wfn.org | ELCA Council Authorizes Church's Spending (And Other Items)

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 16, 2000

ELCA COUNCIL AUTHORIZES CHURCH'S SPENDING (AND OTHER ITEMS)
00-281-MR

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) approved a spending authorization of
$83,490,000 for the ELCA in 2001.  The council approved the 2001 ELCA
World Hunger spending authorization of $14,500,000, and it acted on
other items.
     The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves
as the legislative authority of the church between its churchwide
assemblies.  The council met here Nov. 10-13.  Assemblies are held
every other year; the next is Aug. 8-14, 2001, in Indianapolis.
     The council approved the transfer of $75,000 from the ELCA's
Division for Global Mission (DGM) Mission Fund to the Churchwide
Archives for a third phase of the Mission History and Research
Project.  The project is designed to identify, collect, preserve and
interpret documentation of the global mission history of the ELCA and
its predecessor church bodies.  The third phase of the project will
include the processing of records of women's missionary societies and
the transcription of oral history tapes of the former American
Lutheran Church's women missionaries.  Both of these activities are
related to DGM's commitment "to women by reclaiming significant
voices in Lutheran mission history that have long been ignored."
     In other business, the council approved:
     + the establishment of a designated fund "to be invested as
funds functioning as endowment" for the ELCA Wittenberg Center,
Wittenberg, Germany.  The council requested that the fund be
established through a transfer of $50,000 from the ELCA's World
Mission Education Fund;
     + the Rite for Ordination; the Rite for Installation at
Ordination; and the Rite for Invitation to Extended Service for
general use in the ELCA;
     + the "Criteria and Procedures for Affiliation of ELCA-
Affiliated Schools," as requested by the ELCA Division for Higher
Education and Schools (DHES) board.  Affiliation is the means by
which DHES establishes and maintains a relationship with schools
owned and operated by an association consisting of one or more ELCA
congregations, congregations of other Lutheran church bodies and/or
those church bodies with whom [the ELCA] is currently in full
communion;
     + the policy document of Augsburg Fortress Publishers (AFP)
"related to appointment and operation" of an acquisition committee.
AFP is the publishing house of the ELCA based in Minneapolis.  The
policy is related to AFP's strategic plan.
     + "Breaking the Silence: No Violence Against Women and Children
in the Church," a message that calls upon the Lutheran World
Federation (LWF) and its members churches to use its skills and
resources to address the "disaster of violence" against women and
girls.  The message was developed by participants of "Breaking the
Silence," a conference hosted by the ELCA Commission for Women on
Sept. 14-22, 2000, in Techny, Ill.  LWF is a global communion of 131
churches representing 59.5 million Lutherans, including the ELCA.
The message was forwarded to the council by the ELCA Commission for
Women.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html