Here if a very well done, thought-provoking analysis of CORE and the NALC, from a former member of the ELCA, Pastor David Ramirez:
http://www.logia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=140&catid=39:web-forum&Itemid=76A snippet:
If Lutheran CORE is going to work as an umbrella organization, it will have to be ready to deal with potential sources for huge friction. I see two fault lines, ripe for trouble, which must be recognized and dealt with by the leadership of Lutheran CORE. One is the potential rivalry between LCMC and the NALC, the two big wolves in the pack. The other is the relationship between the traditionalists who leave the ELCA and those who are remaining within. I cannot see how the two will not be connected.
Word Alone Ministries has already moved to a firmer position against remaining in the ELCA. LCMC will almost certainly take a much harder line against the ELCA—and those who remain in it—than the emerging NALC. First, LCMC is made up of people who already left the ELCA back in 2001. Secondly, LCMC has picked up the majority of the congregations that have left the ELCA since last summer. This means that the LCMC has by and large gotten the congregations that were the most prepared, the best informed, and the most willing to leave. These “first wave” congregations left as soon as possible and needed a place to land. LCMC, as an already constituted and functioning body, aside from any other reasons, was obviously an attractive choice. The NALC on the other hand will not get many of those “first wave” congregations. Rather, as compared to the LCMC, the NALC will pick up more churches that were not as well informed, prepared to leave, or unanimous. In my estimation, over the next several years it will most likely be the NALC that will gain many of the congregations making a slower exodus from the ELCA. Regardless of whether one considers these “second wave” and later congregations timid or careful, this uneven distribution will shape the relationship between the LCMC and the NALC. Additionally, “evangelical catholics” and former LCA congregations who leave the ELCA are more likely to join the NALC, giving it a more varied composition than the LCMC. But perhaps most importantly, as mentioned above, the NALC will allow congregations within the ELCA to join. To a much greater extent than the LCMC, the NALC will have to guard against merely being the ELCA pre-2009.
