The second group of missionaries was also from Germany, entering via South Africa and settling in the Southern Highlands region of Tanzania.

The ELCT employs 1360 ordained pastors (28 of them overseas), 3000 lay evangelists, and 300 community officers to aid the work of the church (2014 figures).

Lutheranism generally accepts the unaltered Augsburg Confession (not the variata) as a true witness to the Gospel.

Lutheran clergy tend not to subscribe to a doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, but see validity in various scholarly methods of analysis to help in understanding the Bible.

[37] This is in concord with most moderate Protestant bodies and in contrast to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod in the United States, which practices the historical-grammatical method of biblical interpretation.

With respect to the eucharist or communion, the ELCT holds to the Lutheran doctrine of the sacramental union, that is, that Christ's body and blood is truly present "in, with and under" the bread and wine.

Lutherans, however, reject the philosophical explanation of consubstantiation, preferring to consider the presence of the Lord's body and blood as mysterious rather than explainable by human philosophy.