New Jerusalem Lutheran Church on Sunday confirmed its decision to become a charter member of the new North American Lutheran Church.
The congregation voted overwhelmingly to join the new church five weeks ago.
A separate confirming vote is necessary to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
A 30-day period of reflection was required between the votes to join the new church.
The grace period between votes to leave the ELCA is 90 days, thus, the church will be affiliated with the NALC before it votes again Sept. 12 to part ways with the ELCA.
The new church will be officially formed at a national convention in Columbus, Ohio, in August.
Sunday's vote at a special congregational meeting during worship at New Jerusalem was 102 to 5 with one abstention, said church member Dennis Benfield.
The impetus for breaking from the ELCA came when the national church body decided to allow gays and lesbians "in monogamous, publicly accountable same-sex relationships" to serve as ELCA pastors without restrictions.
"We're over halfway down the path we've been called to follow to a new national church that acknowledges the Holy Scriptures as the final authority on church policy," said the Rev. Randall A. Cauble, pastor at New Jerusalem for 19 years.
The NALC will offer a more decentralized church structure that will leave major policy decisions in the hands of local congregations, the pastor said. Policies adopted by the national church must also be approved by local congregations to be effective.
The NALC will not have national or state bishops. Clusters of congregations in defined geographic areas will receive regional leadership from a "dean," said Benfield.
The North American church is the outgrowth of the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, an organization started in the 1990s to oppose what concerned members call the emerging liberal agenda within the ELCA. New Jerusalem is a member of the Lutheran CORE.
Cauble said changes in the ELCA have "gone far beyond how the church deals with homosexuality. This is really about the authority of the Holy Scriptures over what we believe and what we teach as Lutherans."
The ELCA Churchwide Assembly approved ordaining and installing homosexuals as pastors and "endorsed something that God has repeatedly called 'sin' for thousands of years in biblical teachings," he said.
"New Jerusalem and other Lutheran congregations are simply responding to the ELCA turning its back on one of the Ten Commandments — the 6th Commandment against adultery — and (the ELCA) challenging God's authority to create commandments at all," said Cauble.
New Jerusalem is one of seven ELCA congregations in North Carolina to join Lutheran CORE.
Millers Lutheran Church on the Springs Road in Hickory voted recently to leave the ELCA. A second vote will be taken later.
For more information, go to www.lutherancore.org.
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