ELCA Affirms Native American Strategic Plan

    PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Voting members at the biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting here Aug. 14-20, ratified a complex set of strategies designed to enhance ministry to and with native peoples.
    The four-step "American Indian/Alaska Native Strategic Plan" is a program designed to develop new congregations serving native peoples, provide theological training for native clergy, provide public policy advocacy and guarantee social ministry resources.
    Drafted in 1996 by a planning group consisting of native members of the ELCA, the strategy includes 30 proposals, including ones to: * develop an American Indian/Alaska Native Advisory Council; * develop a multicultural theological education consultation committee, and make ELCA seminaries aware of American Indian/Alaska Native concerns as they plan and teach; * provide a resource directory listing organizations and individuals committed to advocate for American Indian/Alaska Native people; and * develop a training "resource bank" to serve American Indian/Alaska Native interests within the ELCA.
    Introducing the plan to voters, Ramona Rank, an ELCA Church Council member from Portland, Ore., said, "Native Americans are survivors of the `Great American Holocaust.'  This is our land," she continued.  "Our people have occupied North America for more than 40,000 years.  We dare not let other Americans forget about us now."
    Speaking in support of the proposal, the Rev. Stephen L. Shriner, pastor of Wilderness Lutheran Church on the Mohican Reservation in Bowler, Wis., said, "If any people have a right to hate, it's our people.  But instead they are today asking members of the larger church to come among us and work together with us.
    Wilderness Church has a membership which is 92-percent Native American.
    The vote to approve was virtually unanimous.

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html