Lutherans Break Ground in Baltimore

     BALTIMORE (ELCA) -- About 250 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) gathered in Baltimore's Inner Harbor on July 6 to break ground for a new Lutheran Center.
     Situated on a prime piece of property across from a major Inner Harbor tourist attraction, the five-story building is slated for completion sometime in 1999.  The Lutheran Center will bring together Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Tressler Lutheran Services, the ELCA's Delaware-Maryland Synod and the Eastern Region Office of the LCMS Foundation.
     Lutheran World Relief (LWR) and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), both founded in 1939, are agencies supported by both the ELCA and the LCMS.  LWR serves internationally in community development and emergency relief.  LIRS works primarily at a national level to assist in resettling approximately 10,000 refugees annually in the United States. Both will move their main operations from New York City.
     Tressler Lutheran Services, a social ministry agency serving Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, will base its local operations, including adoption services for children with special needs, at the new center.  The ELCA's Delaware-Maryland Synod, almost 100,000 Lutherans in 195 congregations in the two states, plans to move its main office and congregational resource center there.  The Eastern Region Office of the LCMS Foundation, a development office which works regionally and locally to build philanthropy through estate and gift planning, will also occupy the new center.
     Christ Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation whose facilities will be adjacent to the new center, leased the land for the project at one dollar a year for 50 years.  Pastor John R. Sabatelli emceed the ground-breaking program, which began with a reception in the church.  Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and William Cardinal Keeler, Roman Catholic archbishop of Baltimore, were among those offering greetings.
     Bearing a large torch symbolizing the evening's theme, "A Light on the Harbor: Making a Difference in the City and the World," the Rev. Arthur W. Scherer, president of the LCMS Southeastern District, and the Baltimore Inner City Youth Choir led the way outdoors to the building site.  While banners fluttered in an evening breeze from the harbor, a succession of representatives from the five groups and the Baltimore Development Corporation offered their prayers for the ministries to be housed there and turned a ceremonial shovel of dirt.  Dr. Kathryn Wolford, president of Lutheran World Relief, asked that "all we do in this place will uplift God's holy name" as she hefted a large chunk of the dry earth.
     As the choir and crowd broke into a chorus of "We are Marching in the Light of God," the Rev. George Paul Mocko, bishop of the Delaware-Maryland Synod, took the flaming torch to lead the group across one of the city's main streets and down to the waterfront.  There, surrounded by tourists on a passing water taxi and groups of joggers and dog-walkers, participants lit individual candles from the torch before it was fastened into a rowboat.  As Lutherans sang "This Little Light of Mine," improvising verses for the occasion, the flame passed from candle to candle while the rowboat set out across the harbor.

 * Linda Lovell is synod communicator for the ELCA's Delaware-Maryland
Synod.

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