Almen: ELCA, LCMS must 'work together'

"For the sake of clear Lutheran witness in this land ... [the ELCA and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod] need to work together in as many ways as possible, now and in the years to come,” ELCA Secretary Lowell Almen told delegates of the July 14-19 LCMS convention in Houston.

Both churches “can treasure” their cooperative work through Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Lutheran Services in America and the Inter-Lutheran Coordination Committee for Ministry in Chaplaincy, Pastoral Counseling and Clinical Education, he added.

Delegates elected Gerald B. Kieschnick, 64, to a third three-year term as president of the 2.5 million-member LCMS. In his report he referred to a 35-year membership “slide,” urging members to put aside “complacency and parochialism,” as well as “internal warfare,” and reach out with the gospel to “every community in our land.”