wfn.org | Economic Globalization and the Church's Healing Ministry Central

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

Issues at LWF Latin American and Caribbean Pre-Assembly
Churches Have Strong Ecumenical Involvement in the Region

GENEVA, 4 April 2003 (LWI) * Questions about economic
globalization and the church's healing ministry especially in
relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic will be central issues at the
Latin America and Caribbean region preparatory meeting for the
forthcoming Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Tenth Assembly.

The April 6-9 Latin America and Caribbean Pre-Assembly
Consultation (PAC) in San Salvador, El Salvador, will bring
together 51 participants including 31 of the 33 assembly delegates
from region who will be attending the 21-31 July 2003 Assembly in
Winnipeg, Canada.

The president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession
in Brazil, Rev. Dr Walter Altmann, will deliver a key-note address
which will introduce the assembly theme, "For the Healing of the
World." The specific situation of the host church * the Salvadoran
Lutheran Synod (SLS) - and of the region will be discussed in
greater detail by Dr Angel Ibarra from the ecological association
Unidad Ecologica Salvadorena (UNES), in a presentation of social
and church trends and prospects in El Salvador and Central
America.

"The Lutheran churches in Latin America and the Caribbean are very
well prepared for the issue of 'economic globalization' because of
their strong ecumenical involvement in the region," emphasized
Rev. Martin Junge, the Area Secretary for Latin Americ and the
Caribbean, LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD). "With
their decisive experiences from the region," Junge stated, "they
will make an important contribution to the content of the LWF
Assembly in Winnipeg."

The preparatory consultation will be preceded by a meeting of the
Conference of Bishops and Presidents of the Lutheran Churches in
Latin America (COP), and by an LWF women's consultation on April
5.

The aim of the preparatory consultation is to prepare the
delegates both for the content and the practical aspects of the
work during the LWF Assembly. Planning Bible studies from the
region and defining regional perspectives for the thematic work in
the ten so-called "Village Groups," which will discuss the
Assembly theme will be important emphases during the consultation.

The LWF Latin America and Caribbean region comprises 15 member
churches * 13 of them in Latin America and two in the Caribbean *
with about 850,000 members. In addition, there are nine LWF
recognized congregations. Each church has a unique background,
some founded in the 18th century by immigrants mainly from Europe,
and others by missionaries from the USA and Europe. Some of the
churches have local roots.

The PAC in San Salvador is the last in a series of five such
regional preparatory meetings. The first was the North American
consultation, January 23-26 in Denver, Colorado, USA; followed by
Europe, February 23-26 in Vienna, Austria; Asia, March 2-6 in
Medan, Indonesia; and Africa, March 23-26 in Nairobi, Kenya. An
international Women's Pre-Assembly Gathering was held in Montreux,
Switzerland, 14-17 November 2002. The last of the preparatory
conferences will be a global youth conference in July 2003 at
Guelph, near Toronto in Canada.

About 1,000 participants are expected at the Assembly, including
436 delegates from the 136 LWF member churches. The Assembly is
the LWF's highest decision-making body, meeting normally every six
years.

The SLS, with headquarters, in San Salvador has about 12,000
membersand has been an LWF since 1986. Of the approximately 6.15
million inhabitants of El Salvador, about 92 percent belong to the
Roman Catholic Church while eight percent are Protestants.

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 136 member churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human
rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and
development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva,
Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is LWF's information service.
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.]

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