LUTHERAN WORLD INFORMATION
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+ Brazilian Theologian Carlos Bock to Head Mission and Development Committee + Indian Pastor Augustine Jeyakumar Joins Communications Committee + Former Slovak Bishop Julius Filo to Head LWF Project Committee
Brazilian Theologian Carlos Bock to Head Mission and Development Committee
At its March 2007 meeting in Lund, Sweden, the Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) elected Dr Carlos Gilberto Bock from the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB) as a Council member, and as chairperson of the Program Committee for Mission and Development. He effectively becomes a member of the LWF Executive Committee, replacing IECLB president, Rev. Dr Walter Altmann, who since February 2006 is moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches.
Bock, 43, is currently advisor to the IECLB president at the church†™s headquarters in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His previous positions included executive secretary of the IECLB development projects unit from 1997 to 1999, and in 1996, advisor to CESE, an ecumenical humanitarian body through which Brazilian churches including the IECLB work with grassroots organizations to overcome social injustice. He was assistant executive secretary of the National Council of Christian Churches in Brazil (CONIC) from 1989 to 1995.
The Mission and Development committee reviews and evaluates the work of the LWF Department for Mission and Development.
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Indian Pastor Augustine Jeyakumar Joins Communications Committee
The LWF Council also elected Rev. A. G. Augustine Jeyakumar, executive secretary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI), as a member of the Program Committee for Communication Services. He replaces Rev. Chandran Paul Martin, former UELCI executive secretary, who in June 2006 took up the position of LWF Deputy General Secretary at the LWF secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland.
A member of the Arcot Lutheran Church, Jeyakumar, 59, has served the Chennai (India)-based UELCI in different capacities for more than three decades. Prior to his March 2006 election as head of the body of Lutheran churches in India, he was executive secretary of the LWF National Committee in India and director of the UELCI Division for Social Action.
The communication committee oversees the work of the LWF Office for Communication Services.
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Former Slovak Bishop Julius Filo to Head LWF Project Committee
The LWF Council elected Bishop emeritus Dr Julius Filo, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Slovak Republic (ECAC-SR), to replace Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd as chairperson of the LWF Project Committee. Wejryd was installed as the head of the Church of Sweden in September 2006.
Filo, ECAC-SR general bishop from 1994 to 2006, was LWF vice president for the Central and Eastern Europe region from 1997 to 2003, and a member of the Councilâs Program Committee for Theology and Studies. He also served as president of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Slovakia. Ordained in 1974, Filo first worked as a chaplain, and later as a lecturer and dean of the Department for Practical Theology at the University of Bratislava. From 1985 to 1990 he was coordinator of a program for youth and students at the LWF secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. Filo, 56, is currently a professor of practical theology at the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Also elected as members of the Project Committee were Rev. Rainer Kiefer from Germany and Mr Robert Granke from Canada. Kiefer, currently a member of the Committee for Church Cooperation in Mission and Service for the LWF German National Committee in Hanover, Germany, replaces Bishop Martin Schindehuette, director of Ecumenical Relations and Ministries Abroad for the Evangelical Church in Germany. Granke, executive director of the Canadian Lutheran World Relief, replaces Ms Ruth E. Jensen.
The Project Committee is accountable to the LWF Council through the Program Committee for Mission and Development. One of its major tasks is to approve projects of the Department for Mission and Development and authorize the department to seek funding. (289 words)
* LWI No. 02/2007, a special issue dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Lutheran World Federation can be accessed online at http://www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OCS/LWI-2007-PDF/LWI-200702-EN-low. pdf
To order printed copies, please contact the LWF Office for Communication Services at: info@lutheranworld.org
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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140 member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total membership of nearly 66.7 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and interfaith 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 the LWFâs 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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