"He who sets his hand to the plow..."

 

Straight talk: Finding a healthy balance – FORWARD IN CHRIST

What it boils down to is balancing trusting God’s power, promises, and ability to do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20), while not putting him to the test, expecting blessings we have not historically seen, and being poor stewards of our God-given resources.

The 100 in 10 program is not quite as ambitious as it appears to be, given on average we planted about five churches a year prior to the program. And the churches the 100 in 10 program have been planting are, to be frank, not very Lutheran in appearance - by and large strip mall churches with contemporary worship and the like - as promoted in various WELS Connections. It's probably less putting God to the test (Malachi 3:10) and more straying from fidelity to the faith our fathers have handed down to us by not instilling in our young men the desire for the excellent task (1 Timothy 3:1) and by building "Neighborhood Walmart's" aping big box evangelical churches. 

Setting the hand to the plow and looking back is not a good look. Instead of judging the fruits of the harvest (fruits which are entirely dependent on God), we should judge how we cast the seed. 

Or, as only Dr. Koontz could so concisely package: "If you don't care about the consistency, why do you care about the brand?" (BHoP #347) Our leadership of course reveres the brand. As long as we have the brand we can affirm pronouns and we can violate our doctrinal statements on the roles of men and women. But as we do so, we lack any semblance of consistency.