At the 10:30 service on November 16, 2008, St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church installed James Skorzewski as the pastor of our new daughter congregation named “The CORE.” According to the bulletin, “Christ is at the core of everything we do as a church . . .” CORE is also an acronym that stands for Connecting, Overhauling, Reconciled, and Engaged.
The CORE will not identify itself as a WELS congregation, and might not identify itself as Lutheran. However, the CORE’s new logo does incorporate a cross.
The service was held in our grade school gymnasium and was well attended. Most of the pastors presiding and attending were wearing jeans and silk shirts, and the Milwaukee band Koine played during the service.
The entire musical selection was taken from the WELS hymnal, Christian Worship. The members of Koine are musically talented, and it was refreshing to be able to sing doctrinally solid hymns from our own hymnal.
As part of his installation, Pastor Skorzewski made this vow:
—Do you believe that the Unaltered Augsburg Confession is a true exposition of the Word of God and a correct presentation of the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and that the other Confessions in the Book of Concord are also in agreement with this one Scriptural faith? If so, answer “I do.”
— I do.
—Do you solemnly promise that all your teaching and your administration of the sacraments will conform to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions? If so, once again answer “I do.”
— I do.
St. Peter Church is not supporting the CORE financially. Anonymous WELS members are paying for this effort. Also, Pastor Skorzewski along with Pastor Ash are on the Board of Directors of an organization called Church and Change.
Light from Light 
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11/17/08 update:
— The other blogger has added quotation marks.
Did they say the reason why The CORE will not be identifying with WELS and possibly not the name Lutheran?
This makes me quite uncomfortable.
Dianne,
They won’t identify with the WELS in their advertisements, but they will in fact be a WELS congregation. Their WELS affiliation just won’t be readily apparent.
Thank-you Rick. But my question is WHY? The COP issued a statement in April, 2008 about using the words Evangelical and Lutheran and gave 3 reasons why to use Evangelical and Lutheran in the names of newly forming congregations within WELS. So my question is why, especially knowing the COP issued that resolution earlier this year. I am not a person that was raised in the Lutheran Church. I was confirmed as an adult so this is very confusing to me.
Dianne,
Thanks for the good question and the information. When this issue came before the voters, I was not in support of this proposal, so I am probably not the best person to answer your question. I believe there is a plan to produce a video explaining “the why and basics of this new church” that will be made available to other WELS congregations. Hopefully, this video will be available in the near future.