“We believe in the Holy Spirit”

• What does it mean to be Lutheran today?
  
  This global consultation will launch a dynamic study process designed to listen to the ways in which our Lutheran communion lives out its mission and spiritual life within the contemporary contexts of LWF member churches.

From 2019-2022, the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will engage in a global study of contemporary Lutheran identities as they are lived in the local contexts of Lutheran churches.

The process will begin with a consultation on the theme “We Believe in the Holy Spirit: Global Perspectives on Lutheran Identities”, hosted by the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus in Addis Ababa, 23-28 October 2019. It will feature dynamic, participatory theological reflection aimed at listening for creative ways in which we express our shared Lutheran heritage among the diverse contexts across our communion.

The Holy Spirit shapes us as we practice our faith in our local church. Spirituality forms our Lutheran identity and informs our engagement with the world. Some LWF member churches call for renewal by reviving a sense of spirituality. Some churches struggle to understand the myriad expressions of spiritual gifts that sometimes call into question their experience of faith in the Lutheran church.

Participants will engage each daily theme through biblical study, theological reflection on confessional texts, and interdisciplinary analysis of religious experience in our diverse contexts on the following themes:

1. Holy Spirit as gift and promise: The Spirit calls us in Word and baptism
2. Our Holy Communion: Spirituality as sanctification and formation in community
3. Transformed and freed: Spiritual gifts and the vocation of the priesthood of all believers

Read more What is it like to be Lutheran today? Young people have unique perspectives on how faith is formed and expressed in a global, complex, digital age. Youth and young theologians (18-30 years of age) are invited to contribute their voices to a global consultation on contemporary Lutheran Identity.

Call for Papers from Youth and Young Theologians