In the past, the church prepared its people for the return of Christ according to Acts
1:11. For the past three years, the Michigan District and other districts have introduced
congregations to a new brand of millenialism called "The Future Tense Church."
According to the "Future Tense Church" the key to growth is "Relationship,
Not Religion."
Instead of telling congregations to confess three and only three Creeds, they are now
being taught the gospel of "leadership" according to the Carol Childress
Leadership Network and the Harvard School of Business. Congregations are being taught to
apply secular administrative, marketing, and behavior modification techniques to guarantee
a statistically secure church future.
On Tuesday, February 17, I obtained a copy of the working document used to train
pastors and lay people for church growth leadership in the Michigan District. The title
page reads, "Agenda, Leadership Team Training," conducted by Rev. Michael Ruhl,
a Michigan District Executive. The 14 page document is part of a seminar conducted by the
Michigan District to train pastors and lay people for "leadership" in the
congregations. Ruhl obtained his information from a presentation held at Irvine, CA, on
April 28, 1995, called "The Future Tense Church" for Evangelism Executives/
Chairpersons Conference, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, presented by Carol S. Childress,
Leadership Network, Tyler, TX.
This is what the lay people are paying their district staff to do to their churches.
The opening sheet contains a chart on "Leadership vs. Management: People vs.
Things," by Covey Leadership Center, Inc., 1992. Covey is a Mormon who conducts
management training seminars. The next sheet has information from The McIntosh Church
Growth Network.
Instead of ten psychics listed on the front cover of National Enquirer at the grocery
store, the Michigan District teaches ten keys for the future of the LCMS. In response to
the "Office of the Keys" the "Future Tense Church," has "Ten Keys
to the Future". We could call these ten keys the Gospel according to Church Growth:
1. Relationships, Not Religion
2. Authenticity Over Hype
3. Connections and Community
4. Burnout and Balance
5. From Success to Significance
6. Times of Transition
7. Growth and Groups
8. Soul Care and Spirituality
9. Ministry before Membership
10. Multiply Disciples, not Decisions.
These statements are based on a market analysis of social, psychological, and
demographic profiles. The research shows how the church should view the needs of potential
worshipers/consumers. Potential church members are looking for fulfillment, meaning,
balance, relationships, mentors, a sense of community, and, first and foremost,
"Relationship, not Religion". The future tense church is a combination of the
YMCA, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Dr. Benjamin Spock, and the Harvard School of Business without
Christian doctrine.
There used to be just two keys that were not about relationship but only about
religion. "But the Keys have not the power of binding and loosing except upon
earth, according to Matt. 16:19: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound
in heaven".... For Christ speaks of a spiritual kingdom. And the command of God is
that the ministers of the Gospel should absolve those who are converted, according to 2
Cor. 10, 8: The authority which the Lord hath given us for edification. (AP Art. VI par.
79 Tri. Page 307)
The new law "Ten Commandments of Strategic Thinking and Action" appear on
another flip chart from Reginald McDonough, Executive Director, General Board of Virginia
Baptists. Michigan draws its doctrine for church and ministry just as easily from the
Baptists as it does the Harvard School of Business. The ten commandments for the
"Future Tense Church" are:
1. Focus on a vision of the future
2. Learn all there is to know about the situation
3. Concentrate on the big picture
4. Look for breakthrough ideas
5. Be willing to color outside the lines
6. Be alert for patterns and cycles
7. View change as an opportunity for growth
8. Be willing to confront tradition
9. Beware of the pooling of ignorance
10. Give your ideas a reality check.
Look out Mount Sinai, the "Future Tense Church" is heading straight for
Babel.
The Michigan Future Tense Church is dominated by the Law, not the Gospel. Once upon a
time the churches were taught, "But the Christian Church consists not alone in
fellowship of outward signs, but it consists especially in inward communion of eternal
blessings in the heart, as of the Holy Ghost, of faith, of the fear and love of God; which
fellowship nevertheless has outward marks so that it can be recognized, namely, the pure
doctrine of the Gospel, and the administration of the Sacraments in accordance with the
Gospel of Christ. Ap VII.5 page 227
The "Leadership" materials teach that "The Future Tense Church" is
plagued by new 21st Century sins and must be aware "Why Denominations and Churches
are at Risk." One of the great sins is "Deeply held sacred methodology." In
other words, the congregations are at risk if they keep using their hymn books,
traditional Lutheran liturgies, and catechisms. Another sin is "Failure to create a
new way of thinking." No one knows what the new way of thinking is unless it brings
in more people and generates more funds. Contemporary worship is a phrase you may define
any way you please. Tradition is the enemy.
There are also new kinds of suffering for the "Future Tense Church." In the
past Peter warns "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal
glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish,
strengthen, settle [you]. 1Pe 5:10." Now the "Future Tense Church"
suffers from an "inability to escape the past" and an "inability to invent
the future." Such failures, if not corrected, will surely bring the great tribulation
of corporate failure.
The next flip chart in the presentation shows where all this information is coming
from. It is titled, "Why Do Great Companies Fail." They fail for the same
reasons churches fail, "inability to escape the past" and the "inability to
invent the future." The word of God and doctrine are not in the equation. At the
bottom of the chart it says "Source: Competing For the Future, by Gary Hamel and C.K.
Prahalad. Harvard Business School Press. 1994. Page 117."
In other words, the line of communication for saving and growing LCMS churches in the
future is the Harvard School of Business, to Carol S. Childress Leadership Network, Tyler,
TX to Evangelism Executives/Chairpersons Conference at Irvine, CA to district executives
to the congregations whose pastors and elected officers are being trained for positions as
CEOs and members of the board of directors with new church constitutions.
At the end of the presentation in 24 point type it reads, "Leaders are people
who help others make the transition from the past to the future." We used to
teach that pastors lead their congregations with the word of God. Now we know that LCMS
"leaders" are people who are trained in church growth techniques adopted from,
among other sources, Carol Childress Leadership Network, the Harvard School of Business,
and the General Board of Virginia Baptists.
The December 1997 issue of the REPORTER noted on page three that the Council of
District Presidents (COP), under the "leadership" of newly elected President
Arleigh Lutz, who carries on after retirement of John Heins, plans to retrain 300 selected
LCMS pastors over a period of four years. "Rev. Norbert Oesch of Orange, Calif.,
and Rev. Stephen D. Hower of Pacific, MO., told the COP that the Pastoral Leadership
Institute they helped to organize has obtained funding and intends to begin working with
100 pastors next year"
You can be sure the pastors will not be "retrained" in the Lutheran
Confessions and C.F.W. Walther’s "Church and Ministry." They mean
"train" as indoctrination in the Carol Childress Leadership Network and the
Harvard School of Business. The COP is behind this effort to reinvent LCMS congregations.
It was their executives who were trained at Irvine, CA in 1995, and in many other similar
seminars. Heins is now nominated to the Board of Regents at Fort Wayne. Here comes the
leadership.
These sweeping new changes are introduced with new "corporate" style church
constitutions. The end result is that voters’ assemblies are disenfranchised. In
place of Walther’s Church and Ministry they have corporate hierarchy called
"leadership." Lay people are systematically relieved of their participation in
the priesthood of all believers, their hymn books, liturgies, the authority of the
voters’ assembly, and the deeds to their church property.
The worshipers become consumers, the pastor a CEO, the church counsel a board of
directors, and the voters an audience. The authority of the Word of God is given second
place behind administrative policy. The worship service, like a TV sitcom, is reinvented
every week. Instead of traditional worship, the members participate in mind control
techniques and behavior modification called contemporary worship. This secularized,
efficient, corporate church is destined for extinction because it has no tangible product.
Faith is a gift from God, not a commodity.
All of this is introduced by the COP to promote statistical improvement and control in
the congregations. The "Future Tense Church" says nothing about the Gospel,
Jesus, doctrine, etc. Concerning the future of His church, Christ says, "upon this
rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Mat 16:18.
If we really believed these words we would remove the COP at the next convention.
Many of the current members of the COP were trained by apostate professors who denied
the inspiration of Scripture and walked out of the St. Louis Seminary in 1973. Others were
influenced by professors who were relieved of their positions by Dr. Robert Preus when he
moved the Springfield Seminary to Fort Wayne in 1976. There is little wonder that the
current COP, who was taught to have a low regard for the Scriptures, has even lower regard
for religion and the church than their professors.