Lutheran World Agencies Celebrated
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- The Lutheran World Federation's birthday party came to the village square constructed at the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The assembly met here Aug. 14-20. The LWF, founded just after World War II to help bind up the...
ELCA Seeks to Increase Representation of Youth and Persons With Disabilitie
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Youth, young adults and persons with disabilities may have greater representation in the business of the church as a result of actions taken by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's fifth biennial assembly meeting here Aug. 14-20. The actions were the result of a number of proposals...
ELCA Endorses Job Protection for Gays, Lesbians; Acts on a Variety of Propo
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) The Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America expressed support Wednesday, its closing day, for legislation that would make it illegal for employers to discriminate against gay and lesbian persons on the basis of their sexual orientation. The assembly met here Aug. 14-20. The resolution expressing...
It Took A Village to Show the Breadth of the ELCA
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Like any tourist town, foot traffic in the "Heritage and Hope Village" ebbed and flowed. Sometimes only the residents could be found at each business, home, church or service setting. At other times, getting across the center of town became as difficult as sale day at any...
Kathy Magnus Receives Special Recognition
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Kathy J. Magnus, outgoing vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was honored with a special award at the fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly held Aug. 14-20 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. For her six years of service, Magnus received the ELCA Servus Dei Medal from...
Lutherans Support Ban On Land Mines
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will join forces with others around the world calling for the elimination of land mines, based on action taken at the fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly being held here Aug. 14-20. More than 800 voting members of the ELCA elected to support...
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...
Report About ELCA Policy on Ordained Gay and Lesbian Members Due in 1999
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- A "status report" on conversations in church policy and practice on the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian individuals of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is due by its next churchwide assembly. More than 1,000 voting members of the ELCA, gathered here Aug. 14-20 for the...
ELCA Marks 90 Years of Lutheran Campus Ministry
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) Going to college for 90 percent of youth from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America means going to a non-ELCA college or university. But it need not mean losing contact with their church. Nearly all ELCA college students today have a Lutheran Campus Ministry available to them. The...
Kanyoro to Assembly: "We Always Live in Tension Between Opinions"
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Promising to overlook everyone's "funny accent," Dr. Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro discussed how people in the Church handle difference in a Bible study presentation Monday. Her presentation received a standing ovation during the fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America meeting here Aug....
Lutheran Statement on Baptism and Holy Communion Passes Overwhelmingly
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Churchwide Assembly overwhelmingly approved "The Use of the Means of Grace: A Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament," a statement on sacramental practices. The church's fifth biennial assembly is meeting here Aug. 14-20. The Rev. Karen...
ELCA Assembly Rebuffs Attempts to Limit Abortion Coverage
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- The Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting here Aug. 14-20, has overwhelmingly rebuffed efforts to prevent its medical benefits plan from paying for induced abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, severe fetal abnormalities or a threat to the life or health of...
Goal of Consensus Amid Controversy No Different Today Than in Early Church
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) "The more things change, the more they stay the same," the Rev. James Kenneth Echols told to voting members and visitors to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly meeting Aug. 14-20 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Echols delivered the third in a series of...
ELCA Elects Members to Church Council, Boards
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly meeting here Aug. 14-20 elected pastors and lay persons to serve on the Church Council and the boards of various church units. The Church Council sets policy for the 5.2 million member denomination between...
Lutherans Challenged to Fill the Gap of Welfare Reform
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) There are 34 million women and children living in poverty in the United States today. The fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America meeting here Aug. 14-20 in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, was challenged to "end the systemic roots of poverty" by Tina Dabney,...
Financial Picture Brightens for ELCA
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- After nearly a decade of budget cuts and belt-tightening, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States and Caribbean appears to have achieved fiscal stability. Voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting here Aug. 14-20 in the ELCA's fifth biennial Churchwide Assembly, were told...
New Lutheran Church Gratefully Receives Stained Glass Window
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Because he loves the church, Dennis Roberts, a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod layman, has donated his time and $25,000 worth of materials for an unusual stained glass window. It's been assembled this week by more than 1,000 voting members and visitors to the biennial Churchwide Assembly of the...
ELCA Churchwide Secretary Recounts Denomination's Short History
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- "We walk in the footsteps of giants," the secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America told voting members meeting in Churchwide Assembly here Aug. 14-20. Reporting to more than 1,000 fellow Lutherans, the Rev. Lowell G. Almen reflected the ELCA's biennial assembly theme, "Making Christ Known:...
Lutherans Are "In the City for Good"
PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Building upon nearly 300 years of ministry and service in America's cities, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has declared a decade-long, $5-million effort to help urban congregations transform the lives of their members and their communities. "Christ calls the Church to be in the city for...
ELCA Takes Step to Seek Agreement with Roman Catholics on Key Reformation D
LUTHERAN ASSEMBLY TAKES STEP TO SEEK AGREEMENT WITH ROMAN CATHOLICS ON KEY REFORMATION DOCTRINE The Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America today voted 958-25 to approve a "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification," a statement resulting from years of Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogues aimed at healing a...
