CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved a spending authorization of $83,490,000 for the ELCA in 2001. The council approved the 2001 ELCA World Hunger spending authorization of $14,500,000, and it acted on other items.
The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between its churchwide assemblies. The council met here Nov. 10-13. Assemblies are held every other year; the next is Aug. 8-14, 2001, in Indianapolis.
The council approved the transfer of $75,000 from the ELCA's Division for Global Mission (DGM) Mission Fund to the Churchwide Archives for a third phase of the Mission History and Research Project. The project is designed to identify, collect, preserve and interpret documentation of the global mission history of the ELCA and its predecessor church bodies. The third phase of the project will include the processing of records of women's missionary societies and the transcription of oral history tapes of the former American Lutheran Church's women missionaries. Both of these activities are related to DGM's commitment "to women by reclaiming significant voices in Lutheran mission history that have long been ignored."
In other business, the council approved:
+ the establishment of a designated fund "to be invested as funds functioning as endowment" for the ELCA Wittenberg Center, Wittenberg, Germany. The council requested that the fund be established through a transfer of $50,000 from the ELCA's World Mission Education Fund;
+ the Rite for Ordination; the Rite for Installation at Ordination; and the Rite for Invitation to Extended Service for general use in the ELCA;
+ the "Criteria and Procedures for Affiliation of ELCA- Affiliated Schools," as requested by the ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools (DHES) board. Affiliation is the means by which DHES establishes and maintains a relationship with schools owned and operated by an association consisting of one or more ELCA congregations, congregations of other Lutheran church bodies and/or those church bodies with whom [the ELCA] is currently in full communion;
+ the policy document of Augsburg Fortress Publishers (AFP) "related to appointment and operation" of an acquisition committee. AFP is the publishing house of the ELCA based in Minneapolis. The policy is related to AFP's strategic plan.
+ "Breaking the Silence: No Violence Against Women and Children in the Church," a message that calls upon the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and its members churches to use its skills and resources to address the "disaster of violence" against women and girls. The message was developed by participants of "Breaking the Silence," a conference hosted by the ELCA Commission for Women on Sept. 14-22, 2000, in Techny, Ill. LWF is a global communion of 131 churches representing 59.5 million Lutherans, including the ELCA. The message was forwarded to the council by the ELCA Commission for Women.
Documents from the Church Council meeting are available at http://www.elca.org/os/churchcouncil/actions.html on the ELCA Web site.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
For information contact:
Candice Hill Buchbinder
Public Relations Manager
Candice.HillBuchbinder@ELCA.org
