wfn.org | News in brief

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

 ... LWI to become monthly on trial basis. The Lutheran World Federation
(LWF) Council accepted a proposal from the Program Committee for
Communication Services that starting in January 1999 Lutheran World
Information (lwi) would be issued monthly rather than every two weeks. This
would be done on a trial basis for one year, with the intent of producing
the same number of total pages as now, but halving the mailing frequency.
The savings in postal costs would be used to increase the use of FAX, e-mail and on-line news services for breaking news stories. The council also
adopted a resolution urging the LWF to expand its presence on the World
Wide Web "as actively as possible."

 ... Priorities discussed. The LWF Council in plenary and in committees
discussed priorities for the coming years and an assessment of the staff
work load. The council reacted to a preliminary proposal by Geneva staff,
but after a lengthy discussion on the final day of the meeting was unable
to come to any conclusions. It asked staff to come back next year with a
final proposal. Much of the plenary discussion dealt with the inclusion of
the word "mission" instead of "holistic ministries" as one of the aims of
the LWF.

 ... New staff appointed. Meeting a day before the council, the LWF
Executive Committee appointed two persons to the Geneva staff. Priscilla
Singh of India was appointed for four years as secretary for women in
church and society in the LWF Department for Mission and Development.
Singh, 45, has been secretary of the women's desk for the United
Evangelical Lutheran Church in India since 1992. ... Pauline Munene of
Kenya was appointed to a four-year term as assistant editor-information
(English) in the LWF Office for Communication Services. Munene, 35, has
served as assistant editor and then editor of the ecumenical All Africa
Press Service in Nairobi from 1992-1997. She is an Anglican.

 ... Vilmos Vajta celebrates 80th birthday. Dr. Vilmos Vajta, who was the
first director of the LWF Department of Theology and later a research
professor at the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Strasbourg, France,
celebrated his 80th birthday anniversary June 15. Perhaps his most famous
book is "Luther on Worship." A multilingual ecumenical scholar who spent
much of his career outside his native Hungary, Vajta has written
theological works in German, English, Swedish, Hungarian and French. He
served as LWF theology director from 1952-1963 and was on the staff of the
Strasbourg Institute from 1963 until his retirement in 1981. He currently
lives in Sweden. His 80th birthday will be honored by a volume of 16
theological essays and studies to be published in Hungarian by the European
Hungarian Protestant Academy in Bern, Switzerland, with the title "As we
have opportunity" [English translation].

 ... Celebration in Jerusalem will mark new millennium. Church leaders in
Jerusalem are planning an ecumenical celebration 4 December 1999 to mark
the new millennium. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan Bishop Munib
Younan said the service planned for Manger Square and the Church of
Nativity in Bethlehem will be the first time the church leaders have
entered together the church built on the spot where Jesus was born.
Legislation passed in 1852 has to date limited the space that Greek
Orthodox, Catholics and Armenian Orthodox can use for worship in the Church
of the Nativity. Younan, whose church includes Lutherans in Israel,
Palestine and Jerusalem, told fellow LWF Council members he hoped this
celebration would impact positively the "protocol of the status quo
followed in Jerusalem." The Bethlehem service will be the first of several
commemorations, which will conclude on Easter Sunday in 2001. In that year
both Eastern and Western Christianity celebrate Easter on the same date.

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Lutheran World Information
Editorial Assistant: Janet Bond-Nash
E-mail: jbn@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/