By the middle of this century the population of Africa is estimated to reach 2.4 billion people, one-quarter of the estimated 9.8 billion people who will on the planet. That is a staggeringly huge mission field which will require many workers to gather in the full harvest. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) has a small but significant role to play in making God’s kingdom come in Africa, through the work of the Confessional Lutheran Institute (CLI). This is the first of a three-part series of articles that will introduce you this new initiative of the WELS Board for World Missions working through One Africa Team. The CLI brings various aspects of worker training and enrichment together under one umbrella, in order to better coordinate our joint efforts with our partner churches across the continent of Africa. The CLI’s work is divided into three branches: Seminary Consultation, Formal Continuing Education and Professional Development.

The Wisconsin Synod has been training African Lutheran pastors since the 1930’s. Along the way, many difficult lessons have been learned, but God has blessed the work of his flawed servants and has planted thriving national churches through their efforts. WELS mission work in Africa has reached a watershed moment. God has raised up local leaders in established fields like Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria and Cameroon as well as areas where Lutheranism is emerging like  Liberia and Uganda. It is clear that WELS cannot send missionaries to live in each of these countries, nor is it advisable. The huge opportunities presenting themselves to us and our African partners call for a very different strategy, as WELS leverages its expertise and resources to support the development of local, nationally-operated seminaries.

Setting up a new seminary program is a challenging task that requires a great deal of forethought and planning. It is more than just a matter of constructing buildings and hiring teachers. The first question to ask is, “Who is your target audience?” What kind of people make up your church? For example, farmers living in remote rural areas have a very different view of the world than college-educated professional workers located in the sprawling urban centers of the country. God’s Word speaks the same messages of sin and grace to all people, yet it applies to people’s specific needs in infinitely various ways.

Likewise, pastors do not just deliver informational content to their members. They are leaders, shepherding their flocks after the manner of the Good Shepherd. A pastor training program must address the intellectual, emotional, behavioral and spiritual formation of its students. To do that, you need to know your students – where they come from, how did their families and communities influence them, what education have they received? A good pastor training program helps students build a bridge between God’s word and the people they will serve.

Once the target audience has been identified the next question is, “What does your program look like?” What are the minimum standards you expect of new students, and what process will you use to vet them? How long a period of time can you expect your students to engage in formal learning activities? Is it a matter of years or months? Are they engaged in full-time studies, or are they expected to have part-time jobs on the side? As for the subjects they will study, seminary courses traditionally fall into the following four categories: Doctrinal Studies, Biblical Studies, Historical Studies and Ministerial Studies. But does it make sense to borrow the curriculum from a seminary that serves a completely different target audience? Wouldn’t it be better to match course content with the needs of the people?

After you know what your program looks like the next question to ask is, “What manpower is needed?” Who is going to oversee the program? Who will teach the content and evaluate student progress? Who in your church body is qualified to serve, and how will they be compensated?

The very last question to ask is, “What material support is needed?” Buildings, textbooks, computers and salaries are all part of plan that ultimately serves the needs of the church, and not the needs of the seminary. What support can the local church provide? What additional support is required? What about sustainability? As you can sense, there are many questions that need to be answered before the first day of school.

The Seminary Consultation branch of the CLI not only helps establish new worker training programs. The CLI is equipped to provide resources for teaching, guidance in education and assessment practices, assistance in curriculum planning and materials,  and guidance on program standards. Our consultants are Africa missionaries, instructors from the Pastoral Studies Institute (PSI) of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, WELS missionaries engaged in theological education in other parts of the world, and national leaderswho have a long history of training Lutheran pastors in Africa. Additionally, CLI seeks to  provide sister seminaries assistance in the area of instructor development. The best teachers are those who keep learning throughout their careers. CLI can provide tools for self-assessment and resources for continuing growth.

 CLI also provides short and long term WELS instructors for our programs.  This may mean sending a Missionary to live in a country for two weeks to teach an intensive class, or it may mean sending two missionaries to teach for years at one specific seminary.  It may also mean partnering with the PSI to coordinate WELS pastors to come to teach for a few weeks or months, or coordinating the sharing of African professors between church bodies. 

The CLI Seminary Consultancy branch does not seek to run seminaries, dictate local policies or determine what program will be used  in a sister church’s training program. Since every worker training system is different, the exact role of seminary consultation will vary from church body to church body. Rather, our goal is to provide encouragement and positive feedback to our brothers who are preparing the next generation of God’s harvest workers. We celebrate all our Gospel partnerships, just as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi: “ I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Php 1:4-6)

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi and directs the Seminary Consultation branch of the Confessional Lutheran Institute. This is the first of a three-part series on the CLI.

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

Go in without expectations.  That’s a maxim I’ve found useful when I’ve had to cross cultures.  Many years ago as a seminary graduate, I moved to Malawi to serve as a missionary. I tried to go in “empty”, but it wasn’t easy to do.

It is difficult to go into a new place “empty” of expectations. People often want to find out everything they can so that they feel prepared. After graduating from seminary, it took five long months to wait for a visa so that we could move to Malawi.  I suppose I should have studied up on Malawi, gotten a head start on learning language, and talked to  many people to get advice. I didn’t.  Someone had told me not to build up expectations in your mind before moving to a new place.  They said that was a sure way to make the culture shock be worse. 

So I went in empty and uninformed. I learned what Malawians were like by talking to Malawians.  I figured out what it took to live in the country by living in it. I learned the language by using it.  That worked well for me. But in spite of my best efforts to be entirely empty going in, there was one expectation that I had built up in my mind. I had the picture in my mind that our WELS mission was huge in Malawi.  What I found was that there were many, many large Christian churches already well established in Malawi.  I was feeling disappointed.  Did we need to be here?

But my attitude changed when I started learning the local language.  I walked around the neighborhood and used what I knew, adding a new phrase or two every day.  After a few months, I had gotten to the point of asking things much more complicated than, Muli bwanji? [How are you?].  I was going around asking things like “If King David in the Bible was a murderer, then how do you think he got to heaven?”  Through thousands of conversations with Malawians, I became very happy that I had been sent as a missionary to Malawi. I found that no one I talked to (even the churchgoers) had actually heard the gospel.

I started to serve our Lutheran churches once I knew enough Chichewa.  I found that so many people were hearing the gospel for the first time.  During my ten years preaching in churches,  not a week went by when I did not see that eureka of the gospel in an adult’s eyes.  A few times I literally saw tears of joyous amazement over the grace of God in Christ.  And then there were over one thousand babies I brought the gospel to through baptism. 

After those ten years, I began teaching at the ministerial school.  I’ve had the blessing of teaching dozens of men who are now pastors or will be pastors.  They are now going out and seeing the eureka of the gospel, baptizing, preaching, teaching, and giving the comfort of the Lord’s Supper.

In the past four years, I’ve also been blessed to lead our team of Africa missionaries. Our focus is on building up the 125+ African pastors in our sister synods in Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Malawi, and Zambia.  We offer advanced classes and workshops and we also still support the training of new pastors.  On top of this, we’re finding new places to bring the gospel. There are groups of pastors and their congregations that have called us in to teach the Word in countries like Liberia, Rwanda, and Uganda.

It’s been a wonderful blessing to be a missionary in Africa. It has exceeded expectations!  Now we’ll be moving.  My new job will be to support all our world missions worldwide as a missionary advisor.  We’ll be living in the United States again.  After 27 years away, that’s almost a foreign country to us.

I’m already trying my best to go in empty, without expectations.  I know the USA and culture has changed hugely since 1993.  We’ve had a dozen long visits back to the USA and seen some of it, but we haven’t lived in it.  It will be a big adjustment, but one we trust God will bless.  We will try not to build up certain expectations about how people act, what traffic is like, or how great the pizza is.  We’ll wait, and live it, and learn it as it comes.  But we do have one big expectation. We expect we’ll keep on being surprised by grace in our own lives and seeing how powerful and effective his Word is in the lives of others around the world.

Paul D. Nitz will continue to serve WELS World Missions as the One Team Counselor

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa

የሱስ እረኛዬ የሚመራኝ

በሕይወት ጎዳና የሚወስደኝ

እርሱን አገኘሁት የማይተወኝ

ጓደኛ ዘመድ ሲከዳኝ

(English translation)

Jesus, my Shepherd

The One who guides me on the way of life

He found me who never leaves me

While all my friends and relatives deny me.

Christianity’s roots run deep in Ethiopia, yet the Gospel is struggling to make purchase on this rocky soil. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church enjoys a privileged position in society, and the pews are filled at the high festival days – but the people are told that their salvation is an ongoing process and not a completed fact. Many large Protestant churches of the charismatic variety are also gathering many converts through promises of prosperity and healing to those who are worthy.

The Lutheran Church of Ethiopia (LCE) was registered with the Ethiopian government in 2013 by Dr. Kebede Getachew Yigezu and 56 founding members. By the grace of God, the LCE opened Maor (Hebrew for “light”) Lutheran Theological Seminary as a Christ-centered, Bible-based and Reformation-driven confessional Lutheran theological seminary, which is authorized to offer bachelors and masters degrees and also doctorate programs. In 2017 the LCE and the WELS declared fellowship and since then have been collaborating to advance the Gospel in Ethiopia.

Last December, the LCE held its 6^th annual General Assembly meeting in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. The delegates who had gathered gave thanks to God for the many blessings he had poured out on their small but dedicated church body over the past year. One of those blessings was the third historic graduation of students from Maor Lutheran Theological Seminary on October 27, 2019. The ceremony took place in the midst of political unrest that Ethiopia was experiencing at the time. (https://wels.net/unrest-in-ethiopia-affects-wels-sister-churches/)

Delegates also gave thanks to God for the construction of a new five-story multi-purpose building on the campus of Maor Lutheran Theological Seminary. Thanks to the oversight of LCE Assistant Deaconess Werknesh Negash Degefa and Brother Wondirad Balcha WoldeSemayat and the generosity of WELS donors the building reached the finishing stage in one year’s time. It is the LCE’s ardent prayer that this new building will help bring the Gospel light to the people of Ethiopia.

The LCE also celebrated its partnership with WELS Multi-Language Productions, which hosted an Africa region workshop in Lusaka last summer. Dr. Ernst Wendland, who has served WELS World Missions for over 50 years and also participated in translating the Bible into the Chichewa language, shared his considerable experience and insight into the translation process. Using that knowledge, the LCE was able to translate the evangelism tract, “God’s Great Exchange” into the Amharic language.

In an email Dr. Kebede writes, “We were surprised that getting the right wordings with the right meaning in our language for words like “Exchange” in the literary context of the tract on “God’s Great Exchange” was not easy. Indeed,  the lessons we received at the MLP Translation Workshop and  Publication Expo under the instruction of Professor Ernst Wendland in Lusaka have helped Brother Shambel and me a lot to lead our team so that we reached at the best translation which  communicates the right meaning clearly both theologically and linguistically.” The LCE sent the translated Amharic text side by side with the English text to WELS MLP graphic design artist Michele Pfeifer, who completed the final layout.  

Looking ahead to the future, one of the most pressing tasks the LCE faces is to renew their church body’s registration with the Ethiopian government. The current registration was good for six years (2013-2019). Please pray that God continues to let the light of the Gospel shine in Ethiopia through the work of the LCE and Maor Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Missionary John Roebke lives in Malawi

Please pray for those working in fields that are ripe for harvest. Share their story, engage with future news and receive updates. Learn more about our mission fields in Africa and how the Holy Spirit is working faith in people’s hearts at https://wels.net/serving-others/missions/africa