Confessional Lutherans set to meet in Korea

WINNIPEG – President Robert Bugbee and his wife, Gail, left today (August 24) to attend the 2009 world conference of the International Lutheran Council (ILC) in Seoul, Korea. This is the president’s first ILC gathering since his election as president of Lutheran Church–Canada in 2008. Rev. Bugbee will lead the Bible study for the representatives of 30 confessional Lutheran church bodies who comprise the association. The conference theme is “In Christ: Living life to the full.”

In addition to council business under the chairmanship of Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick (LCMS president), the church leaders and their wives will participate in seminars and workshops designed to help them cope with the life situations unique to those in leadership positions.

Both Lutheran Church–Canada presidents emeritus, Dr. Edwin Lehman and Dr. Ralph Mayan have served as ILC chairman.

The host church, the Lutheran Church in Korea (LCK) celebrated its 50th anniversary 2008, but the first Lutheran arrived in Korea much earlier reports the church president, Dr Hyun Sub Um. In July, 1832, Karl Freidrich August Gutzlaff, a Lutheran from Germany, became the first protestant missionary in Korea.

The ILC as a council of church bodies officially came into existence in 1993 in Antigua, Guatemala with the adoption of a constitution by representatives from Lutheran church bodies from all six continents. The council is a worldwide association of established confessional Lutheran church bodies which proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the basis of an unconditional commitment to the Holy Scriptures as the inspired and infallible Word of God and to the Lutheran Confessions contained in the Book of Concord as the true and faithful exposition of the Word of God.

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