The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2019, it has approximately 3.3 million baptized members in 8,972 congregations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) is a US-based Protestant Christian denomination based in Mankato, Minnesota. It describes itself as a conservative, Confessional Lutheran body. The ELS has 130 congregations and has missions in Peru, Chile, India, South Korea, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Latvia.
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was an American and Canadian Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered in New York City and its publishing house was Fortress Press.
The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, often known simply as the Synodical Conference, was an association of Lutheran synods that professed a complete adherence to the Lutheran Confessions and doctrinal unity with each other. Founded in 1872, its membership fluctuated as various synods joined and left it. Due to doctrinal disagreements with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) left the conference in 1963. It was dissolved in 1967 and the other remaining member, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, merged into the LCMS in 1971.
The Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) is a worship book and hymnal used by several Lutheran denominations in North America. Additional hymns and service music are contained in the companions, Hymnal Supplement 1991 and With One Voice (WOV). The LBW is sometimes called the "green book", as opposed to With One Voice, which is bound in blue; or Service Book and Hymnal, which is bound in red; or The Lutheran Hymnal, which is also bound in red, with a simple gold cross.
The Evangelical and Reformed Church (E&R) was a Protestant Christian denomination in the United States. It was formed in 1934 by the merger of the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) with the Evangelical Synod of North America (ESNA). A minority within the RCUS remained out of the merger in order to continue the name Reformed Church in the United States. In 1957, the Evangelical and Reformed Church merged with the majority of the Congregational Christian Churches (CC) to form the United Church of Christ (UCC).
Concordia Publishing House (CPH), founded in 1869, is the official publishing arm of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Headquartered in St Louis, Missouri, at 3558 S. Jefferson Avenue, CPH publishes the synod's official monthly magazine, The Lutheran Witness, and the synod's hymnals, including The Lutheran Hymnal (1941), Lutheran Worship (1982), and Lutheran Service Book (2006). It publishes a wide range of resources for churches, schools, and homes and is the publisher of the world's most widely circulated daily devotional resource, Portals of Prayer. Its children's books, known as Arch Books, have been published in millions of copies. Concordia Publishing House is the oldest publishing company west of the Mississippi River and the world's largest distinctly Lutheran publishing house.
The United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) was established in 1918 in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation after negotiations among several American Lutheran national synods resulted in the merger of three German-language synods: the General Synod, the General Council (1867), and the United Synod of the South (1863). The Slovak Zion Synod (1919) joined the ULCA in 1920. The Icelandic Synod (1885) also joined the United Lutheran Church in America in 1942.
The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) is one of the official hymnals of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Published in 1941 by Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis, Missouri, it was the denomination's second official English-language hymnal, succeeding the 1912 Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book. A 1969, Worship Supplement, contains additional hymns and service music.
Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University is an Evangelical Lutheran seminary in Columbus, Ohio.
The Pennsylvania Ministerium was the first Lutheran church body in North America. With the encouragement of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787), the Ministerium was founded at a Church Conference of Lutheran clergy on August 26, 1748. The group was known as the "German Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of North America" until 1792, when it adopted the name "German Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States".
The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America, or, in brief, the General Council was a conservative Lutheran church body, formed as a reaction against the new "Americanized Lutheranism" of Samuel Simon Schmucker and the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of North America.
The Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America, commonly known as the General Synod, was a historical Lutheran denomination in the United States. Established in 1820, it was the first national Lutheran body to be formed in the U.S. and by 1918 had become the third largest Lutheran group in the nation. In 1918, the General Synod merged with other Lutheran denominations to create the United Lutheran Church in America. Both the General Synod and the United Lutheran Church are predecessor bodies to the contemporary Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the South, or simply United Synod of the South, was a historical Lutheran denomination in the southeastern United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States, commonly known as the Joint Synod of Ohio or the Ohio Synod, was a German-language Lutheran denomination whose congregations were originally located primarily in the U.S. state of Ohio, later expanding to most parts of the United States. The synod was formed on September 14, 1818, and adopted the name Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio and Other States by about 1850. It used that name or slight variants until it merged with the Iowa Synod and the Buffalo Synod in 1930 to form the first American Lutheran Church (ALC), 1930–1960.
Lutheran Worship (LW) is one of the official hymnals of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Published in 1982 by Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis, Missouri, it is the denomination's third English-language hymnal and was intended to replace The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH). Additional hymns and service music are contained in the companion, Hymnal Supplement 98.
Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal (CW) is a hymnal of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). It was prepared by the WELS Commission on Worship and published by Northwestern Publishing House, the official publisher of the WELS. Christian Worship was intended to succeed The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) as the common hymnal of the WELS. In 2008, the Christian Worship Supplement (CWS) was released, containing several new orders of service, psalms, and hymns.
The National Lutheran Council (NLC) was a cooperative agency of most of the Lutheran church bodies in the United States. It was established in 1918 and was replaced in 1966 by the Lutheran Council in the United States of America.
The New York Ministerium, also known as the Ministerium of New York, was an early Lutheran synod founded in 1786 in the U.S. state of New York. Throughout its history there were theological controversies that led to congregations withdrawing from it to form new synods. In 1917, it became part of the United Lutheran Church in America, which is one of the predecessor bodies of today's Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
