen kale and collards, both super rich in nutrients, very inexpensive.

The best beans to buy for nutrition are the chickpeas. When they are out, I get garbanzo beans (a joke, they are the same, but sold under both labels). They satisfy hunger and have a zillion good qualities - plus they are cheap.

Poor people get by on beans and greens, which means they get the best nutrition while the upper classes are going to the doctor to get medicine to turn around their bad blood test results.

In Short - 

Reverse the Eating Machine.

1. Eat small amounts of meat, milk, cheese, and fish.
2. Eat large amounts of leafy greens, fresh fruit, beans, and nuts.