wfn.org | Lutheran Student Movement Votes to Align Itself with the ELCA

[<NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

Title: Lutheran Student Movement Votes to Align Itself with the ELCA
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>January 22, 2009  

Lutheran Student Movement Votes to Align Itself with the ELCA
09-023-FI

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lutheran Student Movement (LSM-USA)
aligned itself more closely with the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America (ELCA) in one of several resolutions adopted here at
its annual gathering Dec. 31-Jan. 4.  Fifty colleges and
universities sent 147 students who re-elected Craig Talmage as
president.

"We've been losing numbers to these events," Talmage said.
One goal for his new term as president will be to determine "how
we can get college students to gather differently than we've been
doing," he said.  "We really want to connect people."

Talmage was first elected LSM-USA president as a senior at
the University of Arizona, Tucson.  He's now enrolled in the
Master of Arts program for Industrial/Organizational Psychology
and active in The Crossroads, the Lutheran campus ministry at
Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minn.

"We've partnered with Lutheran Disaster Response to provide
alternative spring break experiences," Talmage said.  More than
300 students from 22 colleges and universities have already
signed up to participate in "Breaking Out 2009."  Talmage pointed
out that more students will be involved in the "service-learning
experience" than attended the national gathering.

A "resolution on the history of Lutheran students, Lutheran
church bodies and Lutheran unity in the United States of America"
chronicled LSM-USA from its origins in 1922 as the Lutheran
Student Association of America.  The organization has a history
of welcoming college and university students of all Lutheran
church bodies, and of promoting cooperation among the churches in
campus ministry.

In 1988 three Lutheran church bodies merged to form the
ELCA, the largest Lutheran church body in the United States.  The
second largest, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, had formed
its own student organization, Lutheran Student Fellowship.  The
third largest, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod,
maintained its own campus ministries.

"The ELCA began funding LSM-USA as if it were a program in
its Division for Education," the resolution stated.  "Though
funded as a program of the ELCA, both the ELCA and LSM-USA have
never affirmed a formal relationship."

The LSM-USA assembly adopted the resolution to "establish a
formal and clearly defined relationship with the ELCA asking of
the ELCA to in kind do the same through whatever means possible
to preserve LSM-USA's present student-led, Christ-driven
structure."

The student organization will continue to "promote Lutheran
unity outside of these institutional boundaries," Talmage said.
It plans to do that by building stronger relationships through
Lutheran Disaster Response and other cooperative social
ministries, and by coordinating activities with Lutheran Student
Fellowship and other Lutheran campus ministries, he said.

Another resolution authorized the position of Advocate for
Diversity and Service-Learning to establish and maintain the
organization's "ties to national, international and multicultural
students at local, regional and national levels."  The assembly
elected Olivia-Beth Horak, University of Texas, Austin, to serve
in that position.

LSM-USA elected Mike Yeutter, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, to a one-year term as vice president.
-- -- --

The home page of the Lutheran Student Movement is at
http://www.lsm-usa.org/ on the Web.

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog