Can Transforming Churches Be Fixed Part 5: New Prescriptions (II) The Church, The Royal Priesthood Of Believers, And Conclusion

By Johannes

Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone and rests in Him unceasing;
And by its fruits true faith is known, with love and hope increasing.
For faith alone can justify; works serve our neighbor and supply
The proof that faith is living.

4. The Office of the Holy Ministry (IV) The Call: Little has been said about the Pastor’s ordination vows, and his call documents, including the Supplement to the Diploma of Vocation. The pastor and congregation should review these documents, preferably before commencing with any other prescriptions; they promise to be quite revealing. If the congregation’s self-study preceding the pastor’s call is available, that, too ought to be reviewed. Do not these documents supersede even Transforming Churches’ prescriptions? Can the congregation’s constitution and bylaws be changed if such changes would qualify or modify the pastor’s call and his ordination vows? This is an area where great caution should be exercised. Given the manifold pastoral duties in service of the Gospel enumerated in (2) above, how can any pastor assume CEO duties as well?
   
5. The Church: “It [the church] is the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments administered according to the gospel.” (AC VII, Book of Concord, Kolb-Wengert). TC seems to define the church an assembly of behavers, while believers is treated as a “given” and hardly mentioned in the consultation reports. (For a more detailed treatment, see Ken Schurb, Missional? The Church in Luther’s Large Catechism, LOGIA, Epiphany 2009). There is a constant need for the believers and unbelievers alike to be showered with the Gospel.

   “Further we believe that in this Christian community [the Church] we have the forgiveness of sins, which takes place through the holy sacraments and absolution as well as through all the comforting words of the entire gospel. This encompasses everything that is to be preached about the sacraments and, in short, the entire gospel and all the official responsibilities of the Christian community. Forgiveness is constantly needed, for although God’s grace has been acquired by Christ, and holiness has been wrought by the Holy Spirit through God’s Word in the unity of the Christian church, yet we are never without sin because we carry our flesh around our neck.
   “Therefore everything in this Christian community is so ordered that everyone may daily obtain full forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs appointed to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live on earth. Although we have sin, the Holy Spirit sees to it that it does not harm us because we are a part of this Christian community. Here there is full forgiveness of sins, both in that God forgives us and that we forgive, bear with, and aid one another.” (Large Catechism, II, 54, 55, Kolb-Wengert, emphasis added)

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Can Transforming Churches Be Fixed? Part 4: New Prescriptions (I) The Holy Ministry

By Johannes


Let me not doubt, but truly see Your Word cannot be broken;
Your call rings out, “Come unto Me!” No falsehood have you spoken.
Baptized into your precious name, my faith cannot be put to shame,
And I shall never perish.

Fixing Transforming Churches (New Corrective Prescriptions): A careful review of the potential for harm done by TC clearly shows that such harm centers on the Office of the Holy Ministry:

To obtain such [saving] faith God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel. A.C. V (Kolb-Wengert)

As the TC prescriptions are implemented, it is through the abandonment of the pastoral office that the potential for harm flows. Why? Because the purpose of the Ministry is to build saving faith, not only in the unsaved, but also in those who are already members in the Church of Jesus Christ. Anything that threatens his flock is the proper concern of the undershepherd. So, most of the new corrective prescriptions offered here will focus on that office, directly or indirectly. This is not to place blame on the pastor, or to burden him with additional duties, but to affirm him in his vocation and vows. With the exception of private confession none add any new responsibilities to the pastor’s duties in service of the Gospel. The following prescriptions are filtered through “Gospel Eyes.”

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Can Transforming Churches Be Fixed? Part 3: Correcting Errors (II)

By Johannes

Yet as the Law must be fulfilled or we must die despairing
Christ came and has God’s anger stilled, our human nature sharing.
He has for us the Law obeyed and thus the Father’s vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.

Fixing Transforming Churches (Abandon Questionable Prescriptions):

It has been thoroughly and amply demonstrated that several of TC’s prescriptions are most troubling and harmful. Some are of questionable value at best. These ought to be eliminated from future prescriptions.

1. Accountable Leadership Model: This dangerous prescription should be scrapped for the reasons stated in Scott Diekmann’s report. Training and minor corrections can be made without turning the congregation upside-down. (A suggested replacement is offered below).
   
2. Numerical conversion goals: Although this is a part of the Accountable Leadership Model, it needs to be addressed separately. It seems inconceivable that an ordained LCMS pastor would teach this blasphemous practice, yet it has been known to happen. This may be the most damaging aspect of TCN, and should be abolished. If the coach/team leader presents this concept, his ecclesiastical supervisor ought to be informed, and appropriate action taken. Furthermore, any congregation that has received such instruction should receive an in-person apology from the coach/team leader with a review of the proper teaching about the Holy Spirit’s work of conversion.
   
3. The “Season of repentance”, and “day of repentance”: These have a somewhat manipulative, almost revival-like quality. One can easily envision Finney’s “anxious bench” at the front of the church. This is nothing more than identification repentance—or “the sin of the week”, as one person has described it. Each person can and should repent of only his own sins. Repentance is to be preached—Jesus commanded it, and a “Day of Repentance” has a precedent in the LCMS--Walther preached more than one sermon for such an occasion. However, as used in TC this is not only a technique for “firing up” the congregation, but clearly a form of penance or “satisfaction” for sins (see A.C. XII). Cut out this prescription, and faithfully preach biblical “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47).
   
4. Vision: The visioning process has been shown to be dangerous. Whose vision is it really—how do we know it is truly “God’s vision?” Is not Christ’s vision for His church apparent in Scripture? Is not each congregation, like each believer, to “blossom where it is planted?” In every place, every neighborhood, opportunities for ministry and mission abound—we only have to look around us, using our God-given abilities to see and discern: we are, as Rev. Harold Senkbeil has said, “an oasis of life in a desert of death.” Delete the visioning process.
   
5. Triads: Small groups go back to the early days of Pietism. In the TCN model, the three members of a triad are (1) an experienced member, (2) a recent convert, and (3) a non-member, perhaps non-Christian. The participants read through several chapters of the Bible, then meet to discuss what they’ve read. The TCN leader has instructed the participants to ask, “What does this passage say to me?” This is a very dangerous way to study scripture, leading to all sorts of mischief. Furthermore, small groups (Triads included) can easily become cliquish and self-serving. Where is the corrective in such Bible study—when is the pastor consulted for the proper interpretation of scripture?
   
6. Removing Obstacles to Growth: In Direct Hit, Borden says that the congregation must rid itself of “alligators and bosses”—members who stand in the way of the TC process. Although this had not been made part of any specific congregational prescriptions, the TCN literature alludes to it. (A similar suggestion is made in the recent “Funding the Mission” Task Force report.) We are the Body of Christ—not General Motors: such suggestions have no place in the church.
   
7. TC Threats: Get rid of the threats, implied or stated. More than one congregation has reported having been told that, if they do not adopt the TC program, they will soon have to close their doors. Paul Borden himself appears to have consigned at least one congregation (not Lutheran) to God’s judgment if it does not adopt his prescriptions. (http://www.tinyurl.com/dlftzv) The Law is not our friend, and such threats undermine the life-giving Gospel.
   
8. Misleading promises and statements: TC promises conversion growth, increase in worship attendance and giving, among other things. This is patently misleading, and gives false hope to struggling congregations and pastors. It is nothing but hype. The statement, “A Transformed Church is regularly and consistently ‘making new disciples who make new disciples’” must also be dropped. It sets the law against the gospel, denies the power of God’s word, and gives false hope, setting congregations up for disillusionment. These promises and statements need to be eliminated. They are misleading and unscriptural. (It is unfortunate that the 2007 Convention Resolution 1-01A states, “a revitalized congregation is regularly and consistently making new disciples who make new disciples.” Apparently, nobody caught the error.)
   

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Can Transforming Churches Be Fixed? Part 2: Correcting Errors (I)

By Johannes

It was a false misleading dream that God his Law had given
That sinners could themselves redeem and by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright to bring the inbred sins to light
That lurks within our nature.

Fixing Transforming Churches (Self Study): After a congregation signs on to TC, it soon receives a Self Study packet: information about the congregation that is to be submitted to the TC team for analysis prior to the prescription weekend. The following information is to be included (taken almost verbatim from Direct Hit, pp. 127-132):

• Overview of congregation: history of congregation; list of staff positions; list of people who oversee ministry; description of physical plant; organizational structure, and organization chart.
  
• Statistics (20 years), in tabular and chart form, including: Number of members baptized & confirmed); average Sunday worship attendance; Sunday School & Bible Class attendance; incoming & Outgoing Transfers; Baptisms, Infant and Adult; Adult Confirmations and Professions of faith; Average age of persons involved in regular activities; Percent of congregation that regularly attends Bible Class or small group; Number of persons involved in regular activities; Church budgets (2 years) including final receipts and expenditures & current balance sheet; Top ten giving units by amount (last year); Second ten giving units by amount (last year); Total number of giving units and average amount given (last year)
  
• School/Daycare/Early Childhood: History of school and/or ECE, its staff positions, organization, etc.; School/ECE enrollment, 10 years; School/ECE mission statement; Visibility of School/ECE in congregation & in community; Congregational involvement in School/ECE; Written evaluation of School/ECE by director; Pastor Visibility with School/ECE; Coordination of School/ECE with evangelism & outreach; Baptisms & confirmations from ECE.
  

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Can “Transforming Churches” Be Fixed?, Part 1

By Johannes

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and by teaching them to cling as if their life depended on it to everything whatsoever I authoritatively said to you.” Matthew 28:19, 20a (Interpretive Paraphrase)

Salvation unto us has come by God’s free grace and favor;
Good works cannot avert our doom, they help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone, who did for all the world atone;
He is our one Redeemer.
(Paul Speratus, Salvation Unto Us Has Come, LSB 555)

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Do you remember Clara Peller? She was the little old lady that appeared at the window, holding a tiny hamburger in a large bun, demanding, “WHERE’S THE BEEF?” You can still see some of those Wendy’s ads on the Web (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0). With respect to Transforming Churches (TC), Clara might be asking a similar question of our synod mission executives: “WHERE’S THE GOSPEL?” The Gospel hamburger would be much tinier, while the TC bun would dwarf the burger. Indeed, the Means of Grace are conspicuous by their almost complete absence from TC: one can barely find any beef in the TC entree.

Transforming Churches has been shown to be a spiritually dangerous program for several reasons:

1. It “transforms” the Gospel into Law—Justification by grace through faith is replaced with the Great Commission as the central article of faith; faithful people are clubbed with a truncated version of the Great Commission (“Make new disciples, [only]”), as the sweetness of the Gospel is replaced by the terror of the Law;
2. It emasculates the office of the Holy Ministry, changing the pastor into a CEO: rather than a steward of the mysteries of Christ, he is master of the congregation, and the two kingdoms are hopelessly entangled;
3. It turns the Priesthood of Believers into functionaries under the thumb of the CEO; the sheep are no longer to be fed, but rather organized into ministry brigades;
4. It is threatening to the spiritual well-being of the members of our congregations; they are told to rely on themselves, while denying the promises in God’s Word, thus destroying faith.

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Render Unto Synod What Is Synod's

Remember the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in China, which eventually resulted in bloodshed? A lone man bravely stood in front of a column of rumbling Chinese tanks, temporarily blocking the inevitable march of totalitarianism. The same thing has happened in the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod when the Southern Illinois District temporarily blocked the inevitable march of the Synod’s Ablaze! money making machine, Fan Into Flame.

Last February, at the Southern Illinois District's Convention they voted not to fund Fan Into Flame and instead resolved to fund their own alternative plan. Not so fast, says the LCMS Commission on Constitutional Matters. The CCM has issued a not-so-subtle reminder that the SID’s resolution is null and void. The tanks continue to roll. Render unto Synod what is Synod's...

Here is the text from the applicable portion of the CCM’s minutes of their April meeting. Synod has spoken:

93. Agency Resolutions and Synod Actions (09-2556)

A pastor of the Synod, in an e-mailed March 18, 2009 letter, asked the following questions regarding an agency’s possible negative response to an action taken by the Synod.

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I’m Excited

I’m excited. Why? All next week, we’ll have a guest blogger who will be gracing the pages of Stand Firm. That’s good because you won’t have to listen to me, and I won’t have to come up with new and exciting topics. (You’re probably thinking that I haven’t come up with one yet, but hey, there’s always hope.) What’s the topic? Transforming churches. You may have some vague memory of this topic being discussed here in the past, but this series of posts will come from a totally different perspective, Can Transforming Churches Be Fixed? So can it be fixed? I doubt it - we’ll see what our guest blogger has to say. Who is the mystery blogger? Well you’ll just have to come back to find that out. Have a great weekend. I’ll see you next week.

photo credit: batega

Renouncing All that God Is

Quoting Martin Luther:

Friend, do not consider it a trifle to forbid what God does not forbid, to destroy the Christian liberty that cost Christ His blood, to burden consciences with sin where there is no sin. He who has the audacity to do this will also be audacious enough to commit any wrong; yea, he has thereby already renounced all that God is, teaches, and does, including His Christ.

Ewald M. Plass, compiler, What Luther Says: A Practical In-Home Anthology for the Active Christian, (St. Louis: CPH, 1959) §2412, 777.

Are We Slow?

"Why are we so quick to say that pastors 'preach the gospel and administer the sacraments' but so slow to say that pastors 'carry out the great commission' when the two are exactly the same?"

The question asked by Pastor Klemet Preus, in his essay "Pietism In Missouri's Mission: From Mission Affirmations to Ablaze!," which he presented at the 2005 Congress on the Lutheran Confessions. Available in Mission Accomplished? Challenges to and Opportunities for Lutheran Missions in the 21st Century.

And So We Also Speak

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.

2 Corinthians 4:13-14 ESV

photo credit: Thomas Hawk