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St. Timothy's votes to join Lutheran CORE

What took place? On Sunday afternoon, December 6, at a special congregational meeting, the congregation of St. Timothy's Lutheran Church voted to join Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (Lutheran CORE). The vote was 82% in favor and 18% against with 153 votes cast.

What does this mean? St. Timothy's, like most of the other CORE congregations, is at present part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a denomination which has been seen, over the past twenty-one years of its existence, to be slipping away from its moorings in Scripture as the Church's sole authority for faith and life and from its foundation of Christ crucified and risen from the dead as the center of its proclamation. By joining Lutheran CORE, St. Timothy's places itself in a group of like-minded congregations and individuals seeking a realignment of North American Lutheranism perhaps outside of the ELCA.

What's next? Over the next year, Lutheran CORE will be exploring possibilities with the goal of presenting, at its August 2010 convention, an alternative structure for its members. By joining CORE, St. Timothy's will be engaged in that process and will help shape it. Some time after the August 2010 CORE convention, St. Tim's church council will consider the CORE alternative, along with others, and will come to the congregation with a recommendation no later than the January 2011 Annual Congregational Meeting.

In the meantime, the congregation will be kept informed of progress and events in Lutheran CORE.