In the mid-1990s, I met a friendly African man working in the print shop at St. Louis Seminary. I was immediately drawn to his winsome personality. I was on campus doing graduate coursework for a summer session. He was in St. Louis – on leave from teaching at the seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya, in Matongo, Western Kenya. A controversy over the bible’s teaching on the sinner's justification before God had rocked the church. Scandinavian missionaries in Kenya suggested Robert Preus be invited to speak on the topic. He did so. It was Dr. Preus who suggested that Walter study in St. Louis.
Next I heard of Walter Obare, he’d been elected Bishop of his Kenyan church body sometime early in the new millennium. This rather large and fast growing church had no official ties with the LCMS. In 2003, Walter wrote to me as executive director of LCMS World Relief and Human Care, and soon I was able to visit Kenya. We began an investment in the Kenyan church and its programs of mercy for the needy. This has borne fruit beyond anything we could have hoped for or imagined.
Soon Walter had convinced his church to seek fellowship with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. That was accomplished in 2005. The relationships with the Missouri Synod have continued to grow and blossom. A few years ago, the Church of Sweden was devolving like so many liberal Lutherans, into the acceptance and promotion of homosexuality. A group of faithful Lutherans within that church asked Walter to come to ordain for them a bishop who could in turn ordain pastors who were faithful to the word of God. This was necessary because the Swedish church has for years harassed and denied ordination to young men faithful to God’s Word. Walter did so. But he soon was accused of “meddling” in the affairs of another church body. He was called on the carpet by the Lutheran World Federation leadership (the ELCA Bishop is also head of the LWF!), and even removed from the LWF theological commission.
Yet Walter did not, has not, looked back. In fact, I just received news that Walter traveled to Europe again last week. In Bavaria he received the Walther Kuenneth Prize for faithful Lutheran Confession, given by the remnant of faithful Lutherans in the Bavarian church (Sammlung um Bibel und Bekenntnis). He also traveled to Finland where he assisted in ordaining a Finnish Bishop for a group of faithful Lutherans there facing the same persecution and harassment (http://scandhouse.org/finland/home.html).
The news of a black African bishop, coming to Scandinavia (the Kenyan church was the mission plant of the Swedish church and other Scandinavian mission societies), as a missionary seeking to re-introduce the true faith to the motherland, has caught the attention of not only the Lutheran World, but also the secular press.
All this happened because ONE student from Africa was given the chance to study at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
It’s time to rock the Lutheran world. It is time for us to shift 4 million dollars (as a start) from the total 80 or so million dollar budget of the national LCMS, to both seminaries. (In fact, with a bit more money our Canadian sister church and its seminaries could also help us rock the Lutheran world!). This will enable 100 international students per year on each of the two LCMS campuses (at about $20,000 a student). One of our seminary presidents was speaking with an ELCA seminary president recently, who complained, “The ELCA provides only 15% of our funding.” Imagine the shame in our man having to admit that the LCMS provides next to nothing for our seminaries! This is an immediate way to increase the number of students at our schools, increase the numbers of faithful Lutheran missionaries and theologians around the world, and to introduce the deaconess ministry as the option for the service of women in confessional Lutheran Churches around the world. Think of the benefits of our American students getting to know the next Walter Obare? Think of the lifelong missionary interest and knowledge of the world that will be shared! We have so much to learn from friends around the world! Think of a hundred Obares A YEAR going home to Asia, to Russia, to Eastern Europe, to India, to Indonesia, to Madagascar, to central and South America! We have a theological treasure to share with the world. As the ELCA has fallen off the cliff on the issue of sexuality and the authority of the bible (along with the host of northern and liberal Lutherans), the Lutheran world has never been more open to contact with the LCMS. These scholarships will be provided to top (mostly graduate) students from our partner churches, and from many other churches well beyond our traditional realm of cooperation. And they will be the Lutheran leaders of the future, the near future.
Our seminaries know how to deal with international students. We have the room on the campuses. The people of the Synod want the seminaries supported. We could simply put up HALF the amount ($2,000,000) and ask the good people of the Synod to match it. Given the opportunity, I’d help raise this money myself. Every one wins. In fact, once the Synod begins actually supporting the seminaries (one of the main purposes of the Synod’s existence – long since forgotten; Constitution, Article III Objectives: “Recruit and train pastors… and other professional church workers”; “to support synodical …seminaries”), the money will roll in and the program will be expanded even more. I’ve worked long enough in the Synod’s bureaucracy to know what can and can’t be done. This not only CAN be done, it must be done. It only takes the will to do so. This will be money FOR CHRIST’S MISSION IN THE WORLD well spent!
What I’m suggesting is a veritable “drop in the bucket” compared to the dollars spent by national Synod. But it will be a drop with Tsunami like waves of mercy and grace for the world!
The simplest ideas are the most profound. It’s time to rock the Lutheran World. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine…” Matthew 5:14-16
Matt Harrison
Judica
Lent 2010
Posts
20 comments:
I'll support that!
Thank you for always keeping us up to date on the different needs of mercy around the world. This cause I will also support.
May God grant make this so.
Brilliant! Let's do it.
It's time, past time. Rock on!
AMEM BROTHER! IT"S TIME! GET ER DONE!
I'm on board! Take that hill!
When do we start?
In the mid-1990s, I met a friendly African man in a class at the Fort Wayne Seminary. I was immediately drawn to his winsome personality. I was on campus doing coursework for deaconess certification. He was in Fort Wayne and also in a Masters program.
This time the friendly African man was Isaiah Obare, the son of Walter, and the result of our meeting was another request by Walter Obare - and his son - for his church. This time the request was for assistance in developing a hymnal - a Kenyan Lutheran hymnal that could strengthen and sustain faith, teach and catechize, help unify the church in its worship practice, give them a clearer identity as a Lutheran church body, and unite them with the church at large.
Providing a hymnal for the Kenyan Lutheran Church also is a veritable "drop in the bucket", financially speaking, but a profound act of mercy for a struggling church. Thanks be to God for opportunities to serve our neighbor!
Rejoice! again I say, Rejoice! That kind of money for the Seminaries from the Synod is what enabled me to become a pastor back in the day. Without that support I wouldn't be in the ministry. Let's make it happen.
I preached on the church at Philadelphia tonight in our Lenten series. Great verses of promise to that faithful parish. Thanks for relating how God has worked and is working through faithful Lutherans in Kenya! "What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open." (Rev. 3:7) It is great to also hear of Bishop Obare's faithfulness elsewhere, encouraging Lutherans to "Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown." (Rev. 3:11) Matt, your vision would indeed be money well spent!
I preached on the church at Philadelphia tonight in our Lenten series. Great verses of promise to that faithful parish. Thanks for relating how God has worked and is working through faithful Lutherans in Kenya! "What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open." (Rev. 3:7) It is great to also hear of Bishop Obare's faithfulness elsewhere, encouraging Lutherans to "Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown." (Rev. 3:11) Matt, your vision would indeed be money well spent!
Amen!
I really like your post. I'm excited! How can I help?
I love it, but I don't think it goes far enough. Yes we need to bring students from around the globe to St. Louis and Ft. Wayne, however, we also need seminaries around the world where we can send students from the States so we can form a generation of pastors who are not only aware of their backyard, but the entire globe.
I'm currently serving as a guest professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Tshwane (Pretoria, South Africa) and, over the past three months, I've become even more aware at how offensively myopic Americans are, including our LCMS pastors. Not a day goes by where I don't read my Facebook wall and hang my head in shame.
If the LCMS were to go even farther in the development of our partner seminaries, both in the formation of theological educators and in achieving accreditation, we would be investing in institutions where we would be proud to send our students so they can truly see the world and how our theology manifests itself around the globe. This would help us not only rock the world, but ourselves.
This is a great idea! This will also help us stick to our teachings as well. I'm forwarding this to my congregation and asking them to jump on board.
Pastor Harrison:
What are the chances of "rocking the world" of the Malagasy Lutheran Church (Madagascar) ?
@ Joe
Is it safe to assume that the Chinese government does not persecute and/or censor confessional Lutherans in China. If Lutheran belief and practice are safe, then......
how about the LCMS starting a seminary in China?
@Anonymous ... I'd love to see a St. Louis/Ft. Wayne level seminary on the 6 populated continents, with more than one in Asia (China and Russia if possible).
So far we have North America and Europe ... too bad they're in the places where the rain cloud of the gospel has been as opposed to where it seems to be moving (south and east).
I think that this is a good idea, but I wonder whether this is practical for the synod. The upshot of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance seems to be that the synod is financially strapped right now and needs to cut its commitments.
Again, this is not a question about the merit of this suggestion, but about its practicality. I suspect that a different funding mechanism would need to be used.
@Jim
The synod is now spending money on many less worthy items(consultants, marketing studies) so I think that restructuring the way Pastor Harrison has suggested here and other places cannot be considered "too expensive". It is a common thought now in our circles that it is OK to give up almost anything we do as a church for the sake of "mission". I wonder if we could apply this to the Synodical level, and ask that they restructure and re-budget for the sake of something that will make a real impact.
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