The first contribution is told by Pastor Carla Suzana Krüger to Helle Rosenkvist, who took part in the congress as well, and the second is written in Portuguese by Deisi and Adilson Koch and translated by Luise Albers, a German participant from the congress.

Carla Suzana Krüger tells:

I have been pastor since 1998 and worked for some years in a little town called Ajuricaba in RS in the southern Brazil. In the town where the population is around 7000 people there is a good cooperation between the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, the Methodist, and the Baptist church. Once per month we meet to talk about concerns in our various churches, and sometimes we also meet to celebrate service together.

The services are then prepared together at the meetings and everybody contributes with something. Also for instance the mayor of the town has sometimes been present and have taken part also with a prayer, greeting or likewise. We are all friends and know each other from the joint work. Some years we have also chosen to hold Christmas or Easter together.

Of course there can be problems every now and then. One example is, that a former pastor in the Lutheran church was very charismatic orientated and personally belonging to the Movimento Encontrao which is a movement inside the Lutheran church, but with similarities to some Pentecostal churches.

At a certain time he decided to leave the church and convert into another confession and he moved away to another city. When he left some people from the congregation also decided to leave and they instead joined the Baptist church in the town. That coursed a little difficulties in the beginning, but became unproblematic after a while.

Deisi and Adilson Koch explain about the church:

The IECLB, Igreja Evangelica de Confissăo Luterana no Brasil, is linked to the Lutheran World Federation. She was born in Brazil in 1824 with the arrival of the first German immigrants who had in their luggage Bibles, songbooks and catechisms to promote Protestantism in a land that had so far been Roman Catholic.

By now, IECLB is a church with all the German traces that are inculturated in the diverse Brazilian culture, showing the saving action of the trinitarian God.

The IECLB is structurated by innumerous communities with their respective local directories which on their turn form the parishes which constitute all together the 18 synods of IECLB. In the communities, she realizes various activities with groups of women, men, elders, children, youth, and disabled people. Along with the communitarian work, she does a variety of social work, helping kindergarten, old people´s homes, orphans, people in need, small agriculturors and others.

IECLB owns three centres of theological education, which create specialists on four special emphases: the missionary one, which works on the question of the church´s mission, the diaconal one, which prioritizes works with sick, old and to be visited, the catechistic one, which puts through work with youth, children and the one responsible for education in leadership and pastorality to act in the field of counselling and office/service.

IECLB witnesses the Christian faith with other churches through ecumenical action. As a church, she has a special form of being, which has a Lutheran identity but which above all prioritizes the Spirit of Jesus Christ and God Father with their evidence of spiritual and communitarian living.

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