Title: ELCA Affirms Native American Strategic Plan
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 20, 1997

ELCA AFFIRMS NATIVE AMERICAN STRATEGIC PLAN
97-CA-43-MS

    PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Voting members at the biennial Churchwide
Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting here Aug.
14-20, ratified a complex set of strategies designed to enhance ministry to
and with native peoples.
    The four-step "American Indian/Alaska Native Strategic Plan" is a
program designed to develop new congregations serving native peoples,
provide theological training for native clergy, provide public policy
advocacy and guarantee social ministry resources.
    Drafted in 1996 by a planning group consisting of native members of the
ELCA, the strategy includes 30 proposals, including ones to:
* develop an American Indian/Alaska Native Advisory Council;
* develop a multicultural theological education consultation committee, and
make ELCA seminaries aware of American Indian/Alaska Native concerns as
they plan and teach;
* provide a resource directory listing organizations and individuals
committed to advocate for American Indian/Alaska Native people; and
* develop a training "resource bank" to serve American Indian/Alaska Native
interests within the ELCA.
    Introducing the plan to voters, Ramona Rank, an ELCA Church Council
member from Portland, Ore., said, "Native Americans are survivors of the
`Great American Holocaust.'  This is our land," she continued.  "Our people
have occupied North America for more than 40,000 years.  We dare not let
other Americans forget about us now."
    Speaking in support of the proposal, the Rev. Stephen L. Shriner,
pastor of Wilderness Lutheran Church on the Mohican Reservation in Bowler,
Wis., said, "If any people have a right to hate, it's our people.  But
instead they are today asking members of the larger church to come among us
and work together with us.
    Wilderness Church has a membership which is 92-percent Native American.
    The vote to approve was virtually unanimous.

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html