Evangelical Covenant Churches

Though heir to the liturgical tradition of pietistic Lutheranism, the Evangelical Covenant Church adapted to a revivalist milieu in America with its focus on Scandinavian immigrants as the target group for evangelistic and pastoral outreach. A new sense of mission, however, pervades the denomination, creating expanded horizons both for worship and for ministry to the unchurched. With its roots in the Lutheran state church of Sweden and the pietistic renewal in the mid-nineteenth century, the nascent Scandinavian immigrant church, which is today called the Evangelical Covenant Church, took on a character that retained the church's historic identity while adapting to the influences of American revivalism. The theological-historical nature of the Evangelical Covenant Church, coupled with its immigrant sociology, gave clear definition to its worship forms and to the influence of worship on related church ministries. The Original Ethnic Focus From its Lutheran roots, Covenant worship …