The Nihil Rule

  "Mission Together Meeting" (Archived) ... But there's more! Three more "Merge for Mission" videos available on the YouTubes, to be specific. First, we have Pastor  Joel Gaertner's presentation   ( Archive )   to the congregations of Immanuel, Shirley (WI) and surrounding congregations. Pastor Gaertner let a few things slip where Jon had been a little more tight-lipped. Joel tells us there are 24 conversations "in one phase or another." Note: these are not 24 churches discussing merger, but 24 mergers with two or more churches involved! In the case of Milwaukee it's something like 7 churches, at least five in MSP. If we assume an average of 3 churches per merger (and assuming the average merger is a consolidation) we are going from 72 churches to 24 churches, or roughly 50 churches closed. Which means the WELS is treading water. See, that "100 in 10" initiative doesn't disclose that on average prior to the stunt, we were opening ...

Rev. Charles Porterfield Krauth in his 1871 The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, ( the CRT I gladly affirm ) pages 195-6: "When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of 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; only 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 this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two 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 the truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold...

  Merger? I hardly even know her! (2025/03/07 UPDATE:  Video has been pulled, but you can find a cached copy here .) Mission Together is a program put together by WELS Congregational Services but is not listed on the WELS Congregational Services website; a reader shared this presentation  and the associated  Google Drive  resources: a copy of a similar presentation, a document with the types of mergers, the process document. and a Bible study. Unclear to me  Let's talk our way through the two-hour video presentation. Our presenter is Jon Hein the Director of WELS Congregational Services. He makes it clear that the WELS does not push mergers on congregations but is ready to assist when congregations have questions or want to consider mergers. After the pleasantries around 15 minutes in, we get to the problem statement: WELS congregations are not optimized to "maximize soul reach": right now, about 2% of Americans are within 15 minutes of a WELS church, but i...

  Christian Worship: Hymnal page 697 | Hymnary.org Our Synod President translated Nicolaus Selnecker's baptismal hymn for CW:21. ("Baptismal Life" is a Getty-free zone 😉 )

  Return to Wittenberg  is "an organization sponsored by pastors and laymen affiliated with congregations of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS). Our mission is to promote, develop, and strengthen a Biblical understanding of the Evangelical-Lutheran faith." More from their about page: We use “Return to Wittenberg” not to describe a literal return to 16th Century Germany, of course, nor to represent the repristination of the same in the modern context, but rather to represent a periodic journey to review and be refreshed in the Scriptural teachings contained in the Lutheran Confessions—especially the Small Catechism. Return to Wittenberg presentations draw strength from a broad network of individuals from multiple Lutheran synods. Our cooperation across synodical fellowships does not imply a spirit of compromise or indifference, but rather a conviction that uncompromising voices will be heard more loudly and more clearly if we c...

  If you missed it, Gen. Mike Flynn on behalf of DOGE posted a list of Lutheran organizations  who had received grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services, most of it going to Lutheran Immigration and Social Services (LIRS). However, at the very end of the list we find our own Wisconsin Lutheran Child & Family Services, one of the few organizations on the list to get less than a million in grant money. We can find the award information  online and read the abstract: "Christian Family Solutions (CFS) is proposing a project that will serve youth ages 4 to 10 living in and around the Milwaukee area with a network of mental health care services. Through this program, we will provide day treatment services, train mental health providers and school staff, provide peer mentoring/support to families, provide consultation to professionals who work with these children, and advocate for the need for better care and early intervention services. The children we w...

  Rev. Andrew Mueller prepared a 28 page document entitled " Fissures of Men: An Evaluation of Critical Theory in the Light of Scripture " for the AZ/CA District Conference in October 2024.  The paper is fantastic, starting with an introduction heavily grounded in the Scriptures and proceeding to identify challenges posed by our society. After defining critical theory, Pastor Mueller proceeds for the bulk of the paper to identify the lineage of Critical Theory in four parts, pausing at moments to make touchpoints in the WELS. The paper finishes with a worldview comparison between Biblical Christianity and Cultural Marxism and the "Critical Dilemma" where Critical Theory views God-given constructs as oppressive and objectionable.  This is the kind of document the CoP should have generated. Definitely worth your time to read in full. "The purpose of critical theory is to divide and conquer. It dares contend with Christ, which is a fool’s errand we know. Yet it f...

Pastor Dan Berg provides daily Bible readings and reflections for families on the  Kitchen Table Catechesis  page. He also has short one-minute catachesis  lessons for the littles. Excellent!

When you come to church... #chalice #communion #sacrament #jesus Pastor Dan Berg at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hendersonville, Mo, frequently posts reels on their church's Facebook page. The last half dozen or so have revolved around elements of the Divine Service (and you can find the rest on youtube ). This is really good stuff, and easily shareable. One of them talks about communion. Pastor Berg clearly declares the very Lutheran doctrine that when the Lord's words are spoken over the cup, the cup then contains the blood of Christ. However, all was not well in the WELS Discussion Facebook group. Pastor Robert Williams, the pastor at English Lutheran Church in Viroqua, Wisconsin had the following response: "So I watched the video several times and I am a little uncomfortable with how he describes what is going on in communion. He states that “when the words of institution are spoken this cup now contains the blood of Christ”. While you can understand that correctly ...

  "The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate Neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remotest circumference to people he really does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary... Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, is intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy." -C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters

  Youth Rally Attendee Booklet 2024 (welsyouthrally.net) Your humble host is, as usual, fashionably late. The WELS International Youth Rally took place six months ago in Fort Collins, Colorado. The attendee booklet linked above has a number of advertisements in it, including the page shown above, advertising the chance to win one of three $100 Amazon gift cards in exchange for filling out a survey about sex.  The youth rally is aimed at 8th grade through exiting Senior students: the bulk of the attendees are minors. The data were collected by Conquerors through Christ, a WELS organization, funded in part by your congregations' congregational mission offering (CMO). Their  organization chart  shows them as a subsidiary of  WELS Congregational Services .  (Filed under 'Woke' because surveying and data collection is a key component of Social and Emotional Learning , which has taken the WELS by a storm. No doubt the data collected will inform a future Bible stu...

I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "With all sincerity, I can say that few things make me happier than seeing diversity in my church." I mean, the Bible tells us that the angels rejoice over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10). I would hope that is one of the few things that makes Mike happier than his congregational demographics. And Paul tells us his joy is fulfilled by having members of the church be like-minded, being of one accord (Philippians 2:2). Paul preached to diverse audiences in his missionary trips, but he never expresses a concern about the diversity of a particular community. Why does Mike derive happiness from skin color? I thought we were supposed to not judge by the color of a persons' skin but by the content of their character.

  I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "If you love diversity, you will adore eternity. If unrepentant racists were allowed into heaven, they would hate the VIP section" This is the *only time* I find Novotny using the word "unrepentant" and insinuating someone going to hell for their sin. He wouldn't dare use it in proximity to the lifestyle sins of the LGBTQ+, unwedded pregnancy or abortion. He also seems to pedestalize diversity, since apparently the VIP's are diverse... but more on that in next weeks' installment.