A short history of Luther-Tyndale
Luther Tyndale congregation is the "mother" congregation
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England (ELCE).
The congregation was started in 1896 as a foreign community in England,
worshipping God in Luther's language. The six young founders, bakers
in their early twenties, were men of initiative: they sent a letter
to distant Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, USA, asking for a pastor,
each pledging 5 of his weekly shillings for the support of the pastor.
They were men of vison, too. Realising that a church which does not
use the language of the country not only forfeits part of its primary
responsibility but also limits its own future, they made their church
services first bilingual as their children grew up, and finally entirely
English.
When the congregation, Immanuel Lutheran Church, dedicated its new
place of worship in 1939, it changed its name to Luther-Tyndale Memorial
Church, thus symbolising the kind of church they wanted to be: a community
of Christians proclaiming the Gospel teaching of Martin Luther in the
language of William Tyndale.
Luther-Tyndale Memorial Church now exists to serve the local community of Kentish
Town and also the international Lutheran community in London - we have members
from Germany, Poland, the Philippines, USA, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia
and Brazil.
