wfn.org | Tenth LWF Assembly will take place in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2003

[FRANK.IMHOFF@ecunet.org]

LWF COUNCIL MEETING, TURKU, FINLAND, 14-21 JUNE 2000
PRESS RELEASE NO. 12

TURKU, Finland/GENEVA, 19 June 2000 (LWI) - The Tenth Assembly of the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will take place in Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada, in 2003. The host church is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Canada (ELCIC).

The governing body of the LWF took this decision on 19 June 2000
following a near-unanimous secret ballot vote, of which the choice was
between the ELCIC and the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Germany. For the venue, the ballot was 34 for, five against and three
abstention. For the timing, there were 29 votes for, four against and
nine abstentions respectively for the choice between 2003 and 2004.

This is the second time that a meeting of the highest decision-making
body of the LWF will be taking place in North America. Previous
assemblies have been held as follows: at the founding of the Federation
in Lund, Sweden (1947); Hanover Germany (1952); Minneapolis, USA (1957);
Helsinki, Finland (1963); Evian, France (1970); Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania
(1977); Budapest, Hungary (1984); Curitiba, Brazil (1990); and Hong
Kong, China (1997).

Accepting the responsibility placed upon the Canadian church by the
governing body of the LWF, the presiding bishop of the ELCIC, Telmor
Sartison, expressed gratitude for the choice taken. He invoked the
blessing in Eph. 3: 20-21: "Now to him who by the power at work within
us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to
him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for
ever and ever. Amen."

Various questions regarding the hosting of an LWF assembly were raised
and responded to during plenary discussions preceding the council
decision. These revolved around the spiritual reason behind a member
church's invitation to host such a meeting; the financial and human
resources implications; the regional balance portrayed by the venue in
view of the universality of the Federation; the size of the inviting
church; and the possibility of coordinating future assemblies with the
World Council of Churches (WCC), other world Christian communions such
as and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) as well as
regionally with the Conference of European Churches or other regional
ecumenical organizations.

According to the Constitution of the LWF (Article VII. 2.): "The
Assembly shall normally be held every six years with the time, place and
program to be determined by the Council."
Amendments to this Constitution may be made by votes cast at any
ordinary Assembly." (Article XIV. Amendments and Bylaws 1.)

The ELCIC has about 200,000 members, representing less than one percent
of Canada's 32 million people. Fifty percent of Canadians are Roman
Catholics, followed by the United Church of Christ comprising
Presbyterians and Methodists, then Anglicans in that order. The other
LWF member churches in North America include the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America with some 5.2 million people; while the Estonian
Evangelical Lutheran Abroad, Canada, and the Lithuanian Evangelical
Lutheran Church in the Diaspora (USA), have a total membership of
17,000.

During a plenary presentation by an ELCIC team prior to the vote on this
major event on the calendar of the LWF, which included Mr. Robert
Granke, the secretary of the ELCIC, Sartison likened the hosting of an
LWF Assembly to "coming home.  The most humbling implication of such a
choice by the Council being that the LWF member churches would be coming
to our home. That means a lot to me, to us."

In an interview with LWI shortly after the Council's decision, Sartison
said: "One of the blessings of having a home is that guests are
welcomed, entertained and blessed. In turn the host is blessed by the
visitors and both the invitee and invited learn a lot from making
contact."

Sartison told LWI that the size of the church is not in any way an
impediment when it comes to carrying out the responsibilities of
organizing a meeting as large as that of the highest decision-making
body of the LWF. The Ninth Assembly, which took place in Hong Kong,
China in July 1997 brought together more than 1,000 participants, among
them representatives of each of the 122 member churches at that time,
ecumenical guests and observers, local and international journalists.

That all the member churches of the LWF, (presently 128) will be coming
to Canada is a great opportunity for the host church as well as for the
guest member churches. "Our people are going to be blessed by seeing and
knowing people from different cultures. A forum such as the assembly
helps all churches to have a better realization that Christ embodies a
larger and more universal outlook than our horizons," Sartison, who is a
member of the LWF Program Committee for Communication Services noted.

During a press conference, the ELCIC bishop spoke of the very positive
ecumenical working relations in Canada. He said that apart from the
church's own congregations other Christians were eager to know if the
ELCIC would host the 10th Assembly of the LWF. This is not the first
time that the church in Canada has made an invitation to host a meeting
of the Federation's highest decision-making body. A similar proposal had
been extended for the Ninth Assembly, for which the choice went to the
member churches in Hong Kong.

Sartison said such a large meeting is an opportunity also for the host
church to know itself better. The various synods and congregations work
together to prepare for such an event, and inevitably they also involve
other Christian churches, which according to the Lutheran bishop is a
tremendous way of learning.

The ELCIC came into being in 1986 through the merger of two predecessor
bodies. It is composed of five synods namely British Columbia, Alberta
and the Territories, Saskatchewan, Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario and the
Eastern Synod. The presiding officer and chief pastor of each synod is a
bishop. The church with five bishops and one presiding bishop has its
headquarters in Winnipeg.

In addition to membership in the LWF, the ELCIC is a member of the WCC.
The Canadian church is currently in a process of moving toward full
communion with the Anglican Church of Canada under the auspices of the
Waterloo Declaration. In some communities ELCIC members share facilities
and even clergy with Christians of other denominations particularly from
the Anglican, Presbyterian and United Churches of Canada. The majority
of Lutherans in Canada who are not ELCIC members belong to the (Missouri
Synod) Lutheran Church   Canada (LCC). Both Lutheran churches
collaborate in their common work through the Canadian Lutheran World
Relief (CLWR).

(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing 59 million of the world's 63 million Lutherans. Its highest
decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven years.
Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council which
meets annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF secretariat is
located in Geneva, Switzerland.) 

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the information service of the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Unless specifically noted, material
presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its
various units. Where the dateline of an article contains the notation
(LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

*       *       *
Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/