The Lutheran witness with American Indians and Alaska Natives has more than 350 years of history: It is a history filled with hope and broken promises, solidarity and injustice, affirmation and paternalism, strategies and inaction, grand goals and lack of funding. WIth this conflicting legacy we enter the 1990s. At the end of 1994, the ELCA American Indian and Alaskan Native membershiup was 6,685. While general ELCA membership declined 1.7 percent between 1987 and 1994, American Indian and Alaska Native membership increased by 18.1 percent during that same period. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has 21 congregations with 10 percent or more American Indian and Alaska Native members.

(Excerpt from the
American Indian and Alaska Native Strategic Plan