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American Church History: Lutheran Denominations

This research guide provides resources pretraining to American church history and includes books, ebooks, open access resources, and websites.

Lutheran Churches

The American Association of Lutheran Churches: Founded in 1987, membership is estimated to be around 16,000 in 57-70 congregations (2010).

Apostolic Lutheran Church of America: Founded in 1872, membership is estimated to be around 9,000 over 50-57 congregations (2016). 

Association of Free Lutheran Congregations: Founded in 1962, membership is estimated to be around 36,000 over 254 churches (2020).

Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America: Founded in 1900, membership is estimated to be around 26,000 (2006) across 86 churches (2020).

Church of the Lutheran Confession: Founded in 1960, membership is estimated to be around 7,000 across 75 churches (2020).

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: Founded in 1988, membership is estimated to be 3.2 million over 8,857 churches (2020). 

Evangelical Lutheran Synod: Founded in 1918, membership is estimated to be around 16,500 over 133 churches (2020).

Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: Founded in 1957, membership is estimated to be around 5,360 in 40 churches (2016). The link to the official website cannot be found.

Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod: Founded in 1847, membership is estimated to be 1,802,680 across 5,897 churches (2020).

Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ: Founded 2001, membership is estimated to be 194,144 across 776 churches (2020).

North American Lutheran Church: Founded in 2010, membership is estimated to be around 140,000 across 441 churches (2020).

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod: Founded in 1850, membership is estimated to be around 408,259 in 1,198 churches (2020).

Holy Bible

There is no official bible for these denominations, but different churches may prefer one translation over another.