One recent fad - at least newer than cell groups - involves having multi-site congregations. WELS jumped on this late, as they always do with fads, and they adopted the lingo. A big old church kept trying to invent a new campus - The Core - even when they started one next to another WELS church. They call it The Core 922 now. A Jeske clone inhabits Core 922, so we know it has to be vapid.
Facebook offered me a discount too good to be true - a RESI encoder. Nota bene - a warning to anyone who attended Fuller Seminary, Trinity Divinity, Willow Creek, WELS or LCMS seminary -
"Church purchased for multi-site use and used for about 6 months. We are no longer doing Multi-site, and these have sat on a shelf since they were removed. I cleaned it off and booted it up today and updated the firmware. This is the dual power supply version.
It is in great condition and ready for your Resi use."
The latest fad is NOT going to church, and they are closing all over. A local friend said, "Our family church just closed. The members who were left did not want to pay the expenses anymore." The Covid scare encouraged what we did long ago, setting up an online church. We actually used telephones a bit, but then a Logitech web camera showed up in the mail, ending my resistance to video, and we began with Ustream.
What really made me laugh was the pile of very expensive hardware to be used at the multi-sites mentioned in the sales opportunity. These poor Church Growth pastors and staff had to find a site and load it with electronics to dazzle everyone.
Nota bene - avoid using a congregation's name with any connection to the Christian Faith, you know, like The Core 922.
WELS started a "new" congregation based on couches - not chairs - and "gourmet coffee." Even with five genius synod staffers propping it up, the experiment became a flop.
Grace in Milwaukee promoted one of its pastors as the "barista." When I posted that, the title was removed.
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| The graphic was edited (by me), turning around the "casual, serious meme". This is not just dumb - it is WELS dumb. |
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| This is perhaps worse than the cross in a cup of coffee. WELS, of course. |
