Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Full disclosure ?

I am wondering why the Church and Change group is not proudly and loudly advertising their upcoming conference with Ed Stetzer as the keynote speaker.

http://www.churchandchange.org/

Ed Stetzer has revealed on his blog that he is in fact coming to this conference.

Last spring a covert group of WELS pastors swam down to the exponential conference in Orlando. http://www.exponentialconference.org/

Not long after that Ed Stetzer was contracted to speak at the WELS conference.

The Board for Parish Assistance issued several calls for a consultant and finally landed a whale, Rev. Paul Kelm. The synod now must make drastic cuts due to a large budget deficit. hmmm...

Rev. Bruce Becker is asked to clarify a recent statement: http://together.wels.net/2008/12/1/clarification

So what is happening? All is not well in the WELS.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Lord! Is there information in the Warren Report about Church and change too? So why can't it just be that C&C has not announced their conference agenda. Some pastors went to a conference. BPS added a consultant.

I am wondering why any organization has to say anything about its conference a year in advance. Have you ever put on a conference? Do you know how foolish that is? Spring would be a great time to start promoting their conference and all speakers should be lined up and ready to go. Just because you want them to acknowledge it now or have notions of conspiracy theories should not compel them to jump the gun.

A covert group of pastors? How do you know they were covert? I know two of those pastors and they are not covert. They'll tell you all about it. Its not very stealthy for a pastor to announce to his congregation that he'll be gone this week because he's going to this conference. Is there some sort of place where pastors are supposed to declare their intentions for conferences for synod approval and these pastors forgot to post their itineraries?

Your statement implies that Kelm's call is responsible for a large budget deficit. We know that Kelm is not responsible for a budget deficit. Its the pathetic offerings of the WELS masses that are responsible ultimately. Perhaps Kelm is single handedly responsible for the collapse in the financial markets that are preventing large donations to the synod. Kelm's fees will pay for himself if not more, unlike all the other WELS synod office free loaders who simply have to rely on the sub standard offerings of your local church.

Stop inventing conspiracies and stealth when in reality most are just going about their daily lives doing what they do and they take little notice of what goes on here. You can't actually do work in the kingdom if you sit around here worrying about what BW thinks. I would be very disappointed if any of them gave this forum the time of day. After writing that, I actually feel guilty now for giving it the time of day.

Anonymous said...

One of the problems here is that all "outside WELS fellowship" speakers need to be approved by the District President and this was not done prior to booking Ed Stetzer. This is not speculation. This is fact.

Anonymous said...

which District President is in charge of C&C. When did para-church organizations bring themselves under the authority of WELS DP's?

Anonymous said...

"Its the pathetic offerings of the WELS masses that are responsible ultimately."

"...unlike all the other WELS synod office free loaders who simply have to rely on the sub standard offerings of your local church."

Have you given all you have, like the widow ... and Christ?

Anonymous said...

Any outside speakers need to be approved by the District President of whichever district the event will take place. If it is in Milwaukee then it is the Southeastern Wisconsin District. I don't know the name of that District President. You may wish to run the question through him...but he would be the one that would need to approve the speaker.

John said...

8:59 am Anonymous..

1)"So why can't it just be that C&C has not announced their conference agenda." Ok I will give the Church and Change time to put out their agenda. It is just odd that a public question was directly asked of the organizer of this event and no answer has been given.

2)I know two of those pastors and they are not covert. They'll tell you all about it. Ok I will post their review. I wonder why they haven't published an article about this excursion in FIC.? I wonder if these congregations were excited to have their pastors march of to a reformed conference?

3)We know that Kelm is not responsible for a budget deficit.
Yet did this call have full synodical support?

Anonymous said...

The post-modernist in me wonders if it should be all well in the WELS (and if it ever has been), not to condone division. But, if everything was going swimmingly, I'd be nervous, but that's just because I distrust all centralized authority of man's design. So, I think it's always been this way, people trying to slip in heresy whenever possible, many with best intentions and under the impression they are doing God's will. That's why we have the creeds and confessions. No doubt Satan wants to attack from within, hidden under the banner of "love" or "Christian morality" or disguised programs of works, etc., anything that undermines faith. So the best we can do is pray, study, fight against false teachers and support what is good.

Rob

Anonymous said...

John,
Are you still stuck on these same three topics? I quit your blog a while ago because of its repetitious arguing in circles. Now, I stop back in and sure enough, its the same old, same old. I'm starting to suspect your readership turnover is large and you constantly rehash the same points to newcomers, who then eventually tire and leave.

If I could imagine God right now, I'd imagine him to be rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his children just like I did with mine when they were about 8-10 yrs. old.

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

1 Cor. 1:10

Anonymous said...

"If I could imagine God right now, I'd imagine him to be rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his children just like I did with mine when they were about 8-10 yrs. old."

And now you think you impress him?

John said...

1 Cor. 1:10 ..December 4, 2008 11:18 PM


So you don't like to visit this blog yet you do. You don't want divisions yet you offer no suggestions..hmmm.. Can't we all just get along.

You quote 1 Cor. 1:10 and I will turn this on you. Why did the Church and Changers start their organization? I will contend that it was started to cause division by its very name as someone once said.

If you don't want to read what is discussed here don't come back. If you want to create dialogue on issues of concern and conscience by all means post here or start a blog.

If we use your logic about rehashing old issues we should not discuss the confessions are the thoughts of Martin Luther.

Anonymous said...

PIOUS FRAUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

There must be legal recourse for such religious malpractice.

Anonymous said...

"If I could imagine God right now, I'd imagine him to be rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his children just like I did with mine when they were about 8-10 yrs. old." -- a pundit

I can image God right now (Colossians 1:15), and His arms are nailed to some timber on our behalf. It's all very Scriptural. And rather than rolling His eyes at His errant creatures, as has been surmised, God the Son of Mary is portrayed by Scripture as asking His heavenly Father to forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Those Lutheran clerics who find gold in reformed conferences, from which to feed their flocks, very likely prefer gold to bread and wine, most Sundays. In other words, they know not what they do.

Anonymous said...

The problems are largely internal to WELS. WELS cannot solve its own problems without looking to copy ideas from other denominations, authors, and speakers. Their dogma boxes them into doing the same things over and over -- even when that activity does not work. Trying to fish on the other side of the boat is not an option for them.