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, behind the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. 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.
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 Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), also referred to simply as the Wisconsin Synod, is an American Confessional Lutheran denomination of Christianity. Characterized as theologically conservative, it was founded in 1850 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The American Association of Lutheran Churches is an American Lutheran church body. It was formed on November 7, 1987, as a continuation of the American Lutheran Church denomination, the majority of which merged with the Lutheran Church in America and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The AALC offices were originally in Bloomington, Minnesota. The national office moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 2007. As of 2008, it had 67 congregations, with about 16,000 members. In 2020, the denomination listed 59 congregations. Its current Presiding Pastor is the Rev. Dr. Cary G. Larson.
The Japan Lutheran Church or NRK is a confessional Lutheran denomination in Japan. It currently has approximately 766 baptized members in 35 congregations nationwide.
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 American Lutheran Church (ALC) was a Christian Protestant denomination in the United States and Canada that existed from 1960 to 1987. Its headquarters were in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Upon its formation in 1960, The ALC designated Augsburg Publishing House, also located in Minneapolis, as the church publisher. The Lutheran Standard was the official magazine of The ALC.
The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was a U.S. church body that existed from 1976 through the end of 1987. The AELC formed when approximately 250 dissident congregations withdrew from the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1976, and ended as an independent body when it became part of the new Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on January 1, 1988.
Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM) was a liberal caucus within the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It was formed in 1973 as an oppositional group of clergy following sweeping victories by Jacob Aall Ottesen Preus II and the LCMS's conservative wing, known as Confessional Lutherans, at the synod's 1973 convention in New Orleans. It was not considered a major issue in the LCMS when it began because it originally lacked significant lay support. ELIM gained further momentum in the wake of the 1974 Seminex controversy at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. The organization dedicated a large portion of its resources to supporting the break-away Seminex institution. Only after the Seminex controversy did ELIM begin to gain lay support. However, immediately after the Seminex controversy both the Confessional Lutherans and the ELIM claimed they did not want a schism. But after Preus was easily reelected as president of the LCMS in 1976 ELIM decided to become a confessing movement within the LCMS.
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 Concordia Lutheran Conference (CLC) is a small organization of Lutheran churches in the United States which formed in 1956. It was a reorganization of some of the churches of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference (OLC), which had been formed in September 1951, in Okabena, Minnesota, following a break with Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). It is the remaining successor of the Orthodox Lutheran Conference. The current president is David T. Mensing, pastor of Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oak Forest, Illinois. All members of the board of directors serve one year terms. The CLC has five congregations and is in fellowship with nine mission congregations in Russia and Nigeria.
The Lutheran Church in Malaysia or LCM is one of four Lutheran bodies in Malaysia. It currently has 52 congregations nationwide with a total of 6,736 baptised members and is the largest entirely Lutheran body in the country. Until 2012, the body was known as the Lutheran Church in Malaysia and Singapore.
The National Evangelical Lutheran Church (NELC) was a Finnish-American Lutheran church body that was organized in 1898 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, as the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran National Church of America. It merged into the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in 1965.
India Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELC) is a Christian denomination in India. Its headquarters is in Tamil Nadu. It belongs to the International Lutheran Council and the Lutheran World Federation. It has three synods, named Ambur Synod, Nagercoil Synod, and Trivandrum Synod. The IELC was founded through the missionary efforts of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), with whom it remains in altar and pulpit fellowship.
Lutheranism was first introduced to Mexico in the 1850s, when German-American Lutherans began serving German immigrants in Mexico, though mission work among the non-German population in Mexico did not begin until the 1940s. Today there are five Lutheran church bodies in Mexico—the Mexican Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Synod of Mexico, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Church—Mexico, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mexico (unaffiliated), and the Lutheran Apostolic Alliance of Mexico (unaffiliated)—and several independent congregations.
Concordia College was a Lutheran college and high school in Conover, North Carolina. Founded as a high school by members of the Evangelical Lutheran Tennessee Synod in 1878, it added college courses in 1881. The English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri and Other States took over control of the school in 1893. Control passed to the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod when the English Synod merged with it in 1911. In April 1935, a fire destroyed the main building, and the school closed permanently at the end of the spring semester.
Immanuel Lutheran College was an educational institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America whose main purpose was to train Black men to be pastors and both men and women to be teachers. It was founded in Concord, North Carolina, in 1903 and relocated to Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1905. The college was closed in 1961 when the Synodical Conference decided that the training of Blacks should be integrated into the educational institutions of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), the largest member of the conference. The former campus was purchased by North Carolina A&T State University.
The following is a timeline of significant events in the history of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.
