The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), also known as the Missouri Synod, is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in the United States. With 1.8 million members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States. The LCMS was organized in 1847 at a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, as the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States, a name which partially reflected the geographic locations of the founding congregations.
Laestadianism, also known as Laestadian Lutheranism and Apostolic Lutheranism, is a pietistic Lutheran revival movement started in Sápmi in the middle of the 19th century. Named after Swedish Lutheran state church administrator and temperance movement leader Lars Levi Laestadius, it is the biggest pietistic revivalist movement in the Nordic countries. It has members mainly in Finland, Northern America, Norway, Russia and Sweden. There are also smaller congregations in Africa, South America and Central Europe. In addition Laestadian Lutherans have missionaries in 23 countries. The number of Laestadians worldwide is estimated to be between 144,000 and 219,000.
Pietism, also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life.
The Bible Belt is a region of the Southern United States in which socially conservative Protestant Christianity plays a strong role in society. Church attendance across the denominations is generally higher than the nation's average. The region contrasts with the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes, and the Mormon corridor in Utah and southern Idaho.
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 2021, it has approximately 3.04 million baptized members in 8,724 congregations.
The Laestadian Lutheran Church (LLC) is a religious Christian movement, its teachings based on the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. From June 9, 1973, the organisation was named the Association of American Laestadian Congregations (AALC), before the association changed its name in 1994 in order better to convey its spiritual heritage. As of 2016, the Laestadian Lutheran Church has 33 member congregations in the United States and Canada, with highest concentrations of members in Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Michigan in the United States and in Saskatchewan, Canada; the congregations are served by about 90 ministers, nearly all of them lay preachers.
The charismatic movement in Christianity is a movement within established or mainstream Christian denominations to adopt beliefs and practices of Charismatic Christianity with an emphasis on baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the use of spiritual gifts (charismata). It has affected most denominations in the US, and has spread widely across the world.
Loimaa is a town and municipality of Finland.
The Laestadian church arrived in North America with Nordic immigrants in the latter half of the 19th century, many of whom came to work in the copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Some of these new immigrants found themselves in conflict with older, established immigrants from the same countries, being generally poorer and less established, and hewing to the new, fundamentalist teachings of Lars Levi Laestadius, a Swedish-Sami preacher and botanist born in Arjeplog, Sweden. Laestadian congregations separate from the extant Scandinavian Lutheran churches were formed in Cokato, Minnesota, in 1872 and in Calumet, Michigan, in 1873.
The Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (ALCA) is a Laestadian Lutheran church denomination established by Finnish American and Norwegian immigrants in the 1800s. They came mainly from northern Finland and northern Norway where they had been members of the state churches. Most or all members had ties from their home countries to the Laestadian revival movement named after Swedish state church administrator and pastor Lars Levi Laestadius of Pajala, Sweden. Eventually, there were too many arguments between this denomination and the other American Laestadians, and some of the followers of Laestadius were excluded from the sacrament of holy communion. Under the lead of Salomon Korteniemi, the excluded members formed a congregation of their own in December 1872, under the name the Salomon Korteniemi Lutheran Society. In 1879 this name was changed to the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Congregation. As other congregations of Finns in Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon were organized on the same basis, they came into fellowship with this body under the name the Finnish Apostolic Lutheran Church, or, as it is usually called, the Apostolic Lutheran Church.
Conservative Laestadianism is the largest branch of the Lutheran revival movement Laestadianism. It has spread to 16 countries. As of 2012 there were about 115,000 Conservative Laestadians, most of them in Finland, the United States, Norway, and Sweden. The movement and this denomination attribute their teachings to the Bible and the Lutheran Book of Concord.
The term Evangelical Catholic is used in Lutheranism, alongside the term Augsburg Catholic, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship stressing the catholicity of historic Lutheranism in liturgy, beliefs, practices, and doctrines. Evangelical Catholics teach that Lutheranism at its core "is deeply and fundamentally catholic". The majority of Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and parishes are members of mainstream Lutheran denominations.
High church Lutheranism is a movement that began in 20th-century Europe and emphasizes worship practices and doctrines that are similar to those found within both Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and the High church wing of Anglicanism. In the more general usage of the term, it describes the general high church characteristics of Lutheranism in the Nordic and Baltic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The mentioned countries, once a part of the Swedish Empire, have more markedly preserved Catholic traditions.
Finland is a predominantly Christian nation where 65.2% of the Finnish population of 5.6 million are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Protestant), 32.0% are unaffiliated, 1.1% are Orthodox Christians, 0.9% are other Christians and 0.8% follow other religions like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, folk religion etc. These statistics do not include, for example, asylum seekers who have not been granted a permanent residence permit.
Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched the Protestant Reformation.
The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (OALC) is a Firstborn Laestadian church in North America. Firstborn Laestadians are a subgroup within Laestadianism. The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church originated in the 1890s. In the Nordic Firstborn Laestadian revival, the movement works within the official Church of Sweden, which is also called the "Lutheran Folk Church". The Church of Sweden has for a long time recognized the Laestadian movement and has allowed them to hold their own services in the state churches, both before and after the separation of church and state. Even in America it still has a relationship with the Church of Sweden.
Oskari Heikki Jussila was a Conservative Laestadian provost, vicar for multiple parishes, and the area provost of the Tornio area in 1938–1955. He also worked as editor for the religious newspapers Siionin lähetyslehti and Zions missionstidning in 1919–1945, as well as a member of parliament with the National Coalition Party in 1922–1929 and 1930–1933. Jussila's father was Heikki Jussila (1863-1955), a Conservative Laestadian lay preacher and Volksschule teacher.
The Union of Independent Evangelical Lutheran Congregations in Finland is an independent Evangelical Lutheran church body in Finland. It is registered as religious community in 23 August 1928. It is an association or a synod of free and independent Evangelical Lutheran local congregations. It emphasizes the freedom of congregations to run its own affairs. Five local congregations join in as the Union of Congregations. The member congregations are located in Helsinki, Karstula, Tampere, Marttila and Veteli and they have also activities in other parts of Finland. The Union of Congregations had 482 members in 2016.
Protestant liturgy or Evangelical liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Protestant congregation or denomination on a regular basis. The term liturgy comes from Greek and means "public work". Liturgy is especially important in the Historical Protestant churches, both mainline and evangelical, while Baptist, Pentecostal, and nondenominational churches tend to be very flexible and in some cases have no liturgy at all. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday.
Evangelisk Luthersk Mission – Bibeltrogna Vänner (ELM) is a Christian low-church mission organization part of the Church of Sweden, which is active in Sweden and abroad.
