ELCA NEWS SERVICE
July 26, 2010

ELCA Members Elected to Lutheran World Federation's Council
10-209-MRC

     STUTTGART, Germany (ELCA) -- Four members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were elected to the 48-member council of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) July 24 at the LWF Assembly here.
     The LWF Assembly, the organization's highest legislative body, is meeting here July 20-27 under the theme "Give Us Today Our Daily Bread." The LWF is 140 member churches in 79 countries, representing more than 70 million Christians worldwide.
     Elected to the council are the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop; Christina Jackson-Skelton, ELCA treasurer; Mikka McCracken, an ELCA youth delegate at the assembly; and the Rev. Robin Joy Steinke, dean of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa. Hanson, Jackson-Skelton and McCracken are based in Chicago.
     The council serves as the LWF's governing body between assemblies, meeting once every 12 to 18 months. It consists of the LWF president, treasurer and 48 individuals elected by the assembly.
     The council considers the LWF's work on ministry of care, world service, ecumenical dialogues, interfaith relationships and theology, and it addresses concerns around the world. An executive committee meets between meetings of the council.
     The assembly also elected as LWF president the Rev. Munib A. Younan, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. Younan succeeds Hanson, who has been president of the LWF since its 2003 assembly in Winnipeg, Canada.
     According to a Lutheran World Information news release, the Rev. Donald J. McCoid, an advisor to the LWF and executive for ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations, Chicago, said that with diversity of opinions on moral and ethical decisions, and maintaining unity within the LWF communion of churches, the LWF council will tend to relationships as well as issues. Priorities include global warming, gender justice, peace, hunger, poverty, malaria and HIV and AIDS, illegitimate debt, disaster response and more.
     All who were elected and present for the assembly will attend their first council meeting at the conclusion of the assembly July 27.
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     Information about the LWF assembly is at http://www.lwf-assembly.org on the Web.
     Follow news and commentary about the LWF assembly at http://sites.google.com/site/communiogarden/ and http://sites.google.com/site/communiogarden and http://www.facebook.com/pages/Communio-Garden-EN/142406455776020 on the Web.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
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