January 22, 2009

CHICAGO – Lutheran Student Movement (LSM-USA) aligned itself more closely with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in one of several resolutions adopted here at its annual gathering Dec. 31-Jan. 4. Fifty colleges and universities sent 147 students who re-elected Craig Talmage as president.

"We've been losing numbers to these events," Talmage said. One goal for his new term as president will be to determine "how we can get college students to gather differently than we've been doing," he said. "We really want to connect people."

Talmage was first elected LSM-USA president as a senior at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He's now enrolled in the Master of Arts program for Industrial/Organizational Psychology and active in The Crossroads, the Lutheran campus ministry at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Minn.

"We've partnered with Lutheran Disaster Response to provide alternative spring break experiences," Talmage said. More than 300 students from 22 colleges and universities have already signed up to participate in "Breaking Out 2009." Talmage pointed out that more students will be involved in the "service-learning experience" than attended the national gathering.

A "resolution on the history of Lutheran students, Lutheran church bodies and Lutheran unity in the United States of America" chronicled LSM-USA from its origins in 1922 as the Lutheran Student Association of America. The organization has a history of welcoming college and university students of all Lutheran church bodies, and of promoting cooperation among the churches in campus ministry.

In 1988 three Lutheran church bodies merged to form the ELCA, the largest Lutheran church body in the United States. The second largest, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, had formed its own student organization, Lutheran Student Fellowship. The third largest, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, maintained its own campus ministries.

"The ELCA began funding LSM-USA as if it were a program in its Division for Education," the resolution stated. "Though funded as a program of the ELCA, both the ELCA and LSM-USA have never affirmed a formal relationship."

The LSM-USA assembly adopted the resolution to "establish a formal and clearly defined relationship with the ELCA asking of the ELCA to in kind do the same through whatever means possible to preserve LSM-USA's present student-led, Christ-driven structure."

The student organization will continue to "promote Lutheran unity outside of these institutional boundaries," Talmage said. It plans to do that by building stronger relationships through Lutheran Disaster Response and other cooperative social ministries, and by coordinating activities with Lutheran Student Fellowship and other Lutheran campus ministries, he said.

Another resolution authorized the position of Advocate for Diversity and Service-Learning to establish and maintain the organization's "ties to national, international and multicultural students at local, regional and national levels." The assembly elected Olivia-Beth Horak, University of Texas, Austin, to serve in that position.

LSM-USA elected Mike Yeutter, University of Wisconsin, Madison, to a one-year term as vice president.

The home page of the Lutheran Student Movement is at http://www.lsm-usa.org/, on the Web.

ELCA News Service