Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone

Madagascar and

Tanzania Missionaries

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone

http://www.elca.org/countrypackets/sierra-leone/church.html

Lutherans are relative newcomers among Christians in Sierra Leone, a country where traditional religions and Islam are still predominant. Persons returning from study in Europe and North America in the early 1980s gave the initial impulse toward founding a Lutheran church. They had been in contact with Lutheranism while away from the country and wished to establish a Lutheran presence in Sierra Leone.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone (ELCSL) was officially registered with the government in 1988 and received a Registration Certificate in 1989 after serving the required probationary period.
The ELCSL has developed largely because of active lay leadership. Also, a missionary pastor was sent to Sierra Leone by the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria to assist in the development of congregations and the baptism of many new members. The first pastors were ordained in the ELCSL in 1996. Geographically, the church is divided into four jurisdictions: the Western Area (Freetown) and three Provinces: Southern, Eastern, and Northern.

With a membership of more than 1,800, this relatively new Lutheran church is dynamic and enterprising. Despite conflict within the country, the church has maintained a much needed presence encouraging peace and reconciliation in West Africa (LUCWA).

Even though the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sierra Leone is relatively young and small, it has begun to develop programs which will help meet the practical needs of communities in which it serves. Its goal is to promote self-reliance and to encourage agricultural production beyond the traditional subsistence farming.
The ELCSL is also developing an education program, beginning with elementary schools in places where there are active congregations. One school has now been established.

Sierra Leone has suffered a great deal of political turmoil, and the ELCSL appreciates the support it receives from Lutherans in other parts of the world during very challenging times in Sierra Leone. Some support has been channeled through the Lutheran World Federation. Within Africa, one of the sources of guidance for the ELCSL has been the Lutheran Communion in West Africa (LUCWA).

A Companion Synod relationship exists between the Evangelical Lutheran Church

in Sierra Leone and the ELCA Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod

Mission Statement

We the members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone, redeemed by grace through faith and empowered by the Holy Spirit, seek to proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in word, deed and loving service to all people in the world around us.

Mission Challenge

The mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone is to serve as an instrument of the Holy Spirit in response to the commission of its Lord and in accordance with various gifts and talents of its members, specifically to proclaim the truth of the Gospel of Jesus through Word and Sacraments so as to gather in love and fellowship all who respond in faith and deed.

Transformed by the power of God's love, we seek to help equip men and women in Sierra Leone for work in the world as persons trying to love God by serving each other's neighbor.

EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN SIERRA LEONE
Email: admin@elcsl.info


Rev. Tm J. Barnett, President Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone		Remains of burnt out Administrative Training Office in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Message From The President:

Given the harsh realities of the war ravaged and depressed national environment and the profile of our Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone (ELCSL), one may be tempted to ask what is the place of a website in the ministry and development of this Church just now. Established over a decade ago and still with no solid infrastructure to ground its ministries and service in highly deprived communities, is expenditure on the purchase of computers and other gadgets needed for a website the smart thing to do?

Meanwhile, let me confess that in pushing for this facility for the ELCSL, I have myself not been totally free of the tension usually associated with making hard choices. Such tension however, has for me been tempered by my view of this website not as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end.

It is therefore my fervent hope and desire through this medium to stimulate and sustain a process of dialogue and communication about the ministry of the ELCSL and our journey together with others in the mission of God. Like every human endeavor, it is a ministry confronted by and performed in brokenness. As such, it is fraught with the worst as much as the best in humanity.

The photos on this page give testimony to this contrasting reality of ministry in and by the Church. One of them, which is a nightmare, shows the ruins of our Church*s only Central Administrative Office and Training Centre in Freetown, looted and set ablaze by rebels on January 6, 1999. The other photo portrays both a dream and a vision. It shows an architect*s model of the proposed multi-purpose church complex the ELCSL plans on erecting in Freetown in the near future. Put side by side the two photos now invoke in us a dream from the nightmare the Church and the people of Sierra Leone have been experiencing for quite some time now.

The juxtaposition of the two photos is also intended to serve as a vivid reminder of our identity and call as a people of the Cross with a resurrected hope. We believe that in the face of despair, Jesus the author and perfector of our faith speaks about hope. Hope built upon the promise that, whatever happens, God will stay with us at all times, in all places. As followers of Christ therefore, we are called to be people of hope and to build communities of hope in a world where the options are usually confined to a limited optimism or an unlimited pessimism. May we all be inspired to see and use this website as a beacon of hope.

I acknowledge here with gratitude and much humility the support and accompaniment of our mission partners in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the wider Lutheran community of faith in the accomplishment of this project and the ministry of the ELCSL in general. Such support and accompaniment have helped to keep hope alive in our hearts and in our community. It is therefore my joy and privilege to launch and commit this website to our continued journey together. I pray that the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, will make us perfect in every good work to do his will, working in us that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Music: River of Dreams