Church setting up archive

THE history of the Lutheran Church in all districts should be recorded and saved in an archive, an official says.
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG) head bishop Rev Dr Jack Urame said archives would be built in districts where there was a larger number of Lutherans in order for the church to record information and preserve church history in all districts in the country.
“Pastors should keep the information of the church population, baptisms, confirmations and marriage records in the archives which is very important for the church,” he said.
“Every district should work on their own history and preserve it in an archive for the future generations to know the progress of the ELC over the years.”
Urame said some pastors in some districts had used their initiative to keep record church history in pictures and in diaries.
“There are so many unrecorded profiles of missionaries and church achievements that are not known by the generation of today but only a few are recorded as pictures in photo albums,” he said.
Urame said pastors keeping written information of the church as records needed to save them as it gave a picture of how far the ELCPNG had progressed in the country.
“Some of the written information of the church records of marriage, baptism and confirmation are kept safely by the pastors but others have been lost over time,” he said.
Urame said when church records were kept safely at the district level then it would be easier for them to transfer the files from the written records to the electronic copy to the national archive centre.
“The written records will be transferred from the district level to the national level so that we keep track of the church records for the future generation.”