Mark Swanson finds joy in encounter On Mark Swanson’s office door is a quotation from Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, which says, “The call of God is very strange.” Swanson would agree: strange and joyful. “For the first two years that I was reading theology, I didn’t know what it was for,” recalls Swanson, […]
Madagascar pastor returns home as a systematic theologian When the Malagasy Lutheran Church identified Hery Andrianotahina Naivoson as a trailblazer, he accepted the call to further his education in the United States, particularly LSTC. Naivoson is a pastor in Madagascar, a big island in the Indian Ocean separated from Africa by the Mozambique Channel, nearly […]
Meet Martha Ernest Ambarang’u Martha Ernest Ambarang’u, who is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, is a new ThM/PhD student at LSTC—biblical studies, New Testament. Before coming to LSTC she was a pastor of Hosiana Parish Buswelu in Mwanza, Tanzania. “I miss them, they are like family to me,” she said. She learned […]
PhD graduate learned the language and earned her degree(s): ‘God prepared the way’ Montira “Niko” Junnawatt will graduate with her PhD in May, but she’s already in Thailand as a faculty member at the Bangkok Institute of Theology. Bangkok is back where she was born and raised, in a bicultural and bi-religious family—her mother is […]
Ji Bu: from Myanmar to Chicago to become a theologian Only a few months into her studies at LSTC, Ji Bu was eager to share gratitude for the chance to be here. Bu was born and brought up in the Mungbaw Village along the China hill border in Myanmar, the eighth child of a Kachin […]
Juan Perea takes distance learning to a new level To say Juan Manuel Arias Perea is taking an unusual path to his MDiv degree at LSTC is an understatement. Perea, who is Cuban, was a pastor for five years in his home county—a small, rural congregation he misses. But he now lives in Russia with […]
Kilian Schrenk: A voyage to study, learn and experience American Lutheranism Kilian Schrenk, 23, came from Wurttemberg, Germany to Chicago for a semester as an exchange student at LSTC to learn and experience Lutheran theology in contexts. Schrenk first had dreams of becoming a medical doctor, but he was also influenced by his family’s Christian faith. Schrenk was baptized and confirmed in the Südgemeinde in his hometown of Heilbronn. […]
Commencement 2020: A year of asking, and now facing, ‘What’s next?’ In campus apartments and in homes well beyond Chicago, LSTC 2021 graduates gathered around screens to “officially” graduate on Sunday, May 16, as they watched the seminary’s 161st commencement video released on YouTube and Facebook. This was the second year the global pandemic prevented […]
Speaking truth to the church: three global theologians reflect on LSTC, TEEM and joy in the midst of struggle June 30, two esteemed global theologians, José David Rodríguez and Javier “Jay” Alanís, retired from full-time duties at LSTC and the Lutheran Seminary Program of the Southwest (LSPS). Rodríguez began teaching at LSTC in 1981 and […]
Togu Sihite: In the U.S. seminary classes ‘go deeper’ Togu (full name: Togu Paskaraya Apriono Sihite) has lots of responsibilities and big plans. He is already a pastor in Indonesia, but at age 30 is studying at LSTC (MA, overseas Lutheran) in hopes of returning home to be a seminary professor. He will graduate and […]
