Lutheran Archives last week marked 100 years of gathering, preserving and sharing the records, statistics and stories of the congregations, departments, ministries and individuals of Lutheran churches in Australia and New Zealand.

You can watch a video of the 26 March meeting and presentation on FoLA’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@friendsoflutheranarchives9644/live

To contact FoLA, please email FoLA@lca.org.au

To view the Lutheran Archives’ website, visit lutheranarchives.lca.org.au

However, as archivist Bethany Pietsch told those gathered for a Friends of Lutheran Archives (FoLA) meeting in North Adelaide on 26 March, the genesis of the archives can be traced back earlier in the 1920s than the ‘official beginning’ in 1926.

Bethany, who led the presentation on the history of the LCANZ’s archives along with fellow archivists Benjamin Hollister and Angela Schilling, named Oscar Bernhard Mueller, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia (ELSA), as the church’s first statistician. Mueller was ‘appointed to the [statistician’s] role sometime between the synods of 1923 and 1926’. He was the first to organise the church’s archives, then in the keeping of the synodical president, and to make recommendations about their future preservation and access.

‘Pastor Mueller did not fill this role for very long – he died suddenly in January 1926,’ Bethany said. ‘But he left behind a very important legacy, because three months later, at the ELSA synodical convention in Tabor, Victoria, we find our very first “Statistician, Statistics and Archives” report.’ Mueller’s list of rules and regulations for management of the church archives was submitted at the same synod. Officially adopted in 1932, many of Mueller’s recommendations were close to the modern collection policy of Lutheran Archives today.

Other important milestones in terms of the preservation of Lutheran history in Australia included the formation of an ELSA Historical Committee at the 1923 synod at Tweedvale [Lobethal] in South Australia and a resolution at the same convention that committee member Pastor Alfred Brauer be asked to ‘proceed with the writing of a church history’. ‘He was later given the official title of Church Historian,’ Bethany said.

‘Come 1926, when Oscar Mueller has looked at the archives, provided his list of recommendations, and then passed away before he can carry them out, the torch is passed to these fellows [on the Historical Committee].’

While Bethany presented the history of record-keeping in the ELSA (later Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia – ELCA), Benjamin took attendees through the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA) side of the story, which officially began in 1928 with a motion to establish ‘General Synod Archives’ adopted and Pastor Wolfgang Riedel appointed as Keeper of the Archives, a role in which he served from 1928 to 1934.

Pastor F J H Blaess was appointed as the ELCA’s first archivist in 1938. Both ELCA and UELCA kept archives separately until after their closing synodical conventions in 1965, before their amalgamation and the formation of the LCA in 1966, with a single site for document storage. Bethany said: ‘Fortunately, history was one area in which ELCA and UELCA had been cooperating for a long time’.

The newly combined archives of the LCA were rehoused several times, including for five years in a residential home in North Adelaide just off Wellington Square, which was ‘not ideal for preservation needs’. They were then relocated to Luther Seminary’s old gymnasium just around the corner, which had ‘a shed-like appearance’ and was ‘neither dust nor rat and mice proof’. After 12 years of discussions, planning, and several locations considered, the new Archives and Research Centre opened behind Church House at 101 Archer Street, North Adelaide, on 24 July 1977. This gave the church the satisfaction that its archives were being stored and preserved appropriately for access by generations to come. In 2003, the Archives moved once more, this time to a purpose-built facility in the inner northern Adelaide suburb of Bowden, with three times the space of the Archer Street building.

Today, the Lutheran Archives’ collection spans close to 2,700 linear metres of records, including both published and unpublished material. Formats in the collection include manuscripts, audiovisual, photographic images, artefacts, periodicals and published works. Materials date from before the time of Lutheran migration to Australia and New Zealand in the 1830s until the present day, documenting LCANZ ministries and interactions across the globe. More than 30 linear metres of records from the Lutheran Church of New Zealand became part of the collection in 2023. The Archives’ team is assisted by a network of volunteers, for which Benjamin, Bethany and Angela are extremely thankful.

SUNDAY 5 APRIL 2026 - EASTER SUNDAY

Bethany 10:30am HC Pastor Gus Schutz

Grace - St John’s Cemetery 6:00am Easter Prayers

Grace St John’s 7:00am HC

Langmeil - 6:45am HC & 8:45am HC Pastor Detlev Vosgerau

Lyndoch 9:30am HC Pastor Graham Jenke

Schoenborn 9:00am HC

Tabor 9:00am HC Pastor Gus Schutz

BIBLE READINGS

First Reading: Acts 10:34-43 Summary of Jesus’ life and ministry OR Jeremiah 31:1-6 God will rebuild Jerusalem

Psalm: 118: 1-2,14-24

The Second Reading: Philippians 2:5-11 Christ - obedient servant and exalted Lord

The Gospel Reading: Matthew 26:14 – 27:66 Jesus’ suffering and death

Rev Stephen Schultz

Assistant Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand

‘When will it end? Will it ever end?’ These questions are asked by countless people worldwide for various reasons.

It is asked by those experiencing the latest conflict in their lands, those living under oppressive rule, those experiencing violence in the home, those finding it hard to make ends meet, those suffering from injury or disease or grief, and those who are struggling with addiction.

So many are wondering: When will it end? Will it ever end?

Promises are made – by governments, big business and industry and other well-meaning people (and sometimes not). But still, it doesn’t end. They can’t end it – not through money, force, policies or strategy.

The world is in quite a mess – incapable of fixing things or ending things. But God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. Jesus was born into our world as one of us – truly human and truly God.

Jesus entered the pain and suffering, the brokenness and failure. He experienced injustice and violence. He did not resist it or avoid it. He faced it. He came to bring an end to it. As he hung on a cross dying, it was hard to see how this could end anything. But with some of his last words from the cross, Jesus said: ‘It is finished!’

It seemed as though he was finished. But these were not words of defeat. Jesus had completed his task of paying the price for all of our unfinished business.

After three days, Jesus rose again from the dead. His first words to his followers as the risen Lord were: ‘Peace be with you.’ They are words that are full of promise.

The risen Lord Jesus brings us the hope of an end to suffering, injustice, violence and death. The risen Lord Jesus brings us a new beginning of forgiveness, mercy, peace and life. He finished his work on the cross, and he lives to begin a new work in us.

Jesus promises to be with us always as he deals with the unfinished business in our lives. This new life with him will never end. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

In Christ,

Stephen

(LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith is currently on rest and refreshment leave.)