Mission History

Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church

Most of the mission work in Kenya was conducted by British societies, and the Lutheran churches in Kenya are relatively small. The Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC) formerly known as the Kenya Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT), began in 1956 to care for the large number of ELCT members who migrated to the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa. Later, the work expanded into two rural areas, one of which includes outreach to nomadic Maasai people in the area between Nairobi and the Tanzanian border. Small congregations were established in a Muslim area along the Tana River. The KELC became an independent church in 1992, when it joined the Lutheran World Federation. Today the church has 44,000 members.