Title: RUSCH TAKES NCC POST NEW YORK (ELCA) -- The Rev. William G. Rusch, former director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America#s Department for Ecumenical Affairs, will become director of Faith and Order for the General Secretariat of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. The NCC Executive Board named Rusch during its Feb. 12-13 meeting at the NCC#s offices in New York. He is expected to assume his new duties on either March 1 or April 1. Rusch held his post with the ELCA from the time the 5.2-million member church was formed in 1987 until the end of his term on Oct. 31, 1996. He was director for ecumenical relations in the former Lutheran Church in America (LCA), 1979-1987. Prior to that he was director of Fortress Press with the LCA's Board of Publication, associate executive director of the Division of Theological Studies with the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A., assistant professor and chairman of the Department of Classical Languages at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, and associate pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in New York. Rusch has been a member of the governing board and vice president of the NCC, a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and a member of the WCC#s Faith and Order Commission. Contact: ELCA News and Information 8765 W. Higgins Road Chicago, IL 60631 312/280-2963 Ann E. Hafften (dir), Frank Imhoff, Lia Christiansen, Brenda Williams