Most of the remaining Lutherans are in what some describe as "micro-synods." Most of these are Lutheran church bodies that claim to be more confessional and conservative than the ELCA. They range from full-service denominations with authoritative hierarchies to very loose, voluntary associations. Most very small and some are quite sectarian. About half of them are rooted in Pietist movements of the 19th Century. Several were formed as a rejection of the various 20th Century mergers (because the "new" church would be "too liberal") that eventually led to the formation of the ELCA in 1988. There are also some completely independent Lutheran congregations that are not included on this page.
The 
red ball on this page signifies churches in the Lutheran World Federation; formed by refugees of Soviet occupations, these particular churches have been reunited with their mother churches in the Baltics. Those marked with a 
green ball part of the international Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference and in full altar and pulpit fellowship with other CELC churches. For other churches that are in formal fellowship with each other I've tried to note such in their entries.
I am also beginning to add Wikipedia links when they are available. Wikipedia can be a useful resource, but its entries can also be subject to the whims of the last person who read it. For those Lutheran churches included, Wikipedia pages are often written in concert with the church's current leadership — enabling them to provide insight to their own special characteristics. However they can also easily be altered by someone with an ax to grind — so reader beware.
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Alliance of Renewal Churches- A network of autonomous churches and pastors in the US, Canada, and Iceland, of Lutheran heritage with roots in the charismatic Lutheran Renewal. Some ARC congregations are independent, while others are associated with the ELCA, the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, or other church bodies. Wikipedia entry
The American Association of Lutheran Churches
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TAALC was formed mainly by congregations of the American Lutheran Church (many with a Free Lutheran heritage) that rejected the 1988 merger that created the ELCA. Early on this body was influenced by the charismatic renewal, but it has since rejected the excesses of that movement. In 2006 TAALC entered into Altar and Pulpit Fellowship with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and joined the International Lutheran Council in 2007. Wikipedia entry
- Apostolic Lutheran Church of America
- This small body is in the tradition of the pietistic Laestadian movement among the Finns in the 19th century. Wikipedia entry
- Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches
- This confessional Lutheran association formed in 2007 "to meet the needs of those congregation which have been removed recently from the ELS" due to their dissent of the ELS' "unscriptural removal of a pastor from his call and expulsion from the synod." In seeking "to identify and build true biblical fellowship," the ACLC has shared an annual free conference with the Orthodox Lutheran Confessional Conference of Independent Churches. They are in full fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America.
- The Association of Free Lutheran Congregations
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The Free Lutheran heritage comes from Scandinavian (mainly Norwegian) Pietists who had left the national, state supported "folk churches" before immigrating to North America. Most congregations from this heritage merged into the American Lutheran Church (a predecessor of the ELCA) in 1963. These few opposed that merger and remained independent. With "over 270 member congregations" it was, until the ELCA's schism since 2009, the fourth largest Lutheran church body in the US. Wikipedia entry
- Augsburg Lutheran Churches
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"A fellowship of churches united by a common confession of faith in Christ," this ALC was originally formed in as a non-geographic "district" of the LCMC. It is now a separate body.
- Augustana Orthodox and Evangelical Lutheran Synod [no known web link]
- A very tiny synod, created in 1997 by a congregation in St. Paul, Minnesota, dissatisfied with the liberal theology and politics of the ELCA, especially the politicized "social screens" then being used for the ELCA pension plan's investments.
- The Church of the Lutheran Brethren
- Organized by independent congregations in 1900, this synod of 123 congregations in the US and Canada has established some 1500 congregations in Africa and Asia. By subscribing to 2 of the classical Lutheran Confessions (the Small Catechism and the Augsburg Confession) the CLBA offers a Lutheran slant to conservative, American evangelicalism. Wikipedia entry
- Church of the Lutheran Confession
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This small, conservative, Lutheran church was formed in 1960 by congregations that left the WELS, LCMS, and ELS. Wikipedia entry
- Concordia Lutheran Conference
- A very small association of Lutheran congregations formed by congregations that left the LCMS in 1956. In 2004, the Fellowship of Lutheran Congregations, a tiny group of congregations that had split off from the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation in 1979 over issues of excommunication, joined this body. Wikipedia entry
- Conservative Lutheran Association
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Formed in 1980, this very small association of churches grew out of Lutherans Alert National, an organization formed in 1965 to oppose the liberalism emerging in the American Lutheran Church. They had already in 1969 established the "conservative, evangelical Lutheran" Faith Seminary, whose faculty appears very strong on "conservative" and "evangelical," but pretty weak on "Lutheran." Wikipedia entry
- Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad
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Actually based in Canada and reunited with the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, this is the church (formerly called the "EELC in exile") that escaped from the World War 2 Soviet occupation of Estonia, immigrating mainly to the US and Canada. Wikipedia entry
- Evangelical Lutheran Conference & Ministerium
- "A synodical federation, fellowship, and association of centrist Evangelical Lutheran congregations and pastors" formally organized in 1999 after having found (since departing the ELCA in 1991) being independent, being part of TAALC, and being part of the founding of the LMS-USA all unsatisfactory. Wikipedia entry
- Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America
- ELDoNA, organized in June 2006 by independent, conservative, confessionalist Lutheran pastors who had earlier departed the LCMS, "is committed to the restoration and advancement of consistently Evangelical Lutheran doctrine and practice in harmony with the Sacred Scriptures and the Book of Concord (1580)." They are in full fellowship with the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches. Wikipedia entry
- Evangelical Lutheran Synod
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The ELS began when some Norwegian Synod congregations rejected a 1917 merger. Internationally it relates to the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference. Wikipedia entry
- Fellowship of Evangelical Lutheran Churches
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The Fellowship of Confessing Lutheran Churches was organized Reformation Day 2003 by a cyber group of ELCA pastors, laity, and 2 congregations opposed to Called to Common Mission (the full-communion agreement with the Episcopal Church), but who were not quite satisfied with the LCMC (below). Within a few years the FCLC quietly disappeared, but after the ELCA's 2009 Churchwide Assembly it has been re-established under a modified name.
- Illinois Lutheran Conference
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Organized in 1979, the ILC's roots are in independent Lutheran congregations that left the WELS in 1970 because they held that the King James Version to be the only acceptable English-language Bible. This fellowship of 5 "Conservative, Orthodox, Confessional, Lutheran" congregations in 4 states still accepts only the KJV.
- Independent Lutheran Diocese
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A very small body that began in 2005 as the Pietist "Old Lutheran Church in America," the Independent Lutheran Diocese was formed in 2008 by independent, conservative Lutheran congregations and pastors dissastisfied with liberal theology and politics, committed to a "Return to an Authentic Christian Worship Experience," "True Spirituality," "Genuine Christianity," and experiencing "the Joy of Jesus Christ in our daily life." It maintains a Seminary and publishing program. Wikipedia entry
- Laestadian Lutheran Church
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The LLC was formed in 1973 as a result of the most recent split in the Laestadian movement in North America. Wikipedia entry
- Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [Currently "under construction;" beta site here]
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Organized in 1975 by exiles of (then Soviet-occupied) Latvia, its web site is nearly entirely in Latvian. See also the sites of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran churches of New York or Kalamazoo, two of LELCA's 70 congregations. Wikipedia entry
- Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Diaspora
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In 2008 this small Lutheran church (two congregations in Canada, one in the US) formed in 1946 by exiles from (then Soviet-occupied) Lithuania reunited into its mother church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania.
- Lutheran Churches of Calvary Grace [Alternate site here.]
- A group of two dozen or so mission congregations located mainly in Alaska and the Canadian northwest, with missions also in Arizona, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Begun near Amman, Jordan, in 1978, the LCCG has also worked in the Middle East, Siberia, and Costa Rica. It seems to relate in some ways with the AIELC.
- Lutheran Churches of the Reformation
- A small federation of "autonomous, orthodox Lutheran local congregations" formed in 1964 by pastors and congregations dissatisfied with the "doctrinal disintegration" of the LCMS. Wikipedia entry
- Lutheran Conference of Confessional Fellowship
- Formed in 1983 by congregations who left the Church of the Lutheran Confession because the CLC would not formally excommunicate members of the Lutheran fraternal organizations (insurance companies), Lutheran Brotherhood and Aid Association for Lutherans.
- Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church
- Also called the Evangelical Protestant Church, this conservative body claims roots in Lutheran and Reformed "Union" churches originally organized by German immigrants to the Ohio Valley in the late 1700s that seem to have flourished as an organized body circa 1885-1925. First "re-organized" in 1999 as the General Conference of Evangelical Protestant Churches, it did so again in 2002 as the LEPC after it had begun requiring newly ordained pastors to subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions. It is in communion with the LOC and the AIELC and shares their lineage in the claimed Apostolic Succession of its Bishops — having incorporated women into it. Contrary to most Lutherans it has an emphasis the "Rapture" and Christ's imminent return. Wikipedia entry
- Lutheran Ministerium and Synod-USA
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Another very small body of Lutheran pastors and congregations dissatisfied after the 1988 merger that created the ELCA. The founders first tried the TAALC, but left in the mid-90s during the older body's charismatic emphasis. The LMS-USA joined the Intrnational Lutheran Council in 2012. Wikipedia entry
- North American Lutheran Church
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Constituted in August 2010 by Lutheran CORE (COalition for REnewal), NALC is a churchly alternative for congregations, missions, and pastors who reject the progressive innovations of liberal protestantism endorsed by the leadership of churches like the ELCA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. With 307 congregations as of February 2012, it is (by that measure) now the fifth largest Lutheran church in the US. Wikipedia entry
- Orthodox Lutheran Alliance
- Founded in 2006 this is a "newly formed Lutheran Christian confessional and heritage association [of] Orthodox Lutheran clergy and laity -- individuals and congregations -- who are standing firmly upon God's Word and the Orthodox Evangelical Lutheran Confessions of Faith." Its list of approved and disapproved matters is both lengthy and wide-ranging of particular theological, political, and societal matters.
- Orthodox Lutheran Confessional Conference of Independent Congregations
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This group of 5 congregations declared fellowship amongst themselves following their 2006 departure from the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation over its acceptance of permitting women to vote in congregational meetings. In seeking "to identify and build true biblical fellowship," the OLCCIC shares an annual free conference with the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches. Wikipedia entry
- The Protes'tant Conference
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A "loose organization" with 6 congregations, the Conference arose in 1927 when the Wisconsin Synod rejected what was being called "the Wauwatosa Theology," which challenged the "dead orthodoxy" demanded of the Synod, and suspended 40 "Protes'tant" (called that because of their protest against conditions within the Synod) pastors. Wikipedia entry
- Reformation Lutheran Conference
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Another small association of congregations formed in 2000 of congregations that broke from the Lutheran Conference of Confessional Fellowship.
- United Lutheran Mission Association
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A very small mission association of independent congregations formed in 2005 by two congregations that had earlier departed from the Missouri Synod. Consciously "Old Missouri," the ULMA places greatest authority (beyond, of course, the Scriptures, Creeds, and Confessions) in the congregation's voters assembly. Wikipedia entry.
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