Lutheran Church Planter Minnick Retired

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. M.L. Minnick Jr., 65, retired July 15 from the active ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and as executive director of the ELCA Division for Outreach.  Minnick is credited with seeing the starts of 875 Lutheran congregations across the United States and Caribbean during his 39 years of ministry.
     "Mac Minnick is a person in whom everyone recognizes an amazing passion for starting new ministries, for outreach with the gospel -- an amazing hands-on administrator of just about every part of that process," said the Rev. Gary A. Marshall, Escondido, Calif., an assistant to the bishop of the ELCA's Pacifica Synod and chair of the ELCA Division for Outreach board.  "He's been creative and open to new directions that the church needs to take, especially in its outreach."
     The division provides leadership to the ELCA as it reaches out with the gospel of Jesus Christ in the United States and the Caribbean and invites all people to have a faith relationship with God.  Working with congregations, synods and regions, the division develops new ministries and congregations and supports existing ministries and congregations and urban and rural coalitions.
     Minnick planted seeds for Lutheran churches during 20 years in executive church positions -- eight years as the division's executive director.  For the two previous years he has been the division's director for mission development and new congregations.  From 1986 to 1987 Minnick was the director for outreach in the Division for Mission in North America in the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), one of three church bodies that formed the ELCA in 1988.  He served as director for church extension in the LCA from 1977 to 1985.
     Minnick was pastor of Christ Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Va., from 1968 to 1976; St. John Lutheran Church, Norfolk, Va., from 1960 to 1968, and St. Mark Lutheran Church, in Luray, Va., from 1958 to 1960.
     While in the LCA Virginia Synod he was a member of the synod's executive board, the board of the Lutheran Church in America Foundation and the LCA Board of Missions.  Minnick was president of the Lutheran Cooperative Ministry of Roanoke Valley and of the board of trustees for Virginia Synod Lutheran Homes, Inc.
     Minnick chaired the board of trustees for Marion Junior College when the college merged its assets with Roanoke College, Salem, Va.  From 1968 to 1976 he was an adjunct professor at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke.
     His community involvement included serving as chair of an advisory committee for the public television station in Roanoke.  He is a co-founder of the Roanoke Area Drug Control Council.
     Minnick is the author of the devotional book Called to Be Christ.
     Born in Harrisonburg, Va., in April 1932, he was graduated from Roanoke College in 1955 with a bachelor of arts degree.  From 1953 to 1957 Minnick was president of the Luther League of America, the national youth organization of the former United Lutheran Church in America.  In 1958, he received a master of divinity degree from Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C.
     Minnick is married to Lynda M. Tidemann, director for East Africa, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, in the ELCA's Division for Global Mission.  He has four grown children from a previous marriage: Katherine, Ellen, Mark and Jeff.
     "You will continue to be in my heart," Minnick told his last meeting of the Division for Outreach's board in March.  "I hope you will continue to be my friends and colleagues in the faith."
     Minnick is succeeded by the Rev. Richard A. Magnus, 53, who had been a mission director and assistant to the bishop of the ELCA's Rocky Mountain Synod based in Denver.
     "The division has been well led by Pastor Minnick," said Magnus. "The division seeks both to start new work and also to assist congregations as they're responding to the cultures and races around them by reaching out to new people in their midst."

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html