Unanimous Vote to Leave the ELCA

12/11/2015

Bethel Lutheran Church is a rural congregation a few miles west of Scarville, Iowa. It is in an area of North Iowa that the locals know as Vinje. A place that is too small to be considered a town but everyone treats it like one anyway. Vinje is a quaint little place (see here) comprised of Bethel Lutheran Church, a cemetery, a few houses and well-frequented restaurant/bar where people gather to shoot the breeze and play summer league volleyball.

On September 29, 2015, Bethel Lutheran Church made this announcement of Facebook:

“The vote on Sunday passed unanimously (as it did the first time in January too) to sever Bethel Lutheran Church's association with the ELCA. This decision is based on multiple reasons including financial and scriptural just to name a few. Bethel also voted on Sunday to affiliate with the LCMC which is Lutheran Congregations In Mission For Christ. We will continue to seek another parish to work with on funding a full-time minister position, and keep moving forward! Onward and upward with the support of the congregation members, their friends and family, and the community! Blessings to all!
Oh - and don't forget - church on Sunday at 10 am. Certainly Pastor will have an inspiring sermon. He always does :)” (see here)

Bethel Lutheran Church joins the growing list of 57+ LCMC churches in Iowa. I praise God for the faithful and God-honoring decision the people of Bethel made. Please join me in prayer for the congregation as they seek to proclaim Christ in Vinje and beyond.

2 Comments

Didaskalos link

12/12/2015 07:37:49 pm

From 5.2 million members in 1987 to 3.765 million in 2014: the “fruit” of the ELCA’s heresies and apostasies.

Confessional Lutherans around the world are noting the ELCA's abandonment of the Bible, and they're also taking "no part in the unfruitful works of darkness."

". . . many of the largest and fastest-growing Lutheran church bodies in the world” have cut “historic ties” to ELCA” in favor of LCMS. These include Ethiopia’s six [now seven] million Lutherans, “nearly as many as all American Lutheran church bodies combined,” the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia, Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Lutheran Church of Togo. The “center of world Lutheranism is shifting from Europe and America to Africa, Asia, and South America, and the LCMS is becoming the theological leader of these growing Lutheran church bodies.” ELCA, meanwhile, “is becoming increasingly isolated in world Lutheranism.” . . .

". . .Wherever churches no longer preserve the “salt” and “light” of the Bible and natural law, the faithful vote with their feet and finances."

https://juicyecumenism.com/2013/08/14/always-declining-the-evangelical-lutheran-church-in-americas-stillborn-quarter-century-of-existence/

Sasha Bill Kwapinski

12/13/2015 10:22:23 pm

When it comes to shrinking and losing members, the ELCA is in pretty good company. The Presbyterian church (PCUSA), with about 2.8 million members in the mid 1950s is now at about 1.7 million. The Episcopal church, with about 4.5 million in the mid-1960s, has lost fully half of its membership today. The United Methodists, in the 11 million range in the mid-60s, are now at less than 8 million and shrinking. The United Church of Christ (UCC) has experienced similar declines, with whole congregations voting to leave. The Unitarian church, of which I am a former member, has been stuck at about the 150 to 200 thousand level since 1960.
All of these churches have gone the "politically correct" route, endorsing abortion and same sex marriage. All, except for the Unitarians, are members of the Nat'l Council of Churches, which has regularly engaged in, liberal-leftist political advocacy for decades.

Translation:(1) A denomination which cannot come up with a moral definition for marriage is a denomination which is displaying its own moral bankruptcy. (2) when people are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, it doesn't cut it to say "Let 'em eat diversity."

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Unanimous Vote to Leave the ELCA

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Dan Skogen

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