Time of Grace Is a Missouri Synod Ministry

Even my Photoshops are prophetic. LCMS or bust.

Journal Sentinel Online

Lutherans sending MP3 players to troops

Time of Grace, the Milwaukee-based media ministry of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, is shipping 600 MP3 players preloaded with Biblical messages to American servicemen and women overseas, the church said this week.

The messages, by the Rev. Mark Jeske, senior pastor at Milwaukee's St. Marcus Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, will be distributed by LCMS chaplains to military personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Kyrgyzstan.

"Time of Grace" is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 to spread the Gospel using technology. It produces a weekly 30-minute message by Jeske that is broadcast in 24 U.S. markets and via satellite overseas, according to its Web site, www.timeofgrace.org.

Meanwhile, Jeske's young protege, Ski, continues to use Groeschel's Satan's Sex Ed as a sermon series for the Easter season. It's still running, so you can still catch it. However, it is the only sermon series where children are expected to leave church.

Note "foward."

Ski tirelessly researches his sermon studies. Here he is wrapped up with Playboy model and supposed singer MariQueen. The original photo was posted in his Facebook albums with many others, including Katy Perry - "Ur So Gay" and "I Kissed a Girl."

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GJ - I am just a journalism school dropout, but I detect a news release printed as is by the Milwaukee paper. Either Jeske's people or the LCMS sent this to the paper, and it was printed verbatim.

Congratulations, Mark, you are going down with the ship. Quiche-nik is facing the boot for his imperious ways and incompetence.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Time of Grace Is a Missouri Synod Ministry":

WELS' Time of Grace media Ministry of the LCMS.

ROFLOL!!!!

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GJ - Isn't that a nice message for everyone in WELS who gave money to Jeske (former link on WELS.net)and bought his trinkets (former link on WELS.net)? One sure sign of a Shrinker congregation is linking Time of Generic Grace from the church website.

Everyone knew LCMS congregations were the Church of the Lutheran Hour, but how many knew they were also the Time of Grace backers?

WELS - you have been taken for a ride.

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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Time of Grace Is a Missouri Synod Ministry":

I see Time of Grace's status as an approved ministry by the LCMS HQ allows Jeske to claim to be LCMS for fund-raising purposes, just as Wisconsin Lutheran College is WELS, at least for fund-raising purposes.

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GJ - That is true, Bruce, but I have never heard of a program representing two synods at once, when they are not in fellowship - except for Mischke's Joy radio ministry program, which was ELCA-WELS-LCMS. WELS lied about that instead of promoting it the way ELCA did, as the first joint ministry of all three synods.

Nominate Chicanery Awards Here

The time has come to inaugurate the annual Chicanery Awards, given for the most outrageous promotion of Church Growth stunts in Lutherdom.

Some think the award will be called the Chicken, but there is a better name to use, as all good farmers know.

Missouri and ELS members may participate as well.

The nominations will be wide open and anonymous. Any suggestions will be weighed carefully before allowing the comments to come through. Since so many reader are WELS pastors, spelling does not count. Just git reasonable close.

My apologies to the offended, but this is LCMS CGrowthism.

Some Cool Cats Have a Case of Rabies Now

Look up the passage - Matthew 25:12.

Some comments on the Photoshops (contributed by various people)

1. Keep them coming.
2. I like the tomkitteh chasing the C and C chicken.
3. They were highlights of the WELS convention.

Quotes from Krauth

C. P. Krauth served as the first professor of the
General Council Seminary in Philadelphia.
I was nominated for a position at the Philadelphia school,
which Bergendoff had tried unsuccessfully to merge with Gettysburg.
Philadelphia already had their candidate selected, so 9 others were interviewed to make it look fair.
The spirit of Krauth was long-gone from that school.

I suggest reading The Finkelsteinery for some excellent selections from Krauth.

Krauth's life and work are summarized here.

Krauth and others led the Eastern Lutherans back to the Book of Concord, after S. S. Schmucker and others bewitched the General Synod over revivalism and American Lutheranism. The General Synod pioneered:

1. Dropping the liturgy.
2. Turning the Sacraments into ordinances (no efficacy of the Word).
3. Holding revivals.
4. Practicing unionism with the Reformed.

Have you heard those themes before? They sound just like the Shrinkers in WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect on the Prairie.

Luther Weigle was the first Lutheran professor at Yale Divinity School. He came from the General Synod tradition, so he remembered the Mourner's Bench (revivalism) at his father's congregation. He joined the Congregationalists - now the fast-shrinking United Church of Christ. The unionists at St. Paul Lutheran (WELS) in New Ulm, Mn, split from St. Paul and eventually formed a UCC church.

The ULCA was concentrated in the original 13 colonies as the General Synod, which split over doctrinal issues around the time of the Civil War. The South and North both had a General Synod and a (confessional) General Council. I have heard that some important city intersections had a General Synod church on one corner and a General Council church on another. The General Council had a positive influence on all Lutherans because of the excellent professors/authors at the school. Merger with the General Synod pieces, forming the ULCA in 1917, led to a slow, anti-confessional apostasy.

Looking for Krauth's picture, I just found this quotation:

When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages in its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few and weak; let us alone, we shall not disturb the faith of others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions.

Indulged in for this time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the Church. Truth and error are two coordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them.

From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their repudiation is that they repudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skillful in combating it.

Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation (Philadelphia, 1871) p.195ff.

And this one from another blog:

More Krauth Goodness

"Had our fathers surrendered the truth, even under that pressure to which ours is but a feather, how would we have cursed their memory, as we contrasted what we were with what we might have been. And shall we despond, draw back, and give our names to the reproach of generations to come, because the burden of the hour seems too heavy? God, in His mercy, forbid! If all others are ready yo yield to despondency, and abandon the struggle, we, children of the Reformation, dare not. That struggle has taught us two lessons, which must never be forgotten. One is, that the true and the good must be secured at any price. They are beyond all price. We dare not compute their cost. They are the soul of our being, and the whole world is as dust in the balance against them. No matter what is to be paid for them, we must not hesitate to lay down their redemption price. The other grand lesson is, that their price is never paid in vain. What we give can never be lost, UNLESS WE GIVE TOO LITTLE. If we give all, we shall have all. All shall come back. Our purses shall be in the mouths of our sacks. We shall have both the corn and the money. But if we are [stingy], we lose all--lose what we meant to buy, lose what we have given. If we maintain the pure Word inflexibly at every cost, over against the arrogance of Rome and of the weak pretentions of Rationalism, we shall conquer both through the Word; but to compromise on a single point, is to lose all and to be lost."

C.P. Krauth, The Conservative Reformation, p. 21.

Luther Weigle became the first Lutheran to teach at Yale Divinity School, but he joined the Congregationalists. Weigle was a leader in the notorious Revised Standard Version of the Bible, similar to Jumpin' Jack Jeske and the notorious NIV.

Oddly enough, an Augustana Synod church moved to the bottom of the hill, next to YDS. That is where I worked for a year, where little Ichabod was baptized.

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Kenneth J. Schmidt has left a new comment on your post "Quotes from Krauth":

For years I tried to convince people in the LCMS that Jerry Kieschnick was the intellectual reincarnation of S.S. Schmucker and it either went over their heads or people sneered at me. C.P. Krauth is the Lutheran hero for our time.

Ignorance Explained

The kiddies learn to love Rock N Roll in the nursery department.

rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Let's Hear It for the Eighth Commandment...And Lov...":

I have a theory concerning the ignorance of WELS laity. There are several aspects which come into play here. I have known only a couple of WELS members who have read anything in the Lutheran Confessions beyond the Small Catechism. Most pastors will not take on the Book of Concord in an adult bible study setting. The active and involved members are often engaged in busy work. The congregational activities have become the new monasticism. Boards and committees suck up a lot of time and energy, like a powerful vacuum cleaner. Similar to the mainstream media, the information about the synod which reaches the laity is heavily filtered, spun, redacted, and edited.

Like the Mueller statement that there is no CG in the WELS, we should never believe anything until it has been officially denied. When non-official sources offer information which is both contrary and enlightening, such sources are instantly scorned and spat upon. There are also cultural factors. Many adults today have a short attention span. They may not read much and also may have a hard time with deductive reasoning. A lifetime of TV viewing tends to produce this. WELS leaders often have a fixation with authority, their authority. Many of them have a difficult time admitting to their errors and the errors of their peers. This has produced the stealth infallibility that is rampant in the WELS. I honestly believe that most of the WELS laity are trapped.

They are now being told that the financial problems in the synod are just the unfortunate consequence of a sour economy. It would be difficult for them to fathom the idea that this is nothing more than the chickens coming home to roost. The solution that is being given to them is to sacrifice and open up their wallets. After all, just look at all of the cutbacks that the synod is making. As has been stated so many times on this blog, the problem is false doctrine and the solution is biblical doctrine. Those who look to men and money are barking up the wrong trees.

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GJ - We learn better what we teach. Pastors avoid teaching the Book of Concord so they do not know their own Confessions. They do not engage themselves in doctrinal discussions, so their intellectual tools grow rusty.

Laity - try asking for a study of the Formula of Concord in your congregation. The pastoral response will be educational. Some congregations do study the Confessions and that study bears fruit.

Church Growth produces more weed seeds.

Joe Krohn's Free Blog

Ichabod is Joe Krohn's free blog. For those who are new to this blog, Joe is a WELS member, a buddy of Kudu Don Patterson, and a promoter of The Church From Scratch in Round Rock, Texas, where Doebler channels Driscoll. Joe used to belong to CrossWalk in Phoenix, the non-WELS congregation from which Church and Chicanery Pastor Jeff Gunn is trying to escape. Gunn hopes to flee to Wisconsin Lutheran College, the nursing mother of Church and Change. We all know the birth father of C and C - Old Scratch hisself.

Joe had a Rock N Roll blog to promote his agenda, but he erased it. His Ichabod comments are entertaining and instructive, because they betray the thoughts of Church and Chicaneries everywhere. Sometimes he even signs them.

Like all Church Shrinkers, Joe is a UOJ Stormtrooper, always trying to justify the erroneous opinion that God declared the whole world forgiven of its sin, without the Word, the Means of Grace, or faith.

He asked about my use of OJ in the first edition of Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant. That has been explained many times before, and the new edition is available for free as a PDF download - either from Lulu.com or from gljackson.com. He can buy the book from his own publishing house, Northwestern Publishing House in Milwaukee.

I publish for everyone, not secretly or on secretive listserves. The issue is not what I think, but what the Word of God teaches and the Book of Concord confesses.

Many people still believe, as I did once, that OJ was a peculiar synonym for the Atonement. Various WELS laity pressed me to study the issue, so I learned otherwise. OJ, called UOJ in WELS, or General Justification in Hoenecke - means that every single person in the world has been forgiven by God: Hottentots (E. Preuss), Hitler, the people who died in the Flood. Everyone in Hell is a guilt-free saint (WELS Kokomo Statements).

The Atonement means Christ died for the sins of the world. The Atonement is not justification, as Robert Preus stated in his last book, Justification and Rome.

Some well established Christian doctrines clash with the weirdness of UOJ: Original Sin, the efficacy of the Word, the Means of Grace, Law and Gospel, justification by faith.

UOJ goes well with Universalism and Church Growthism.

The Sacraments
Joe reminds me of students who phone me without reading the syllabus. That just happened as we drove to the Hoover Dam. I got two phone calls from the same student about the upcoming assignment. "Have you read the syllabus?" No. I parked the van and explained the assignment to the student.

Really Joe. I have all my books linked to Lulu and my domain. Everything is there for free. I have 2,700 posts, which have covered the Word and Sacraments many times. Doing a little homework before posting would be a good idea. The Google search window on the blog works very well. It is the only way I find some material from the past.

Sacrament, like the word Trinity, is a non-Biblical word used to encapsulate the content of many different passages. Ordination is called a sacrament in the Apology - "the best work of Melanchthon," as one Lutheran said recently.

I find it odd that some Lutheran pastors declare, "Ordination is not a sacrament." I dealt with that topic a bit in my last sermon, which I saved as a videotape file (free) and in the printed version on two (2) blogs. I collect Lutheran quotations to help everyone in their sermon preparation.

The Church and Chicanery pastors should do the same - post the printed version of their sermons. They should also offer a link to the original from Driscoll, Groeschel, or their other favorite false teachers.

Baggage Check And Drop a Check at The CORE

Fresh from their baseball vacation, Ski and Katie are presenting

Baggage Check

at

The CORE.

Baggage Check is from Craig Groeschel again.

Baggage
View this series. Series ID: 5
4 week series

Do you have it? Would you like to check it for good? God is ready and willing to claim it, we just have to be willing to let it go. And not on a round-trip flight, but a one-way destination. Learn how you can pack up the pain and hurt, find release from addiction and torment, and break free from the battles that keep you and your baggage grounded.

The totally awesome teaser video can be viewed here.

Notice on the video - no one is there when the man finally pushes his bags into The CORE's lobby. That is because Ski and Katie were gone.

One Lutheran has already observed, "Checking baggage is a bad analogy. People check their baggage so they can pick it up again."

He asked, "Do they charge $25 to check each bag?"

I recall Paul Calvin Kelm using the same baggage illustration for one of his evangelism brochures. That was 22 years ago.

This display of sermon plagiarism from false teachers continues unabated.

Plagiarism and the Emerging Church, Becoming Missional? What A Shock!

The current heroes of Lutherdom are featured on this graphic. Missing are: Josh McDowell, Waldo Werning, Kent Hunter, Robert Schuller, and a few others.

MacArthur: The Emergent Church is a Form of Paganism

Paul Edwards (On Crosswalk.com - oddly enough)

"The Paul Edwards Program," WLQV Detroit

Paul Edwards, host of “The Paul Edwards Program” on WLQV in Detroit, interviewed pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church John MacArthur about the emerging church movement in America. Paul begins the interview by asking Pastor John to respond to a radio interview with prominent emerging church leader Doug Pagitt. In the clip from October 22, 2007, Pagitt denied that there is a place of eternal conscious torment for persons who die apart from faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul Edwards: Help me with this—the emerging church prides itself on conversation, having a conversation, so let’s have a conversation. How can you have a conversation with someone, when you’re not even speaking the same language?

John MacArthur: Let me just cut to the chase on this one: [Doug] Pagitt is a Universalist. What he was saying is real simple. He was saying when you die your spirit goes to God and judgment means that whatever was not right about you, whatever was bad about you, whatever was substantially lacking about you, gets all resolved. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Muslim—doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian really; we’re all going to end up in this wonderful, warm and fuzzy relationship with God. That’s just classic universalism.

I think you know it’s most helpful, Paul, to go back and kind of recast how we view these people. He’s not a pastor; he’s not a Christian; that’s not a church. When you call yourself a Christian and you call yourself a pastor and you say you have a church, all of that has to be—to be legitimate—defined biblically. And if it’s not, that’s not a church and you’re not a pastor and you’re not even a Christian.

What you have here is a form of false religion … A form of paganism that basically wants to be thought of as Christian because it gains a certain ground. But the underlying bottom line of this whole emerging movement is they don’t believe in any doctrine, they don’t believe in any theology. They don’t want to be forced to interpret anything in scripture a certain way and the out is, “Well the Bible isn’t clear anyway.” In other words, we don’t know what it means; we can’t know what it means.

Brian McLaren says nobody has ever gotten it right—we haven’t got it right now—so let’s not make an issue out of anything. Let’s just be open to everything. Let’s not take a position on theology, or for that matter, on morality or behavior because, hey, there’s no judgment anyway so we’re all going to end up in God in some ethereal, eternal relationship. And that’s just non-Christian. It is blatantly, flagrantly non-Christian. It’s as non-Christian as any false religion.

Edwards: [When “Emergents” and many seeker-sensitive church advocates say “We do church a certain way,”] it seems to me that they do it by totally ignoring the book of Acts and the Epistles.

MacArthur: I’m going to seem anachronistic if not an outright dinosaur at this point. I believe the church has one function, and that is to guard the truth, to proclaim the truth and to live the truth. So you take the Word of God, you teach it, you proclaim it, you protect it, you defend it, and you live it, and that’s a church. The Word of God rightly divided, rightly understood.

That’s not the idea in a seeker church; that’s not the idea certainly in an emerging church. Everything becomes style and contextualization and everything is built around the manipulation of people’s hot buttons as if we were selling a product like any other product in our culture. This fails to understand that the only real power in the spiritual realm is Divine and that God works His power through His truth, and that’s all that matters.

I think the illusion of success is created by crowds. You’ve probably heard recently that Bill Hybels, who is the guru of the seeker movement, has openly confessed that they did a big survey and found they’ve been doing it wrong.

Edwards: “We made a mistake,” he said.

MacArthur: Yes, we made a mistake. And so, the solution is—one of the lines in the statement was—we gotta get a blank piece of paper and start all over again. That’s exactly the problem. Why do you want a blank piece of paper when you have all kinds of paper full with the Word of God?

Edwards: Right.

MacArthur: If you want a biblical mandate and you want to do ministry biblically, you teach and preach the Word. I don’t think it matters whether you have smoke and mirrors. I don’t think it matters whether you wear a tie, or don’t wear a tie, whether you wear a black T-shirt and holes in your knees or a blue suit. (I think there are reasons to go with the suit rather the grunge approach—of dignity, respect, sober mindedness, seriousness, loftiness, etc, etc.)

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that we proclaim the Word of God. Look, I’ve been doing this for so long, and I haven’t changed anything. Contexts come, contexts go; fads come, fads go; styles come, styles go. I just keep doing the same thing. We show up on Sunday morning, we sing a little bit, we pray, we open the Word of God and explain His meaning to the people. The people just keep coming and coming and what I say goes around the world, on radio, and then it gets transferred into 50 languages and books and commentaries because [the Word] knows no boundaries. It knows no cultural restraint, because the Word of God is transcendent.

Edwards: One of the things I get most frustrated about is whenever people like you who are standing for truth point out the error both in the emergent church and in the seeker movement people will immediately run to 1 Corinthians 9 and begin screaming, “You know Paul said, ‘I became all things to all men,’ which means to the grunge I become as grunge, to the Universalist I become as a Universalist.” But in 1 Corinthians 9 Paul isn’t saying that we compromise the message and we become whatever the audience needs us to be in order to make the gospel palatable.

MacArthur: Well, of course not. All he is saying is there’s a foundation in the proclamation of the gospel with the Jew and there’s a different starting point with the Gentile. If I’m going to evangelize a Jew, I’m going to start with the Old Testament because that’s the substantial basis. So every time the Apostle Paul preached to the Jews he started with the Scripture—the Old Testament Scripture. Every time he evangelized Gentiles he started with creation. For example, in Acts 14 and Acts 17 he talks about the unknown God. Who is the unknown God? He’s the God who made everything—that was the foundation.

All he is saying in 1 Corinthians 9 is you must understand the starting point of your audience and here’s the point: ideologically. In other words, how do they think ideologically, philosophically, religiously? What are the ideas, the theories, the viewpoints that they hold? It’s not about identifying with their lifestyle; it’s not about being able to converse about every episode of South Park, every R-rated movie and every Rap song—that’s not it at all.

How do people think religiously, how do they perceive truth?—those are the starting points that Paul was establishing. That’s a far cry from saying that to reach this generation we must do their music, we must dress the way they dress, we must live the way they live, we must be familiar with the baser components of their culture. That’s a million miles from what the Apostle Paul had in mind. He was talking about those things that controlled their thought process and their worldview.

Paul Edwards: Help me with this—the emerging church prides itself on conversation, having a conversation, so let’s have a conversation. How can you have a conversation with someone, when you’re not even speaking the same language?

John MacArthur: Let me just cut to the chase on this one: [Doug] Pagitt is a Universalist. What he was saying is real simple. He was saying when you die your spirit goes to God and judgment means that whatever was not right about you, whatever was bad about you, whatever was substantially lacking about you, gets all resolved. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Muslim—doesn’t matter whether you’re a Christian really; we’re all going to end up in this wonderful, warm and fuzzy relationship with God. That’s just classic universalism.

I think you know it’s most helpful, Paul, to go back and kind of recast how we view these people. He’s not a pastor; he’s not a Christian; that’s not a church. When you call yourself a Christian and you call yourself a pastor and you say you have a church, all of that has to be—to be legitimate—defined biblically. And if it’s not, that’s not a church and you’re not a pastor and you’re not even a Christian.

What you have here is a form of false religion … A form of paganism that basically wants to be thought of as Christian because it gains a certain ground. But the underlying bottom line of this whole emerging movement is they don’t believe in any doctrine, they don’t believe in any theology. They don’t want to be forced to interpret anything in scripture a certain way and the out is, “Well the Bible isn’t clear anyway.” In other words, we don’t know what it means; we can’t know what it means.

Brian McLaren says nobody has ever gotten it right—we haven’t got it right now—so let’s not make an issue out of anything. Let’s just be open to everything. Let’s not take a position on theology, or for that matter, on morality or behavior because, hey, there’s no judgment anyway so we’re all going to end up in God in some ethereal, eternal relationship. And that’s just non-Christian. It is blatantly, flagrantly non-Christian. It’s as non-Christian as any false religion.

Edwards: [When “Emergents” and many seeker-sensitive church advocates say “We do church a certain way,”] it seems to me that they do it by totally ignoring the book of Acts and the Epistles.


Paul Edwards is the host of The Paul Edwards Program, a columnist and pastor. His program is heard daily on WLQV in Detroit and on godandculture.com. Contact him at paul@godandculture.com.

***

GJ - I want to steal a march on Brett Meyer and post the obvious - Universal Objective Justification is an ideal doctrinal partner with Church Growth and implicit Universalism.

One WELS DP denied to me that WELS has ever taught Universalism, but I mentioned the "evangelism" campaign with posters that read, for all the world to see, "You are saved, just like me." Everyone is saved = Universalism.

Everyone is forgiven, without the World, without the Means of Grace, without faith - that is the UOJ message and the basic content of Universalism.

Teaching grace (forgiveness) apart from the Means of Grace is Enthusiasm.

The WELS, Missouri, and ELS leaders cannot defeat the Schwaermer Shrinkers because they are also Enthusiasts, as long as they cling to UOJ.

Excellence in Smokescrees - WELS Church and Change

http://www.shepherdofthebay.com/Assimilation/Resources/4-Excellence%20in%20Worship.pdf

One of the crypto-phrases used by Church and Change is "excellence in worship."

James Huebner, trained at Fuller, Second Synod Veep, uses the same phrase on his church website.

WELS Rock Concert - Minnesota - Where Else?

Churches plan outdoor service, rock concert

By Herald staff (Contact) | Austin Daily Herald

Published Friday, June 26, 2009

The Joint Communications Team from Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church (WELS), located just north of South Grove Park and Trinity Lutheran Church (WELS), north of Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp Resort on County Road 20, have some summer activities planned.

On Sunday, they will be having a joint outdoor service at Trinity. Pastor David Fleischmann will have a Bible study at 9:15 a.m., followed by the outdoor service. The joint service will start at 10 a.m. Hot dogs and beverages will be provided. Members are encouraged to bring a picnic type hot dish or dessert to go along with the picnic.

If you are not able to bring anything ,you are still encouraged to stay and eat as there will be plenty of food. The joint service will help with fellowship and welcome summer.

The service is also a reminder that service times will be switching the first Sunday in July. Beautiful Savior will have a 9 a.m. service and Trinity will have a 10:45 a.m. service. This is following the long tradition of switching service time for a one year period starting with the first Sunday in July.

In July, the church is sponsoring a float in the Austin Fourth of July parade. Members interested in participating should let one of the Joint Communications Team members know. They will be using the same theme as in the joint week of Vacation Bible School in July, “Soaring High with Christ.” This will start on Sunday, July 12 and will go through Thursday, July 16. This summer, Bible study for young children to adults will run from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Let Pastor Fleischmann know if you are able to assist with this program.

There will also be a light meal served at 6 p.m. before the start each evening. Volunteers are needed to help with meals. Let a Communications Team member or pastor know if you can assist.

The church is sponsoring a concert with Wendy Sue at the Paramount on Sunday, Aug. 2 at 2 p.m. Sue is a well-known Christian rock musician. She performed in Austin a few years ago. The performance is free.

The church will have its second outdoor theater night Sunday Aug. 23 with ice cream sundaes prior to the show and popcorn and pop available during the movie. The movie will be “The Reluctant Astronaut” and will show as soon as it is dark enough, approximately 8:45 p.m. Last year’s movie-goers were treated with a live animal show as several deer were walking on our church yard prior to the movie.

Call Greg Larson or Gordy Handeland with questions.

***

GJ - This is called hitting all the buttons. Get the aging Boomers with Rock N Roll, the kids with live deer. Memo to marketing director - "Need live deer at church...yesterday!"

JR (Ewing?) pointed out this is Austin, Minnesota.

Pastor Rick Avoids the Real Isssue - Again

Stetzer loses another diciple (sic). See graphic below.

Pastor Rick Johnson, in Corona, California, got his Geneva gown in a bunch because I posted a typo on Bailing Water.

First, Bailing Water posted the Open Letter, which I also published.

Second, Rick Johnson offered a typical Church and Change rebuttal, attacking the author for being anonymous, for being "too general," etc. Sanctimoniously, he signed his name (for once), as if that made his response credible. The Shrinkers have always used the same method. They avoid the issue of false doctrine because they hate Lutheran doctrine. They change the subject and cloak their agenda.

Third, I posted a quick response, identifying Rick as a Shrinker and Leonard Sweet-heart.

Rick follows the old lawyer's trick: "If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you don't have either on your side, pound the table."

Rick is a table-pounder, just like the rest of the Changers. He belongs to the secretive cabal that has controlled the finances and agenda of "conservative" Lutherans for decades.

Doctrine - not on his side.

The facts - let's avoid what the Changers have done and spent.

The Changers are offended that people have not held their hands and explained their sins to them (Matthew 18). Of course, when people did exactly that to Kelm, he wrote he would not discuss Leonard Sweet at all.

The Changers are offended that someone would write without his real name. About 100% of the attempted rebuttals on Ichabod are anonymous. A number of them are too obscene and crude to reproduce, even with the words deleted.

Rick and Company enjoy seeing names so they can activate the Changer Slander Machine, the same one which labeled Koeplin, a senior pastor, "brain-damaged" for criticizing Church Growth and amalgamation. The same Changer Slander Machine labeled the former seminary president as "senile" for opposing amalgamation.

When I revealed that Rick was a Sweet-heart with offerings deep in the red, he erased the facts he published and began yelping about his public blog being quoted. He forgot to mention that he erased his slobbering reference to Sweet. Table pounding.

The Shrinkers are terrified now. The laity and pastors can see what Mischke-Gurgle-Patterson-Mueller did to WELS. (Yes, I know how to spell Gurgel. Just having fun with a name.) I hope the Shrinkers keep shrieking like little girls who just saw a spider. People can see them for what they are - insubordinate, dishonest, lazy false teachers. They are clouds without rain, belly servers, wolves wearing the finest fleece (bought with synod subsidies).

Paul warned about wolves from within and without. The Changers are the wolves within.

The agenda of the Shrinkers is charted by Babtist Ed Stetzer - Make diciples, because diciples bring in more sheep to be shorn.
Believing this relieves WELS pastors from writing their own sermons, visiting their members, and studying the Book of Concord.
Leonard is so much Sweeter, and he is FB friends with Stezers.

Ski's Mentor Does the Worm

Way cool and totally awesome, dude!

Yeah, Craig Groeschel is the man.

I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to see and experience much more than this at Catalyst’s 10 Year Anniversary gathering in October.

Get your tickets early because unlike Craig’s obviously unlimited breakdancing talent, the tickets to Catalyst aren’t

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This video of Craig Groeschel contains the one quote that I have not only come to love but has been one of the driving forces behind what I do through and for online ministry:

“To reach people that no one is reaching you have to do things that no one is doing.”


I feel that for the first time in my life I’ve done the “planned abandonment” and discovered the “assignment” that God has given for me to do. Thus, I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.

Thanks Craig for your words. The impact has been huge.

Victory of the Lamb Facebook

Victory of the Lamb

Who Is Minding the Store? - At The CORE?

Leave the flopsweat drainpumps on max,
but turn off the lights and the popcorn machine.

Bishop Katie:

Headed to Iowa for a little baseball and a couple days away from a-town.
7:07 AM Jun 22nd from Tweetie. Field of Dreams?

Pastor Ski emerged from total Twitter silence to post this alarming message:

On our way 2 Dyersville, IA - Field of Dreams. Nice detour on the way 2 Clinton, IA 4 the Midwest All-Star game. about 22 hours ago from TweetDeck.

***

Verified, via the Internet, a lot of trips for this hard-working team of Shrinkers, Ski and Katie:

Training at Drive 08 - Ski, Buske, Parlow and others. Katie was not mentioned.

Training at Catalyst, with Stanley and Groeschel. Katie was not mentioned.

Joint training at Granger Community Church. Former St. Marcus member Tweeted about seeing them there. St. Marcus member is now a Granger member. Awwww.

Joint training at Drive 09, with 7 additional WELS pastors.

Joint training at Seattle, with Glende in attendance, soon after Drive 09.

Field of Dreams - for baseball, to relax from all the conferences.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Who Is Minding the Store? - At The CORE?":

The dot.com website builders had the same motto: "if you build it, they will come." Most of them went out of business during the dot.com collapse. The synod building mania is going down the same road. Oh, well, they have a lot of offerings to squander.

Hath God Said?

Joe Krohn, Rock N Roller, Has a Case of the Mondays

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why Don Patterson Should Write His Own Blog Commen...":

GJ,

I get a big laugh from your hostility too; as well as what you shouldn't say. For example. I wasn't a mouthpiece for the 'odious' network. I figured out all by myself how to blog. I'll remember next time to put a disclaimer up saying that I am acting independently. Since you're so good at assuming things, I thought you would have figured that out. You're probably one of those guys who would have used your lawn mower as a hedge trimmer while it was running unless they put the warning label on there. Ha ha. Just kidding about that one. Actually Crosswalk is more WELS than you think. It says so on their website. And although they are not 'officially' WELS, they are in fellowship. If you go back and check your blog, I think I have said somewhere that I was a member of Crosswalk. Be careful though and wear your waders. There is alot of the stinky stuff to wade through to find it.

Joe Krohn

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why Don Patterson Should Write His Own Blog Commen...":

GJ. It is so very, very sad that you are unwilling to post my input to your blog. I can understand that you, the owner of the blog, must moderate in consideration of others not wanting to deal with the profuse profanity that flies around. However, in light of all that is posted here, you could at least provide consideration to the truth.

As I stated in one comment, "watch the salivating dogs that really do not know or understand anything go off like a pack of wild hyenas." This has been proven. Wow, and so fast!

Unfortunately, for readers who may actually attempt to understand, you block those who are providing legitimate and truthful input.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Joe Krohn, Rock N Roller, Has a Case of the Monday...":

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why Don Patterson Should Write His Own Blog Commen...": "

Make GJ doesn't post this cat's comments because they aren't cogent? [sic - what?]

Guess What Just Emerged from The CORE?

CORE's Ski bragged he worshiped with Babtist Andy Stanley.

How To Blog, by Alien.

Christopher has left a new comment on your post "One Block from The CORE":

I am new to this blog and I am absolutely ashamed! How dare you people call yourself Christians when you spend way too much time and energy tearing people down out of hatred, spite, and fear. Would it nor be better for the Kingdom of God that you take this energy and put it to good use, like, perhaps showing genuine brotherly Christian love? Or how about sharing the wonderful news of God's mercy through the sacrifice of his Son for our sins? Who cares what the CORE or any of the other churches you blast are doing as long as they are showing the love of Christ to people? Especially those who may not be getting it otherwise? Is that not what we are called to do? Make disciples of ALL nations, not just our WELS nation.

Y'all need more love on this blog. Y'hear?

***

GJ - I realize Luther is irrelevant to Changers, but he did point out that the Word, not love, converts people. No one has been called to manufacture disciples - that is an erroneous, not to mention illiterate, version of the Great Commission.

Churches Featuring Their Coffee Shops

Fuller-trained Huebner features a coffee shop at Gracechurch, once called Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. First Veep Mueller quit The Love Shack, so does that make Huebner the First Veep by accession? Not really. They want to eliminate the position to save money and reduce Global Warming (greenhouse gas emissions).

Thus -

"The blend of progressive and classic, contemporary and traditional, along with a professional excellence in everything from our worship to our website has attracted hundreds of visitors and new members to Grace Church in recent years."
Gracechurch

"The congregation has been doubly blessed because of his expertise as a church consultant." [GJ - He told me he was trained at Fuller Seminary, along with Kelm and Larry Olson.]

SonicWall Network Eternal Security Appliance
Cost: $1765 (ALREADY CONTRIBUTED!)

A network security device/switch capable of protecting the internal church network from outside intruders, while providing antivirus, antispyware, and content filtering for the internal network. Also allows us to segment the public Internet access for the Coffee Lounge off from the rest of the church network.


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Harvest Community also features a coffee shop and small groups.

Reader:
"Harvest Community Church, south of the airport in Milwaukee, has a sign which boasts about serving Altera coffee. I didn't see anything about preaching Christ crucified. If you want to get cheeks in the seats, you gotta have that coffee shop atmosphere, don't ya know."

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mikemiller34 has left a new comment on your post "Churches Featuring Their Coffee Shops":

I'm a Grace member, but not necessarily an apologist. This morning's sermon was as Confessional Lutheran as I could have asked for--with Luther being quoted extensively. I don't know what the point of the coffeehouse is. It just seems like a huge financial boondoggle to me. That being said, I don't think drinking coffee in conjunction with church is necessarily evil. It's all adiaphora. I actually find Grace excessively stiff and formal. (By the way, thank you for your recent link.)

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GJ - I visited that sterile icehouse known as Willow Creek in my extensive research on Church Shrinkage. They had an expensive food court. Many find it odd that Lutheran churches just happen to be aping the CG sects by having gourmet coffee served - at Randy Hunter's franchise, while people rest on couches.

Huebner may pose as a Lutheran, but he has always been a Fuller Seminary activist. If he were a confessional Lutheran, he could not work with Paul Calvin Kelm and Larry (Our Staph Infection) Olson.

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The River Otter has left a new comment on your post "Churches Featuring Their Coffee Shops":

My church has a coffee cart and some treats after every service. The woman that serves loves to do it... there is a free will offering. It encourages people to stay after, get to know each other, chat, and have a community. It is regular Folgers or what have you...there is a choice of other beverages too, something for everyone. It is a welcome kindness, and facilitates the fellowship that we Christians need from each other.

***

GJ - Most churches have a coffee hour, but there is something new brewing among the Shrinkers. Many of us find them incredibly self-centered and materialistic in appealing to the Old Adam, smirking about how well it works to gather current members of other churches into their cults and calling it evangelism.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Churches Featuring Their Coffee Shops":

I think that instead of having "coffee hour", these Latte-Lutherans should have a non-coffee hour. You know, a change of pace after the church service is over. Since church for the Latte-Lutherans consists of lounging in easy chairs sipping coffee listening to Pastor Randy maybe non-coffee hour could be a time to study God's Word (without coffee) with a notable separation from what we do in normal life to aid in noticing contrast between God's world-view and humanities! Maybe even taking part in the sacraments!

Church becomes nonChurch so why couldn't nonchurch become church. It's a way to beat the semantic infiltration!

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Oh Worship the Brew":

"Simon Peter"

"Yes Lord"

"Do you love me?"

"You know I do!"

"Caffeinate my sheep"

Church and Change Hymn

1. On some blasphemous art, stood a cross swizzle stick
The emblem of WELS Church and Change.
For it once was a cross, so we focused on Christ,
But now prospects just stir in their cream.

Refrain:
So they'll cherish their cross swizzle stick
Till their funding at last they lay down;
They will cherish the cool swizzle stick
But alas, they will not see a crown.



2. Schwaermers love sentiment, so they twisted the cross.
Relational, real, relevant.
But they love their old selves, and they never will change,
So they favor a pop rock event.

Refrain:
So they'll cherish their cross swizzle stick
Till their funding at last they lay down;
They will cherish the cool swizzle stick
But alas, they will not see a crown.



3. O the old Lutheran church, so despised by Reformed,
has a wondrous attraction for me;
for the clear Means of Grace give the Gospel to me
as Our Lord said it always would be.

Refrain:
But they'll cherish their cross swizzle stick
Till their funding at last they lay down;
They will cherish the cool swizzle stick
But alas, they will not see a crown.

Church and Change Hymn

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Oh Worship the Brew":

Sing it with me:

"Lift high the swizzle-stick,
Our love of us proclaim.
Till all the world, adore,
Church and Change."


+Diet O. Worms

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Change Hymn":

Is it safe or correct to say don't drink from the dirty WELS at St. Andrew?