Lutheran Archives

24/06/2026

Great news. Congratulations to the organising group including Friends of Lutheran Archives ANZ chair Geoff Saegenschnitter and Lutheran Archives volunteer Ev Leske.

Do you know you can now access historic editions of 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑎 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑠 through the National Library of Australia's Trove database 👉 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/title/2056 #

Issues spanning 1908 to 1945 have been made available online thanks to a digitalisation project by The Heritage Network (Barossa, Light, Gawler and Mid-Murray) in partnership with the Barossa Valley Archives and Historical Trust.

The achievement marks the culmination of several years of fundraising, community support and collaboration aimed at preserving one of the Barossa region's most important historical resources.

Originally published in Angaston in 1908, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑎 𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑠 chronicled the people, events and developments that shaped the district and surrounding communities for generations.

Issues from 1946-1951 will also be added as part of a separate project funded by the National Library of Australia.

For the full story, see the June 24 edition of The Leader newspaper.

23/06/2026

Our sister institution Australian Lutheran College Library is hosting a book launch on 7th July. The session is part of the Society for Bible Literature International Meeting 2026, but is open to everyone.

This event will mark the publication of Stephen Hultgren’s major, two-volume study of the formation of the New Testament gospels from a social memory perspective. Entitled Mighty in Word and Deed and published in 2025 by De Gruyter in its BZNW series, the work offers a new and different approach to the formation of the gospels. Social memory takes account of both the individual and the community in the formation of the gospels by considering social frameworks and socially significant narrative patterns that individuals use to remember and recount the past. Part 1 reviews the history of scholarship on the formation of the gospel genre and develops a suitable approach, while parts 2 and 3 offer textual studies illustrating factors that contributed to the construction of a gospel as an extended narrative, inclusive of Jesus’s words and deeds. The work demonstrates how extended gospel narrative functioned to integrate memories of Jesus into different frameworks of Christological interpretation, and why such an extended narrative was essential to early Christian memory of Jesus.

After an introduction to the work and a critical response, participants will be invited to engage with questions and discussion. A reception will close the session. Stay for a drink and conversation.

Author:
Dr. Stephen Hultgren (Australian Lutheran College/University of Divinity)

Panelists:
Dr. Bart Bruehler (Uniting College for Leadership and Theology/ University of Divinity);
Dr. Robyn Whitaker (Pilgrim Theological College/ University of Divinity)

22/06/2026

The History Teachers' Association of Australia: HTAA National History Challenge is running again this year, with a theme of "Voices". This is a great project for aspiring historians and historical researchers from all school levels to explore the theme and the various special categories (https://historychallenge.org.au/contest-information/special-categories/), as well as significant prizes!

Lutheran Archives would love to see students consider stories inspired by material from our collection, or from other Lutheran collections (congregation archives, school archives etc), particularly in the special categories of History of Sport, Australian Women's History or History of Place.

If you submit an entry with a Lutheran Theme, let us know and we will showcase some here or at the archives research room.

Lutheran Education Australia Lutheran Education Queensland Lutheran Education SA, NT & WA Lutheran Education Victoria, New South Wales & Tasmania

https://historychallenge.org.au/

Home Welcome to the National History Challenge The National History Challenge is a free research-based competition for Australian students. It gives students a chance to be historians, researching world history, examining Australia’s past, investigating their community or exploring their own roots...

21/06/2026

Last week we were privileged to have researchers from the Ntaria Choir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntaria_Choir) (previously Hermannsburg Choir) which is celebrating 70 years since their inaugural national tour.

With funding from Artback NT, the celebration will include a travelling exhibition and performances around Australia. This is attached to their win at the Sydney Film Festival last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puhu4SFjS3A

As a Lutheran choir, much of its history, both manuscript and photographic, is housed at Lutheran Archives.

Attached photo: Hermannsburg Choir performing at Adelaide Town Hall 1967

21/06/2026

Archivists can get excited about things that cause non-archivists to look at us askance.

We are, however, very excited about our newest recruit!

🎉🥳👏Please welcome Neil, the book trolley, to Lutheran Archives. 👏🎉🥳

Neil comes to us from the State Library of South Australia where he spent many years in the P stacks and the bindery.

Neil will help Lutheran Archives get material ready for researchers each morning. Here he is by the retrieval shelves in the research room.

18/06/2026

They say time is money.

The reverse is also true: money is time.

In the case of Lutheran Archives, your tax-deductible donation funds the time of our professional archivists as they:

- liaise with depositors and accession new material
- assess existing material for relevance and conservation needs
- arrange material for clarity and consistency
- rehouse material for preservation and protection
- create finding aids for researchers to access the collection
- provide archiving assistance to congregation, parish, district and church offices
- prepare submissions for grants
- manage and support a wonderful volunteer team!

Donate now (once off or regularly): https://square.link/u/j3RsOwzN

Unfortunately, government grants are only available for funding material supplies (archival boxes and folders, etc) or specialist external services (film and video digitisation, professional preservation photography etc), not for core time.

In the last 4 years, with the equivalent of 2.7 full-time staff, we have managed to:

- audit and rehouse our rare book and artefact collections
- reduce our deposit backlog by 2 years (in addition to processing new deposits)
- prepare finding aids now available on the website
- prepare artefacts and write informative panels for Church House Exhibition Centre
- assessed, organised and listed our framed works collection
- assessed, organised and listed our maps and plans collection
- assisted 100s of researchers from across the globe

Donate now (once off or regularly): https://square.link/u/j3RsOwzN

All of these activities are designed to make the collection more accessible and easier for researchers to tell the story of Lutherans and Lutheranism in Australia and New Zealand.

Your tax-deductible donations make this possible today and for the future. Without your generosity, we face reduced accessibility.

If we have helped you make a connection, solve a puzzle, prove your theory, discover a relic, or if you just want to be sure that this historical collection is tended to and provided for into the future, please consider donating today.

Donate now (once off or regularly): https://square.link/u/j3RsOwzN

Become a regular Archives Supporter and help us plan and build for the future of the Lutheran Archives Collection. A regular donation provides a stable income and some certainty, whilst minimising the impact on donors. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

17/06/2026

Our bookshop maven Enid has been at it again. She has over 80 congregation histories, from across the years, available on the book site. These are invaluable for those looking to understand how and when congregations formed, as well as why their families may have been involved.

And they are all at a very affordable price!

Check them out here:https://lutheran-archives-lcanz.square.site/shop/congregation-history/JLC2MYRIDDQ5RQX7CEO3PF6M?page=1&limit=30&sort_by=created_date&sort_order=desc&location_id=L6D8DK11RRT3M

15/06/2026

One of the sub-themes of International Archives Week this year was 'Archives for Inclusion: Access, Participation, and Community Empowerment'.

With this in mind Lutheran Archives is very happy to announce that their reference collection is now completely housed in the newly redesigned research room. This will allow researchers to more easily access works that supply the contextual information needed to understand the history of Lutheranism in Australia and the administrative records of Australian and New Zealand Lutheran churches.

And speaking of new, we are delighted to announce the confirmation of Jodi Brook as Manager - Community Engagement for the Lutheran Church of Australia. As well as Lutheran Archives, the Community Engagement area consists of Communications (including 'The Lutheran'), Church House Exhibition Centre, and Local Mission Fund.