Lutheran Church–Canada

Lutheran Church–Canada
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Mainline Confessional Lutheran
Theology	Conservative
Polity	congregationalist polity
Origin	1988
Members	72,116
Official website	[1]

The Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC) is a traditional, confessional Lutheran denomination in Canada. With about 70,000 members, it is the second-largest Lutheran body in Canada after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC). The LCC was founded in 1988 when most Canadian congregations of the St. Louis-based Missouri Synod (LCMS) formed an autonomous Canadian church body with a synod in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sixteen Canadian congregations — one in Montreal, the rest in Ontario — remain affiliated with the LCMS.

Following its founding in 1988, LCC created three districts. The Alberta-British Columbia District offices are in Edmonton, Alberta; the Central District in Regina, Saskatchewan; and the East District in Kitchener, Ontario. Like other conservative Lutheran bodies, LCC professes the Lutheran Confessions as contained in the Book of Concord (e.g. theology of an inerrant Bible). The LCC practises closed communion, rejecting shared communion even with other Christians who do not subscribe to the LCC's doctrines. The church body is in communion with some member synods of the International Lutheran Council (e.g., the LCMS). Many LCC congregations use Lutheran Service Book as their hymnal. The current president of LCC is Rev. Dr. Robert Bugbee.

The church body has established Concordia University College of Alberta in Edmonton, and two seminaries, Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario and Concordia Lutheran Seminary in Edmonton, Alberta.

LCC is involved with foreign mission efforts in the following countries: Nicaragua, where work begun in 1997 resulted in the founding of the "Iglesia Luterana Sinodo de Nicaragua" (ILSN) in 2008; southeast Asia, where it assists in providing theological education for future pastors in Thailand and Cambodia; and Ukraine, where it partners with the "Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Ukraine" (SELCU) in the training of future pastors at Concordia Seminary in Usatovo (near Odessa) in the southern part of the country.

As of 2009 it has 72,116 baptized members.

See also: List of Christian denominations

External links

• Lutheran Church – Canada
• Concordia University College of Alberta
• Concordia Lutheran Seminary
• Canadian Lutheran on-line magazine
• Explore your beliefs