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LSA's History
At first glance, Lutheran Services in America (LSA) is a young organization. LSA was founded in 1997 as an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and their 280 health and human service organizations. In other ways, LSA is part of a long and rich history of shared work in Lutheran social ministry stretching back at least a century.
In the decade preceding LSA, leaders of Lutheran health and human service organizations had been working together through the National Association of Lutheran Ministries for the Aging, the Coalition of Executives, and regional, professional and service networks. The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod through its Board for Human Care Ministries encouraged the work of its recognized service organizations. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (and its predecessor church bodies) staffed departments to coordinate and support formally affiliated organizations.
Throughout the early 1990s, largely as the result of an ELCA Blue
Ribbon Task Force, the vision was built for a more integrated approach
to Lutheran social ministry. In the mid-1990s, the social ministry
organizations joined one another as the Association of Lutheran Social
Ministry Organizations. Very soon afterward, the two church bodies
joined into the alliance to create LSA. Joanne Negstad served as the
president of LSA from its founding until 2001 and, along with many
other dedicated leaders, was instrumental to the successful launch
of LSA.
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