On 1 January 1986 the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada (ELCC) and the Lutheran Church in America-Canada Section (LCA-CS) merged to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC). 

The merger process began in the early 1970s with three major bodies participating: ELCC, LCA-CS and Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in Canada (now Lutheran Church-Canada, LCC). 

In the late 1970s the LCC withdrew but the ELCC and the LCA-CS set 1985 as the target date for their merger. 

The national office of the church is in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is in the centre of the country, east to west. Many of the members of this church are of Scandinavian and German ethnic origin, though many other backgrounds are also represented. 

While English is the major language of worship, German continues to be significant, and the ELCIC also worships in at least 15 other languages each Sunday, reflecting the cultural mosaic of Canada. In the earlier years and up to the decade after the second world war, the church not only provided a meaningful cultural link for immigrants but also assisted in the integration of immigrants into the Canadian mosaic.

Though small numerically, the church has contributed significantly to the development of Canadian society, especially through its colleges and schools, thousands of whose graduates have gone into the mainstream of Canadian society and continue to bring leadership with a Christian perspective into the various facets of Canadian culture - in the sciences, politics, medicine, business and educational fields. The ELCIC operates two seminaries, Waterloo Lutheran Seminary in Waterloo, Ontario, and Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In addition, the Bible schools have contributed a significant number of missionaries who have taken their skills to various parts of the globe to share the gospel and aid in development.

The ELCIC is a member of KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, which includes 10 other Canadian church bodies. Through KAIROS, together with the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the United Church of Canada, and other members, the ELCIC works in such areas as aboriginal rights, corporate issues, ecology, global justice, human rights, and refugee and migrant issues. The ELCIC is also a supporting member of Project Ploughshares, an ecumenical peace centre of the Canadian Council of Churches. Through such involvements, there is a growing sensitization of the ELCIC membership in matters of social justice in Canada and around the world. There is strong support for the international development and relief work of Canadian Lutheran World Relief, in partnership with the Global Hunger and Development Appeal of the ELCIC, and the Lutheran World Federation. In 2003 the ELCIC hosted the LWF tenth assembly in Winnipeg.

Believing that theology must undergird all aspects of its life and mission, the church is working with all its members towards a greater awareness of the relation of theology to personal, corporate and community life.

Since 2001 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is in full communion with the Anglican Church of Canada. In 2006 the ELCIC and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland signed an agreement which will allow for pastors and deacons from either church to exercise their calling in either country.

Commitment to Global Ecumenism 

From the beginning, the LWF has seen itself as related to the ecumenical movement. All steps it takes in the direction of its own unity and coherence also are seen as contributions to the unity of the one, universal church of Christ. And the ecumenical movement remains, at this present time in history, a deeply significant healing process. Bilateral relations between the Christian world communions are a vital part of the ecumenical movement. They require appropriate instruments of accountability, providing a basis for trusted global relations. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, 4  signed and celebrated in 1999, represents a major bilateral achievement at the international level. It could not have been achieved without the instrumentality of the LWF. The international dialogue commissions with the Orthodox churches and Ro  man Catholic Church continue their solid work. Conversations between the LWF and Seventh-day Adventists have been carried out and the report and recommendations from this process are being studied by the member churches. Two international working groups—with the Anglican Communion, and World Alliance of Reformed Churches—have submitted their reports. The LWF Council has received these reports and upon its request, they have been sent to the member churches for study and response. I strongly urge that providing such responses be given high priority. In the ecumenical area, there continues to be substantial reciprocal interaction between national and regional developments on the one hand and the international dialogues on the other. I commend the agreements of church fellowship negotiated and entered into at the national and regional level by LWF member churches since the Ninth Assembly with churches of the Anglican, Methodist, Moravian and Reformed traditions. The vast majority of all bilateral communion agreements that have been established around the world involve Lutheran churches. Such developments contribute in a real way to the visible unity of the church. But in the period before us, we must make strong new efforts to ensure that these developments also take place to a greater degree in the southern hemisphere. Bilateral dialogues and relations are not, however, the only instruments of ecumenism. The ecumenical commitment of the LWF is also, by its nature, multilateral. The WCC was deliberately formed as a fellowship of individual churches, without a specific role for the Christian world communions (CWCs) such as the LWF. However, in light of the increasing ecumenical importance of CWCs, it was significant that the 1998 WCC Eighth Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, adopted a resolution calling for closer cooperation between the WCC and CWCs. This resolution has been followed up by the LWF Council and WCC Central Committee. We must explore how our practical cooperation with the WCC might grow and  develop further. Our common emergency agency, Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, is one example of good cooperation. The news agency ENI, mentioned above, is another. The WCC provides a unique framework for deliberation on fundamental ecumenical issues. The LWF and its member churches should play an active and supportive part in the current discussions on the nature and purpose of the WCC and the need for new configurations in the ecumenical movement in future. Some form of representation in the WCC of CWCs as communions will be important for continued development of the ecumenical movement. The Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions (CS/CWCs) is an important forum that also contributes to this discussion.