COP Prepares Congregations For The New End Times:
LCMS Millenialism

By Pastor Jack Cascione

 

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.


Rev. Jack Cascione is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (LCMS - MI) in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He has written numerous articles for Christian News and is the author of Reclaiming the Gospel in the LCMS: How to Keep Your Congregation Lutheran. He has also written a study on the Book of Revelation called In Search of the Biblical Order.
He can be reached by email at pastorcascione@juno.com.

March 4, 1998