It’s About Multiplication
Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota

“Come over to Macedonia to help us.” Paul received this message in a vision and responded. Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church (OELC) in Minneapolis today receives similar messages from their Oromo brothers and sisters spread throughout North America and in other parts of the world. Pastor Melkamu Negeri and the members of OELC respond.

Pastor Negeri, originally from Ethiopia, has been a Lutheran pastor for thirty years. In 1995 Pastor Negeri arrived in Minneapolis to serve OELC. Members there had originally settled in Minnesota in the 1980’s and organized as a congregation in 1993. Today five hundred people worship in the Oromo language for two hours each Sunday. Sunday school, weekly youth activities, prayer groups, a program for the elderly, and social services are all part of the church’s outreach to its members. OELC is one of the fastest growing congregations in the Minneapolis Area Synod, according to Mission Director Richard Mork, full of vitality and an extraordinary sense of mission.

As happened in Minneapolis, when Oromo people arrive in a new location, small groups begin praying together and studying the Bible. The OELC, which acts as a “mother church” for Oromo Lutherans throughout the United States and Canada, is then contacted. Pastor Negeri or lay preachers travel to the churches being organized. Choirs often visit, and spiritual conferences are held to encourage the worship life of these new churches. Currently, the Minneapolis congregation is “mothering” many new Oromo churches in the United States and Canada.

The Oromo are an indigenous African ethnic group. They make up approximately 45% of Ethiopia today. Lutheran missionaries from Scandinavia and Germany worked among the Oromo in the late nineteenth century. Evangelist Onesimos Nesib, who translated the Bible into Oromo in 1893, is commemorated in the Lutheran Book of Worship. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, part of the Lutheran World Federation, has over four million members.

Oromo people have struggled with the government of Ethiopia for many years. In pursuing their desire for self-determination, they face exile, torture, abduction, imprisonment, and death. Many Oromo have fled to Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America. Everywhere they go, they start Lutheran churches. Over thirty Oromo churches exist today outside of Ethiopia, mainly in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

OELC members at worship pray for their church, each other, and for the whole world. Some meet every Saturday for at least two hours to pray for, among other things, the well-being of the churches they are birthing. They pray also for the suffering people in Africa. One Sunday a month is a day of fasting and prayer. Three to five thousand dollars is raised every month to send to African churches. Through their offerings, OELC support pastors in the Sudan, in Nairobi, Kenya, and in Ethiopia. In Nairobi alone, over 1,000 people worship every Sunday. On September 3, 2006, $70,000 in pledges was raised to build a new church in (Finfine) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for Oromo who want to worship in their own language.

OELC was initially funded in part by Evangelical Outreach and Congregational Ministry of the ELCA. Augsburg College and two South Minneapolis congregations have provided worship space. The church is now self-supporting, but Pastor Negeri is grateful for the continued encouragement and spiritual support offered by the Minneapolis Area Synod and the churchwide organizations.

OELC has several congregational partners as well. Exchanges of choirs and pastors, opportunities to eat together, share fellowship, and grow together in knowledge of each other’s culture – these are mutual benefits of such partnerships. The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis is helping with the renovation of OELC’s building. Eight members of Good Shepherd are traveling to visit Mekane Yesus churches in Ethiopia. Together the two congregations, plus the churchwide Stand with Africa campaign, fund a rural development project there.

The Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Church is multiplying, spreading their strong sense of mission, prayer, and service into the world in the name of Jesus Christ.