Luther Seminary offers a variety of options for international learning, from travel courses to global internships and study sites.
Travel Courses
Upcoming Travel Courses
Knowing Our Neighbors in Latin America: Guatemala and Mexico—January 2025
Join Professor Guillermo Hansen for a study course in Guatemala and Mexico from January 9–22, 2025. Through an immersive field experience, 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 (Tikal, Templo Mayor in Mexico City), attending lectures/round-tables with local leaders and scholars, as well as experiencing several cultural-historical venues—Antigua, Anthropological Museum in Mexico City, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and mores. Contact Jody Nyenhuis (jnyenhuis001@luthersem.edu) with questions.
The Early Church and Empire in Western Turkey—May 2025
Professor Matt Skinner will teach a for-credit travel course next year centered around a trip to Istanbul and the breathtaking excavated ruins of several ancient cities including Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis, and Alexandria Troas. From May 19–28, 2025, visit and learn from sites associated with the seven churches addressed by the book of Revelation, the ministry of Paul the Apostle, and the episodes from Acts that occur in the province that the Romans called Asia. Discover more about how the New Testament reflects ancient imperial dynamics—dynamics that influenced ancient Christ followers, their interactions with their neighbors, and their efforts to bear witness to Christ. View the Western Turkey course flyer for more information about the trip a and how to register.
Email Prof. Skinner (mskinner@luthersem.edu) or Jody Nyenhuis (jnyenhuis001@luthersem.edu) with questions.
Tanzania—January 2026
Please stay tuned for more details about this course led by Professor Kathryn Schifferdecker.
Recent Travel Courses
Germany: Land of Martin Luther—May 2024
Mark Tranvik, professor of Reformation history and theology, led a study trip to Wittenberg, Germany, and surrounding sites in May 2024. With a home base in Wittenberg, the city where Luther lived, taught and preached for much of his life, students also visited surrounding sites of interest in Berlin, Torgau, Buchenwald, Erfurt, Eisenach, Leipzig, Eisleben, and Dresden. The course also covered the experiences of Germany in the recent past, including the Nazi period and the Holocaust, the 1989 peaceful revolution, and the issues surrounding immigration.
Germany: Bonhoeffer as Youth Minister—June 2024
In this course led by Professor Andrew Root, students were immersed in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, theology, youth ministry, and resistance through an integrative mix of lectures, tours, conversations, and experiential learning set in the Bonhoeffer family home and various museums and sites all around the historic and vibrant city of Berlin.
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.
For more information contact Academic Affairs.