FILM DIGITISATION APPEAL

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COMMEMORATING LUTHER

This year is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Discover how Lutherans have commemorated significant milestones since Luther nailed his '95 Theses' to the church door at Wittenberg.

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Become our friend!

Interested in history? Enjoy a good story? Want to learn more? Join our enthusiastic group of supporters by becoming a Friend of Lutheran Archives (FoLA). We encourage the collection and preservation of archival material and to promote the work of the Lutheran Archives.

MORE ABOUT FoLA

LCA Ministry Support

Lutheran Archives is a department of the Executive Office of the Church, also known as Ministry Support. It is one of five departments exercising the 'enabling' functions outlined in our Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) Strategic Direction 2015–2018. Working with us are:

Together we provide the support services for LCA and Lutheran Church of New Zealand (LCNZ) agencies and congregations that enable them to focus on their mission and ministry activities (the 'go' and 'grow' priorities in our LCA Strategic Direction).

Please support us

This link takes you to our LCA online donation site, where you can pay securely via credit card.

Lutheran Archives

About us

Lutheran Archives holds a harvest of stories that show God’s love coming to life – the stories of the congregations, departments and the people of the church. Lutheran Archives gathers and preserves these stories from all over Australia and the Pacific – wherever the church is involved. We share the stories of the LCA/NZ across the church and in the wider public. We enable others to encounter these stories through research, so they can share their stories and experiences of love coming to life.

A wide variety of people access these records: congregations, family historians, academic researchers, creative artists and filmmakers. These records help people to write congregation histories, fill gaps in family trees, understand our cultural diversity, further Aboriginal language research, and restore identity. The power of these records cannot be overestimated.

By depositing records at Lutheran Archives, the stories of your ministries can be encountered by members of the church and public, told and disseminated to a myriad of audiences. We are able to turn your records deposited at Lutheran Archives into new ministries by providing and enabling access to them.

How we serve

As a ministry support department, Lutheran Archives is here to support you in your ministries. We can assist you with:

advice on managing your records
caring for your permanent records that you no longer regularly access.

Managing your records appropriately enables you to focus on carrying out your current ministries – beginning with records in your possession and continuing into the future when they are deposited at Lutheran Archives.

Lutheran Archives identifies records to be deposited. We make those records accessible through arrangement and description, indexing, translation and digitisation, and we provide contextual understanding for researchers to interpret those records.

Through presentations, exhibitions, publications, seminars and events, we disseminate the harvest of stories throughout the Lutheran community and beyond. Join Friends of Lutheran Archives to feast on these stories.

Partner with us

You and your ministries are the foundation of our ministry.

1. Ensure you create records within your congregation, mission, auxiliary
or department, and of your personal experiences in the church.

2. Manage those records appropriately while you are using them.

3. Deposit those records (minutes, correspondence, artefacts, films, photographs) when they are no longer being regularly used.

The fact that people in the past took the trouble to preserve their story means that we are blessed today with their harvest. Take the time today to preserve this generation’s fruit, so that there will be a harvest of stories for our children and grandchildren.

Events

25 FEBRUARY – FoLA talk: Lost horses, green parrots and elusive snakes (Reports from the first Hermannsburg missionaries)

Talk: Lost horses, green parrots and elusive snakes – Revisiting the reports sent back home by the first Hermannsburg missionaries

Speaker: Pastor Bob Kempe

Monday 25 February at 7.30pm

Bethlehem House, Sudholz Pl, Adelaide

It is tempting to think of those first missionaries to Hermannsburg as essentially serious-minded, stalwart German Lutherans, with minds firmly set on converting masses of the Aboriginal people of Central Australia to Christianity. Of course, they were this. But they were also pioneers who pushed the boundaries of early Australia in the most courageous and extraordinary ways. Above all, though, they were at heart ordinary people having to contend with the ordinary, everyday things of their lives: things like horses, green parrots, snakes, and so on.

With the help of Vic Pfitzner, Bob Kempe is in the process of producing for publication the first complete translation of the reports sent back home by Missionaries Kempe, Schwarz and Schulze. In this session of FoLA he will share some of the everyday stories from those reports, covering the period from the beginning of the Hermannsburg journey to early settlement (1875-82).

Bob Kempe is a retired pastor and great grandson of Missionary Kempe. He was a lecturer at Australian Lutheran College for 10 years and served as Aboriginal Ministry Liaison.

18 MARCH – FoLA talk: Discovering the stories of our post-World War II migrants

Talk: Discovering the stories of our post-World War II migrants

Speaker: Adam Kauschke

Monday 18 March at 7.30pm

Bethlehem House, Sudholz Pl, Adelaide

In 2017 FoLA decided to fund a project which enabled Adam Kauschke (Archivist, Lutheran Archives) to improve the accessibility of records relating to post-World War II migrants held at Lutheran Archives.

This unique collection of records includes letters from displaced persons, pastoral act registers, minutes of decisions made by church leaders, notebooks, photographs and more.

During this talk Adam will reflect on his work on the project, share the stories of support by Australian Lutherans, and touch on the experiences of migrants seeking assistance.

Congregation records – guidelines

This document provides information on what records congregations should keep and how to protect them. Click here to download.

'Stepping Stones'

Read the stories from one of The Lutheran's most popular columns.

Services

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Our records cover significant themes in the history of Australia, including:

CHURCH HISTORY congregations, church ministries, departments and organisations
FAMILY HISTORY through parish registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages and burials
ABORIGINAL languages, culture and history in comprehensive and detailed mission records
REFUGEE AND MIGRATION HISTORY 19^th century and post-WWII
SETTLEMENT AND LOCAL HISTORY through congregation records and registers which document the settlement of Lutherans in newly opened rural areas
LUTHERAN SCHOOLING in history of education
GERMAN-AUSTRALIAN language, traditions, media and cultural life – ‘Deutschtum’.

You can carry out research in person at our archives, or contact our staff by phone or email with your research inquiries.

GENEALOGY AND FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

The parish registers contain information on births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths and burials of people who were associated with the Lutheran Church. These are extremely valuable for family history research. To assist researchers a Church Records Computer Database Index has been prepared. A printout of the surname provides the researcher with an index to entries with that surname in the parish registers. This enables the researcher to quickly locate those records which may be useful. There is an additional charge for this service.

GERMAN LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION

BOOK SALES

PHOTO REPRODUCTIONS

PHOTOCOPYING

TOURS

FEES

Scope of collection

RECORDS FROM LUTHERAN SYNODS

Kavel-Fritzsche Synod (1838–1846)
Langmeil-Light Pass Synod (1846–1874)
Bethany-Lobethal Synod (1846–1863)
Victoria Synod (1856–1921)
Tanunda-Light Pass Synod (1860–1874)
Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia (ELSA) (1863–1944)
Immanuel Synod (1874–1921)
General Synod (1876–1921)
Immanuel Synod a.a.G. (1884–1921)
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Queensland (ELSQ) (1885–1921)
United German & Scandinavian Lutheran Synod of Qld (1885–1921)
ELSA a.a.G (1904–1926)
United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA) (1921–1966)
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia (ELCA) (1944–1966)
Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) (1966–)

TYPES OF RECORDS

Official histories of the Lutheran churches in Australia
Church departmental records
Church convention reports
Church almanacs and yearbooks
Church statistical records
Church periodicals (Australian, US, German etc)
Congregation histories and records
Parish registers
Parish papers
Biographical records of pastors and Lutheran teachers
Family history books
Mission magazines
Some shipping lists (SA, 1837–1870)
Special collections (Bibles, hymnbooks, catechisms, sermon books, devotion books, theology)
Photographs (churches, schools, missions, pastors, teachers)
Artefacts
Maps and atlases

Where to find us

Lutheran Archives
27 Fourth Street, Bowden SA 5007

TRAM

RAIL

BUS

CAR

TRAM

In King William Street or North Terrace, catch the tram to the Entertainment Centre at Hindmarsh. Cross Port Road (walking away from the Entertainment Centre) and walk south to Gibson Street and then north-east to Fourth Street. Note: this is a free service.

RAIL

BUS

CAR

Usual hours of business

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30 am – 4.30 pm
Closed Wednesdays, weekends and public holidays

Closures: 20 November 2018; 1 December 2018 - 4 January 2019 inclusive

NOTE: Fourth Street is closed for building works. Enter car park from Drayton Street and continue around to Fourth Street side. Pedestrian access also available from Gibson Street.