Storylines: "Remembering Today for the Church of Tomorrow"

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This storyline provided an overarching frame for the Remembering Today for the Church of Tomorrow Project. Don Sjoberg experienced the inter-Lutheran efforts towards co-operation and merger from 1954 to 2024 first as a student in Saskatoon, then as a pastor in Edmonton and finally as the first national bishop of the ELCIC, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

Early Diaconal Ministers in Canada served in churches as Parish Workers, Directors of Christian Education, Youth Ministers, Church Secretaries and more. They also served in society in roles such as social workers and therapists, Diaconal Ministers have been engaged in ministry in myriad ways and in 1991 diaconal ministry was officially validated within the ELCIC.   In this picture, Sister Anne Keffer is shown with her Diaconal vestment. In this storyline Anne and other Diaconal Ministers provide insights into the life of Deacons and Deaconesses from earliest foundations in North America to emerging ministries. 

Three Campus Ministers (Stephen Larson, Ken Kuhn and Karen Kuhnert) have Zoom interviewed twenty Campus Ministry leaders who experienced Campus Ministry across Canada in the last seven decades. This storyline includes first hand stories from participants in Campus Ministry, the Lutheran Student Movement (LSM) and Lutheran Students Association (LSA). The stories reach back to the foundations in Lutheran Campus Ministry  with Don Voigts, Paul  Bosch and John Vedell. 

For Lutherans in Canada, much changed after 1976 when congregations in the Eastern, Central and Western synods of the Canada Section of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA-CS) experienced their first ordained women in ministry. In 1980, the ELCC or Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada also began ordaining women. These two groups joined in 1985-1986 to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the ELCIC. In 2011 the ELCIC in convention voted to adopt the ELCIC Human Sexuality Statement and passed motions "paving the way for the ordination and installation of gay and lesbian pastors".

 In this storyline Karen Kuhnert presents Archival resources to better understand the Sexuality debates that reach back in Canadian Lutheran history and continue in 2022. 

Canadian Lutherans have been engaged in "Global" ministry and service in fascinating and changing ways. Read a post-TRC writing to think about this anew...