wfn.org | Two ELCA Pastors Named to LWF Positions

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 23, 2000

TWO ELCA PASTORS NAMED TO LWF POSITIONS
00-201-MH*

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Two pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America (ELCA)   the Rev. Karen L. Bloomquist and the Rev. John A.
Evenson   have been appointed to positions with the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF).
     The LWF is a global communion of 131 member churches in 72
countries,  representing 59.5 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 is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
     Evenson, 58, who has worked with the Lutheran Church in Great
Britain as an ELCA pastor serving an English-language Lutheran church
overseas, became director and editor-in-chief of the LWF Office for
Communication Services effective August 1.
     Evenson has worked in print and electronic media for more than 30
years.  He has worked with churches and their related agencies in
Africa, Europe and North America, and has been involved with ecumenical
discussions concerning the Anglican, Congregational, Methodist, Reformed
and Roman Catholic churches.  He also has experience in fund raising,
international affairs, human rights issues and pastoral care.
     Ordained in 1971, Evenson served as pastor of Gustavus Adolphus
Lutheran Church, New York, and as a radio-television producer for the
American Bible Society, New York.  From 1973 to 1984 he was director for
interpretation for the former Lutheran Church in America.
     Evenson is married to Alwina W.M. Coetze.  They are the parents of
two children.
     The LWF appointed Bloomquist director of the LWF Department for
Theology and Studies.
     Bloomquist, 52, has been serving the LWF as a specialist in church
and social ethics questions and as acting director of the LWF Department
for Theology and Studies since August 1999.  For 12 years she had been
the director of studies for the ELCA's Division for Church in Society,
where she helped write several ELCA statements and documents on social
positions.
     Bloomquist also served the ELCA as pastor of Faith American
Lutheran Church, Oakland, Calif., and St. Philip Lutheran Church,
Brooklyn, N.Y.  She was a part-time associate professor of theological
ethics at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, and assistant
professor of church and society at the Lutheran School of Theology at
Chicago (LSTC).  LSTC and Wartburg are ELCA seminaries.
     Bloomquist and her husband, the Rev. William R. Strehlow, are
parents of a son.

     [*Michael N. Hoffman is a senior at the University of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kan.  This summer he was an intern with ELCA News and
Information.]

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