Luther Seminary offers a variety of options for international learning, from travel courses to global internships and study sites. For more information about international opportunities, contact Academic Affairs.
Travel Courses
Upcoming Travel Courses
Martin Luther’s Germany: A Journey through the Reformation
Jennifer Wojciechowski
January 21-31, 2026
Have you ever wanted to see where Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses? Or perhaps you would like to walk the halls of the Black Cloister where he lived as a monk? Join Jennifer Wojciechowski for a travel course in Germany. This course aims to provide a cultural immersion experience focused on Luther’s context, his life, and his theology through visiting locations that were important in both Luther’s life and in the early years of the German Reformation. Additional time will be spent on Germany’s more recent past, including the Nazi period. We will visit Wittenberg, Berlin, Wartburg Castle, Erfurt, Weimar (Buchenwald), Dresden, and more!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Youth Worker
Andy Root
June 20-25, 2026
From 1927 to 1938 Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s central pastoral ministry was with children and youth. This course examines Bonhoeffer’s biography, looking in-depth at his lectures, sermons, and essays on youth work. Through Bonhoeffer’s writing and history students are given an example of a theological thinker in children’s and youth ministry to emulate. The course particularly explores confirmation using Bonhoeffer’s work in Wedding 1932 and Pomerania 1938 to reexamine our practices today. This is a travel course in Berlin, Germany.
Mission in a Post-Christian Society: Learning from the UK
Dwight Zscheile
June 6-13, 2026
British society is increasingly post-Christian, despite the church’s long history of cultural establishment there. The past few decades have brought rich creativity and dynamism as Christians have recontextualized Christian witness through a “mixed ecology” of church planting, fresh expressions, and other new forms of church within and alongside the inherited parish system. Based in greater London, we will visit a variety of local sites, meet with leaders from multiple levels of the Church of England and other denominations, and gain a glimpse of what contextual mission looks like in a post-Christian society.
Knowing Our Neighbors in Latin America: Guatemala and Mexico
Guillermo Hansen
June 13-July 7, 2026
Through an immersive field experience in Guatemala and Mexico, this course seeks to explore the history and mission of our companion Lutheran churches and ecumenical partners in these countries, focusing particularly on their ministry with indigenous peoples, migration, and human rights. Special emphasis will be given to their understanding of “integral mission,” diakonia, and how Lutheran theology and spirituality are contextually articulated. Participants will share in the life of the communities visited and take part in local worship services and spiritual practices.
The course also seeks to familiarize students with the historical, social, and cultural features of this region through visits to archeological sites, attending lectures/round-tables with local leaders and scholars, as well as experiencing several cultural/historical venues. The course provides cross-cultural opportunities to expand a student’s worldview, theology, sense of vocation, and ecclesiology. In addition, the course challenges one’s perceptions about global justice, practices of hospitality, and understanding of the church’s mission.
International Internships
The Horizon International Internship program provides ELCA M.Div. students with an opportunity to have their ministry shaped by the witness of the world. It is an intensive and transformational opportunity, which aims to enrich the talents and skills of future rostered leaders for the ministry and mission of the ELCA. The Horizon International Internship program is an exciting collaborative venture of the ELCA service and Justice home area, in cooperation with the synods and seminaries of the ELCA. Recent Luther Seminary students have completed internships with communities in France, Malaysia, Serbia, and the United Kingdom.
For more information, visit the Horizon International Internship program website, email horizon@elca.org, or reach out to the Luther Seminary contextual learning team.
International Study Sites
Luther Seminary and the Norwegian School of Theology (Menighetsfakultet or MF) in Oslo, Norway, have had a long-standing working relationship in which students from either school are welcome to study at the other school. Luther Seminary has benefited from this relationship greatly when students from there have come here.
The Free Faculty has established programs in which only English is used, and the programs have become popular for students from an astonishing variety of countries—especially from the many lands where Norwegian missionaries have labored over the past 150 years.