Basic Information

The second-largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S. was founded in Missouri by German immigrants in 1847. Many of these immigrants had rejected the planned merger of the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia.

History

Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches National Evangelical Lutheran Church (Finnish)	merged intoLutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) (1847)	continuedLutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS)
		split into Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (1976)

Snapshot

	1990	2000	Growth/Decline
Congregations	6,020	6,077	+57 (0.9%)
Adherents	2,603,725	2,521,062	-82,663 (-3.2%)

Notes

Snapshot data are from Churches and Church Membership in the United States 1990 and Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Copyright © 2002, Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). All rights reserved. Published by Glenmary Research Center, 1312 Fifth Ave., North, Nashville, TN 37208. www.glenmary.org/grc.

History data were taken from the National Council of Churches' Historic Archive CD and recent editions of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches [More information on history data sources]