LCA Reconciliation Action Plan endorsed

The LCA’s Reconciliation Action Plan has received final approval from the General Church Board and final endorsement by Reconciliation Australia.

Chief Executive Officer Karen Mundine said Reconciliation Australia was ‘delighted to welcome the Lutheran Church of Australia to the Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) program and to formally endorse its inaugural Reflect RAP’.

‘As a member of the RAP community, the Lutheran Church of Australia joins over 1000 dedicated corporate, government, and not-for-profit organisations that have formally committed to reconciliation through the RAP program since its inception in 2006’, she said. ‘RAP organisations across Australia are turning good intentions into positive actions, helping to build higher trust, lower prejudice, and pride in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.’

LCA/NZ Bishop John Henderson described the RAP document as ‘a labour of love for our church’.

‘It represents the continuation of a journey begun when, as brothers in Christ, the late Pastor George Rosendale, from Hope Vale in Far North Queensland and Dr Lance Steicke, the then President of the LCA, led a formal rite of reconciliation between the Lutheran Church of Australia and Indigenous Lutherans during the 2000 Synodical Convention’, he said.

‘The Lutheran RAP is a framework we can use in our organisations and ministries to increase our awareness, sensitivity and inclusion. It can help us identify any personal or systemic prejudices or disadvantages among us, which otherwise we might not readily see or acknowledge.’

Copies of the LCA RAP have been sent to all pastors, congregations, Churchwide board and committee leaders, General Synod delegates, schools, early learning centres, aged care and retirement homes, each of the district offices and district church councils.