Brief historical background of Evangelical lutheran church in Malawi
Postal Address: P O Box 650 Lilongwe MALAWI
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi (ELCM) is one of rapid growing churches on the Continent of Africa. It was established on 21st November 1982 by a group of lay people some of whom had returned work in neighboring countries where Lutheranism has been practiced. The first service was held in a house of one of the key-founding members by the name of Gilbert Steven Msuku now late, in the city of Lilongwe and later on moved into classroom at Lilongwe Government Primary School. Rev. G.S Msuku by then Mr. Msuku was the founding Chairman and then Mr. J. P. Bvumbwe now the Bishop was the Secretary of the group. The headquarters of the new church was in Lilongwe.
In 1983 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania was contacted to send its Pastors to come and assist. Rev. Makanta now late, accepted and became the visiting missionary, in the same year; a temporal church building was constructed at Mbidi Congregation in Zomba the Southern part of Malawi. In 1985 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe sent a group of people to Malawi to assist in evangelism. At the end of the same year Dean Tosten Ellwyin from Umpumulo Theological Seminary in South Africa was asked to come to Malawi to conduct leadership Seminar. In 1986 Rev. Stegmieyer and later Rev. Kinyamasongo from Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania came to teach and do pastoral work. In January 1987 the first three local pastors were ordained into Holy Ministry and these were Rev. J.P. Bvumbwe the current Bishop, Rev. Mixon Mbewe retired and late Rev. A.D.J Phiri. Who were ordained at the St. Peter’s Anglican church in Lilongwe by Bishop Robinson of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana. In 1988 the late Mr. Joel Ngaiyamu from ELCT came to conduct leadership seminar. Late in 1987 Church leadership changed from laity to clergy known as the Senior Pastor as leader of the church. In the same 1988, ELCM became a member of Lutheran World Federation -LWF. In 1989 Lutheran World Service –LWS office was established in Malawi as a response to the call of ELCM.
During the same year ELCM became a member of Christian Council of Malawi. In 1990 Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Hermannsburg- Germany sent Rev. Martin Schweitzer late as a missionary to support mission work in Malawi. In 1991 Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland sent a Missionary Rev. A. Kujapa to Malawi to do Pastoral work since the harvest was great but the labourers were few.
Currently the Church runs 13 Primary Schools, 1 Secondary School in the Northern Region, a Lay Training and Vocational Centre in Madisi -Dowa. It also runs a Health Centre at Madisi and Mobile Health Clinics, One in each region of the country. 120 Feeding Centers across the country. Some of the Programmes in which the church is involved in are; Malaria, Climate Change and Mitigation, HIV and AIDS interventions, Diaconal work in general, Health and Sanitation, Food Security, Water Provision by drilling boreholes, just to mention but a few.
2. Present Situation
The church has over 101,000 members, 400 Congregations and Preaching Points, with 72 Parishes and Mission Areas.
The church is currently divided into 9 Deaneries with 56 total number of Pastors including the Bishop. The ELCM continues to grow covering the whole country with close to 86% of its members being in the rural areas. The highest governing body of the Church is the Church Assembly which meets every three years and it has an equal representation of 1 woman, 1 youth, 1 Man from each parish. The Assembly reflects upon the mission as priority of the church. The church Council, which is the second highest governing body, sits in between the Assembly it meets quarterly. It is responsible for ensuring the daily activities of the church.
Due to the growing number of preaching points and Congregations the ELCM is constantly in need of training more pastors and continuing education in order to respond to the leadership needs. Most congregations and parishes depend on lay people for specific ministries such as teaching Sunday school, confirmation classes, preaching and other ministerial activities, inspite of this and due to large areas of coverage still a number of parishes go without a Pastor for weeks or even months.
Therefore there is need for the church to train more laypersons (Men. Women and youth) annually, which in turn require additional financial and human resources. Gender consideration is given for participation of women, men and youth always ensured in the leadership development of lay and volunteer training as well as in the governing bodies of the church at all levels. Counting from 1982 to 2015, the church has now completed 33 years of service and witness in Malawi – hence it is worth to celebrate and thank God today for sustaining, keeping and protecting the ELCM.
The church has also two arms of development and evangelism.
Here are the arms:
Evangelical Lutheran Development Services (ELDS) for development and Lutheran Hour Ministry (LHM) for evangelism. The Evangelical Lutheran Development Program (ELDS) is a development arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Malawi established in 1989 in response to a request from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi (ELCM) and the Government of Malawi. This was primarily to provide assistance to Mozambique refugees. A multi-year agreement between the Malawi Government and ELDP legitimized all operations in the country. The Letter of Understanding (LoU) signed every second year between ELDS and the Lutheran World Federation’s (LWF) Department for World Service (DWS) formalizes the close working relationships between the church and DWS (ELDS Annual report, 2005).
Activities then were concentrated on environmental protection and provision of relief non-food items. After realizing that local Malawian communities hosting the refugees then equally deserved the assistance, a project called Rural Community Motivation and Development (RCMD) was then initiated. This project covered sectors of food security, water and sanitation, adult education environmental and emergency responses.
RCMD then matured into Integrated Community Development Project (ICDP), which covers sectors above, and also microfinance, and cross cutting issues of gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights. Before transition, ELDS worked in 9 districts. A phase out strategy led to project handovers to the well empowered project monitoring committees, local structures and community members themselves in Zomba, Lilongwe West and Luvwere in Mzimba. ELDS makes occasional monitoring visits to these project sites. During the year 2005, ELDS facilitated project implantation in 10 districts, in Karonga, Nkhatabay, Dowa, Dedza, Phalombe, Chikwawa, Balaka, Chikwawa, Mwanza, and Kasungu.
Lutheran Hour Ministry is locally known as Kuunika Media Ministry. Its work is primarily to reach to those people who don’t belong to Christian churches. It holds open air outreach evangelism. Several congregations of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi were born out of the initiative of LHM.
These two church arms have their own secretariats.
The church has made many achievements like feeding orphan children, paying school fees to needy children and youth, paying fees for skills training, breaking the silence on HIV/AIDS and training on behavior change, offering education in its schools, building chapels and parsonages in its parishes, offering training to its staff, international exposure of many youth, relationship with other Lutheran churches outside Malawi, taking part in development of the country. Currently the Bishop of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi is the Chairperson of Malawi Council of Churches (MCC) and Board Member of National Aids Commission (NAC). NAC is the umbrella body of all the organizations that work to fight against HIV/AIDS in Malawi
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi (ELCM) is one of rapid growing churches on the Continent of Africa. It was established on 21st November 1982 by a group of lay people some of whom had returned work in neighboring countries where Lutheranism has been practiced. The first service was held in a house of one of the key-founding members by the name of Gilbert Steven Msuku now late, in the city of Lilongwe and later on moved into classroom at Lilongwe Government Primary School. Rev. G.S Msuku by then Mr. Msuku was the founding Chairman and then Mr. J. P. Bvumbwe now the Bishop was the Secretary of the group. The headquarters of the new church was in Lilongwe.
In 1983 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania was contacted to send its Pastors to come and assist. Rev. Makanta now late, accepted and became the visiting missionary, in the same year; a temporal church building was constructed at Mbidi Congregation in Zomba the Southern part of Malawi. In 1985 Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe sent a group of people to Malawi to assist in evangelism. At the end of the same year Dean Tosten Ellwyin from Umpumulo Theological Seminary in South Africa was asked to come to Malawi to conduct leadership Seminar. In 1986 Rev. Stegmieyer and later Rev. Kinyamasongo from Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania came to teach and do pastoral work. In January 1987 the first three local pastors were ordained into Holy Ministry and these were Rev. J.P. Bvumbwe the current Bishop, Rev. Mixon Mbewe retired and late Rev. A.D.J Phiri. Who were ordained at the St. Peter’s Anglican church in Lilongwe by Bishop Robinson of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Botswana. In 1988 the late Mr. Joel Ngaiyamu from ELCT came to conduct leadership seminar. Late in 1987 Church leadership changed from laity to clergy known as the Senior Pastor as leader of the church. In the same 1988, ELCM became a member of Lutheran World Federation -LWF. In 1989 Lutheran World Service –LWS office was established in Malawi as a response to the call of ELCM.
During the same year ELCM became a member of Christian Council of Malawi. In 1990 Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Hermannsburg- Germany sent Rev. Martin Schweitzer late as a missionary to support mission work in Malawi. In 1991 Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland sent a Missionary Rev. A. Kujapa to Malawi to do Pastoral work since the harvest was great but the labourers were few.
Currently the Church runs 13 Primary Schools, 1 Secondary School in the Northern Region, a Lay Training and Vocational Centre in Madisi -Dowa. It also runs a Health Centre at Madisi and Mobile Health Clinics, One in each region of the country. 120 Feeding Centers across the country. Some of the Programmes in which the church is involved in are; Malaria, Climate Change and Mitigation, HIV and AIDS interventions, Diaconal work in general, Health and Sanitation, Food Security, Water Provision by drilling boreholes, just to mention but a few.
2. Present Situation
The church has over 101,000 members, 400 Congregations and Preaching Points, with 72 Parishes and Mission Areas.
The church is currently divided into 9 Deaneries with 56 total number of Pastors including the Bishop. The ELCM continues to grow covering the whole country with close to 86% of its members being in the rural areas. The highest governing body of the Church is the Church Assembly which meets every three years and it has an equal representation of 1 woman, 1 youth, 1 Man from each parish. The Assembly reflects upon the mission as priority of the church. The church Council, which is the second highest governing body, sits in between the Assembly it meets quarterly. It is responsible for ensuring the daily activities of the church.
Due to the growing number of preaching points and Congregations the ELCM is constantly in need of training more pastors and continuing education in order to respond to the leadership needs. Most congregations and parishes depend on lay people for specific ministries such as teaching Sunday school, confirmation classes, preaching and other ministerial activities, inspite of this and due to large areas of coverage still a number of parishes go without a Pastor for weeks or even months.
Therefore there is need for the church to train more laypersons (Men. Women and youth) annually, which in turn require additional financial and human resources. Gender consideration is given for participation of women, men and youth always ensured in the leadership development of lay and volunteer training as well as in the governing bodies of the church at all levels. Counting from 1982 to 2015, the church has now completed 33 years of service and witness in Malawi – hence it is worth to celebrate and thank God today for sustaining, keeping and protecting the ELCM.
The church has also two arms of development and evangelism.
Here are the arms:
Evangelical Lutheran Development Services (ELDS) for development and Lutheran Hour Ministry (LHM) for evangelism. The Evangelical Lutheran Development Program (ELDS) is a development arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Malawi established in 1989 in response to a request from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi (ELCM) and the Government of Malawi. This was primarily to provide assistance to Mozambique refugees. A multi-year agreement between the Malawi Government and ELDP legitimized all operations in the country. The Letter of Understanding (LoU) signed every second year between ELDS and the Lutheran World Federation’s (LWF) Department for World Service (DWS) formalizes the close working relationships between the church and DWS (ELDS Annual report, 2005).
Activities then were concentrated on environmental protection and provision of relief non-food items. After realizing that local Malawian communities hosting the refugees then equally deserved the assistance, a project called Rural Community Motivation and Development (RCMD) was then initiated. This project covered sectors of food security, water and sanitation, adult education environmental and emergency responses.
RCMD then matured into Integrated Community Development Project (ICDP), which covers sectors above, and also microfinance, and cross cutting issues of gender, HIV/AIDS and human rights. Before transition, ELDS worked in 9 districts. A phase out strategy led to project handovers to the well empowered project monitoring committees, local structures and community members themselves in Zomba, Lilongwe West and Luvwere in Mzimba. ELDS makes occasional monitoring visits to these project sites. During the year 2005, ELDS facilitated project implantation in 10 districts, in Karonga, Nkhatabay, Dowa, Dedza, Phalombe, Chikwawa, Balaka, Chikwawa, Mwanza, and Kasungu.
Lutheran Hour Ministry is locally known as Kuunika Media Ministry. Its work is primarily to reach to those people who don’t belong to Christian churches. It holds open air outreach evangelism. Several congregations of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi were born out of the initiative of LHM.
These two church arms have their own secretariats.
The church has made many achievements like feeding orphan children, paying school fees to needy children and youth, paying fees for skills training, breaking the silence on HIV/AIDS and training on behavior change, offering education in its schools, building chapels and parsonages in its parishes, offering training to its staff, international exposure of many youth, relationship with other Lutheran churches outside Malawi, taking part in development of the country. Currently the Bishop of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi is the Chairperson of Malawi Council of Churches (MCC) and Board Member of National Aids Commission (NAC). NAC is the umbrella body of all the organizations that work to fight against HIV/AIDS in Malawi