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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 16.09.2002 |
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| Council Press Release No. 15 - German Bishop Margot Kaessmann Keynote Speaker at 2003 LWF Tenth Assembly |
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LWF Council Meeting, Wittenberg, Germany, 10-17 September 2002
LWF Council Receives Report of Assembly Planning Committee
WITTENBERG, Germany/GENEVA, 16 September 2002 (LWI) – Bishop Dr. Margot Kaessmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany will be the keynote speaker at the 2003 Tenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
The Assembly Planning Committee (APC) announced Kaessmann’s participation when presenting its final report to this year’s LWF Council, meeting September 10-17 in Luther’s city of Wittenberg. The APC chairperson, Rev. Susan Nagle told the Council September 16, that a second keynote speaker is yet to be secured.
Kaessmann, 44, heads the 3.3-million member Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, the largest Protestant church in a country with 13.6 million Lutherans. Elected to her present position in 1999, she is the second of three women bishops in Germany. The Hanover church was one of the founding members of the LWF in 1947.
Under the theme, “For the Healing of the World,” the assembly will include worship, Bible study and topical studies in ten “Village Groups.” The Council approved a list of names for leadership in assembly worship and the Village Groups.
The LWF Council received the assembly Study Book and authorized its publication, taking into account several comments and recommendations from Council members. The Study Book develops the assembly theme in assignments and Bible studies for each assembly day. The book will be available on the assembly Web site - http://www.lwf-assembly.org/ - by the end of 2002.
Rev. Susan Johnson, vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), brought greetings to the Council from the assembly host church. “We know that you will be a blessing to us, and we hope that together we may be a blessing to the world,” she said. Johnson also read greetings from the ELCIC National Bishop Raymond Schultz who could not travel to Wittenberg for health reasons. “The injured world so desperately needs a word of healing in the midst of its brokenness.”
The assembly coordinator, Rev. Arthur Leichnitz of the ELCIC reported that 109 of the LWF’s member churches - or 84 percent - had submitted assembly delegates’ nomination lists. There are 130 member churches entitled to delegates; the remaining three are associate member churches. Half of the registrants are female, he said, which is in line with the assembly goals. But the number of youth delegates nominated from each LWF geographical region is below expectation, said Leichnitz. Twenty percent of the 436 assembly delegates should be young people, but only 54 of the expected 88 youth have been nominated so far, he said.
The Council is the annual LWF chief legislative body between world assemblies. Assemblies are held every six years.
Staff of the LWF Office for Communication Services at the Council meeting can be contacted at German mobile telephone No., +49-(0) 170-8345 177.
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