Norwegian Theologian Kjell Nordstokke Appointed Director of LWF Department for Mission and Development
LWF Council Meeting, Geneva, 1 – 7 September 2004
PRESS RELEASE NO. 16-2004
GENEVA, 8 September 2004 (LWI) – The Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) appointed Norwegian theologian Rev. Dr Kjell Birger Nordstokke, as the new director of the LWF Department for Mission and Development. Nordstokke, 58, is expected to take up his new position in April 2005, succeeding Rev. Dr Péri Rasolondraibe who will be retiring in March next year.
Nordstokke brings to the LWF a wealth of experience in diaconical work. Since 1997 he has been director of one of the leading diaconal institutions in Norway, the Diakonhjemmet College and Hospital in Oslo, with responsibility for a staff of more than 1,400 persons. One of his main tasks as director is to elaborate the strategy of the institution and make it relevant as a church-based actor in civil society. The institution has close relations with several international partners including LWF member churches in Brazil, Southern Africa and Latvia.
Nordstokke served in Brazil as a missionary of the Norwegian Missionary Society for ten years. He has published several articles in the area of missiology, working with issues like contextualization, third world theology, theology of liberation, transformation, mission and diakonia, and has taught these subjects at academic level both in Norway and abroad. His 1991 doctoral dissertation at Oslo University was on the subject, “Council and Context in Leonardo Boff’s Ecclesiology: The Rebirth of the Church among the Poor.”
Ordained in the Church of Norway in 1973, Nordstokke pursued his undergraduate and post-graduate studies in theology in Oslo. From 1988 until 1990, Nordstokke was secretary for the Norwegian Catholic-Lutheran dialogue , working mainly with the understanding of justification. He was a delegate to the LWF Eighth Assembly in Curitiba Brazil in 1990 and participated in the Tenth Assembly in July 2003. From 1997 until 2003, he served as an LWF Council adviser on the Program Committee for Mission and Development. Since 2003, he has been a member of the governmental commission assessing the future of the church-state relations in Norway.
Nordstokke and his wife Kazumi have two grown-up daughters.
The LWF Department for Mission and Development endeavors to encourage, support and work with the LWF member churches alongside related agencies and other groups as they strive to create, develop and maintain ministries faithful to the fundamental task of the church: participation in God’s mission to all creation. Work areas cover proclamation, advocacy and service (diaconia) activities aimed at creating for communities a dignified life of peace in justice.(420 words)
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