INDIANAPOLIS (ELCA) -- Christians have much to learn from past generations and from each other, said the Rev. Lowell G. Almen, secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Almen delivered his report Aug. 10 to the 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 8-14 at the Indiana Convention Center. There are more than 2,000 people participating, including 1,040 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "Making Christ Known: Sharing Faith in a New Century."
"What song of faith will our children sing? What hymn of the church will flow from their hearts? What chorale of the ages will cascade from their lips?" Almen said.
Part of Almen's responsibility as secretary is oversight of the church's archives. Those documents remind Lutherans of their legacy, he said. "They reveal the grand ways in which our forebears sang the song of faith," Almen said.
He recalled lessons learned from the pastor of his childhood church, the now-closed St. Peter Lutheran Church in North Dakota. The pastor, the Rev. Peder Olsen Laurhammer, constantly reminded parishioners of connections to the wider church, Almen said. "The church was not only our own congregation. But the church was our congregation in relation to all others who confessed the name of Jesus," he said. "We understood that we were not some isolated congregation."
Laurhammer was a representative at the 1952 assembly of the Lutheran World Federation and served as secretary of the Lutheran Free Church throughout the 1920s.
The church needs renewed outreach in a highly privatized and secularized society, Almen said. Congregations must remember the faith of their ancestors and look to those examples. The "song of faith" is different throughout generations, Almen said, but "if we are faithful in our time, future generations may remember us." -- -- --
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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.
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