This week, we held our opening convocation for the 2019-20 academic year at Luther Seminary.
This makes 150 years of educating leaders for Christian communities.
The world has changed a lot in the last century and a half. We’ve moved from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy to a service economy. Cultural trends continue to evolve. Technology has advanced at rates unprecedented in human history.
In the church, we’ve seen similar shifts. Church bodies have formed, dissolved, and merged. Ecumenism has flourished and waned. We are asking new questions, including: What does it mean to cultivate Christian identity and practice in an increasingly secular age? How do we prepare leaders who can connect folks enduring the stresses and strains of an overly scheduled, overworked life, with Jesus, the giver of life? In what ways can we continue to rediscover the Holy Spirit’s movement in this time and place?
There is no question the next century and a half will be just as disruptive. But we trust in the promise of Jesus Christ to abide with us. Luther Seminary is poised to continue to bear witness to Jesus through preparing leaders to adapt to new ways of being church. Our vision urges us to respond to God’s call of faithful innovation, cultivating a community of students, staff, faculty, board members, administrators, and benefactors formed by God’s grace, empowered for mission with a strong financial position, and a commitment to ensuring our graduates have significantly reduced debt in order to serve where God’s Holy Spirit calls.
God has brought us a long way since classes were taught entirely in Norwegian and seminary students were funded by women’s sewing circles. Yet the heart of our legacy–that of forming faithful, effective leaders for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ–remains as urgent now as ever.
Please join me in giving thanks to God for 150 years of witness to educating leaders and for the wisdom and leading of the Holy Spirit for the next 150.
Peace,
Robin J. Steinke, President
Luther Seminary