Ecumenism
Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and thus supports the ELCA’s commitment to ecumenism on the local, regional, national, and international levels. The ELCA has declared in its statement on Ecumenism, The Vision of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that it is committed to working for the visible unity of the church. That statement declares, in part:
The unity of the church, as it is proclaimed in the Scriptures, is a gift and goal of God in Christ Jesus. Ecumenism is the joyous experience of the unity of Christ’s people and the serious task of expressing that unity visibly and structurally to advance the proclamation of the Gospel for the blessing of humankind. Through participation in ecumenical activity, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seeks to be open in faith to the work of the Spirit, so as to manifest more fully oneness in Christ.....The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is an active participant in the ecumenical movement, because of its desire for Christian unity. It seeks full communion as its goal, i.e., the fullest or most complete actualization of unity possible before the parousia with all those churches that confess the Triune God. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, both as a church and as a member of the wider communion of churches in the Lutheran World Federation, seeks to reach this goal, in order to express the unity of the Church and to carry out better the mission of the Church in proclamation and action.
The ELCA, therefore, has established full communion relationships with three Reformed churches (Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church USA), the Moravian Church, and with The Episcopal Church in the USA. An interim Eucharistic sharing agreement, a significant step toward full communion, has been established with the United Methodist Church. Longstanding and fruitful dialogues are continuing with the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches, while other important dialogues have been established recently with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the Disciples of Christ, and the Mennonites.
