FARGO - Members of a Lutheran church here will vote to decide if the group should withdraw its membership in the nation's largest Lutheran denomination.

The Atonement Lutheran Church's clergy and 11-member council already have decided they want to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, after years of differences with the national group on sexuality and structural issues.

The council voted unanimously about six months ago to bring the matter to the congregation, said Mike Hubbard, the council president. Church members are scheduled to vote Sunday.

"The church council feels really strongly about this," Hubbard said.

The ELCA has struggled in recent years with stances on gay marriages and clergy and whether to cooperate with other denominations, said the Rev. Dale Wolf, senior pastor at Atonement.

"Our leadership feels it is best to sever ties at this point rather than have energy consumed by those issues," Wolf said.

Bishop Rick Foss of the ELCA's Eastern North Dakota Synod said he disagrees with Wolf's view of where the organization is headed.

"We just don't see eye-to-eye," Foss said. "In any relationship, community or family, unless you're going to fly solo, you're not going to agree with all decisions."

The ELCA's Eastern North Dakota Synod covers about a third of the state and includes about 240 congregations. Atonement Lutheran is one of the synod's larger congregations, Foss said.

Atonement has more than 1,500 baptized members, with about 40 percent of those younger than 20, Wolf said.

"For our church, the impact of this varies tremendously," Wolf said. "We're a very young church. For many young people, denomination isn't important."

Separating from the ELCA requires two separate votes taken 90 days apart. Foss said no other church in the synod has taken such a vote before, and he doesn't know of any others considering it.

If Atonement leaves the ELCA, it also will cut ties with 28 colleges and eight seminaries, as well as affiliation with Lutheran Social Services, Foss said.

"I think it's too bad," he said. "I think it's a mistake, but that's not my call."

Atonement also has participated in the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ in recent years. The group is a relatively new association of less than 100 congregations nationwide that emphasizes the autonomy of individual congregations, Wolf said.

(On the Net: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: http://www.elca.org.)