LCA Collection 205. Augustana Lutheran Church. Lutheran Minnesota Conference. Manuscript Minutes of the Annual Conventions of the Lutheran Minnesota Conference, 1858-1962: Overview

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Augustana Lutheran Church.  Lutheran Minnesota Conference.  Manuscript Minutes of the Annual Conventions of the Lutheran Minnesota Conference, 1858-1962.  LCA Collection 205.  4 Records Center Cartons and 1 Hollinger box.

ABSTRACT:
The Manuscript Minutes of the Annual Conventions of the Lutheran Minnesota Conference contain the handwritten and typed manuscript copies of convention minutes.  These include agendas, programs, resolutions, and reports, in addition to the minutes.  The Lutheran Minnesota Conference held multiple smaller conferences outside the annual convention until 1893, those minutes are also included.  Minutes are handwritten until 1921 and in Swedish until 1923.

The Lutheran Minnesota Conference was officially organized on 8 October 1958 at Chisago Lake Church in Center City, Minnesota, as the Minnesota Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Northern Illinois.  “Membership was defined as follows: ‘All members of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Northern Illinois, living in Minnesota and near-by states, who are members in good standing in the said synod, shall have the right of membership in this conference and shall be considered as members of the same after having been present at a regular conference meeting and having made application therefor.’”¹

The Minnesota Conference was under the Synod of Northern Illinois for a short time.  Afterwards it was part of:

• Scandinavian Evangelical Augustana Lutheran Synod (1860-1870)
• Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod (1870-1948)
• Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (1948-1962)

The Red River Valley Conference was created in 1912, and the Canada Conference in 1913, both from areas that were originally part of the Minnesota Conference. 

In 1962, The Lutheran Minnesota Conference of the Augustana Lutheran Church and The English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of the Northwest combined to create the Minnesota Synod, which was part of the Lutheran Church in America.

¹ A Church is Planted: The Story of the Lutheran Minnesota Conference, 1851-1876 by Emeroy Johnson (pg. 7).