LWF German National Committee Closes Stuttgart Office
After some 50 years, the German National Committee of the Lutheran World Federation (GNC/LWF) has relocated its previously Stuttgart-based Office for Church Cooperation and World Service to the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) central office in Hanover, Germany, within the Church Office of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD).
Outgoing GNC executive secretary at the Stuttgart office, Rev. Dr Andreas Wöhle said effective January 2008, LWF member church partners in Germany will require only one address for their work. The main contact will be the Hanover-based GNC executive secretary Oberkirchenrat Norbert Denecke, also responsible for VELKD. While the Stuttgart scholarship program will continue in close coordination with EKD’s diaconal services, the GNC public relations and fundraising officer Ms Regina Karasch has also relocated to Hanover.
History of the Organization: At its August 1952 Second Assembly in Hanover, the LWF resolved to create its own Lutheran World Service to combine the churches’ response to emergencies throughout the world. The GNC subsequently created for its member churches the “Ordnung des Lutherischen Weltdienstes – Deutscher Hauptausschuss (DHA). The DHA held its first meeting on 16 April 1953 in Berlin-Spandau.
While in the years between the LWF’s founding in 1947 and the DHA establishment aid materials had been sent to Germany, in 1953 the country’s LWF member churches sent for the first time a contribution to the LWF Geneva headquarters to support World Service projects worldwide. By 1957, the West German churches no longer required financial support themselves. Of the six original Lutheran World Service offices in Germany, only the Stuttgart and East Berlin offices, responsible for the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) remained open, with the latter closing in 2003.
The GNC/LWF currently represents 13 churches in Baden, Bavaria, Brunswick, Hanover, Mecklenburg, North Elbia, Oldenburg, Pomerania, Saxony, Schaumburg-Lippe, Thuringia and Württemberg; as well as Church of Lippe [Lutheran Section]. They have a combined membership of 12.6 million people.
The new GNC/LWF address is: DNK/LWB im Kirchenamt der EKD, Herrenhäuser Str. 12, 30419 Hanover, Germany, E-mail: LWB@diakonie.de
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