ELCA Seminary Presidents and Deans Engage in Briefings

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The presidents and deans of the eight Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) seminaries met together and separately here Oct. 4-6. The meetings included updates on current issues across the church, workshops and frank conversations.
The Rev. Timothy F. Lull, president, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., completed a two-year term as chair of the presidents' meetings. The Rev. J. Paul Rajashekar, dean of the faculty, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, chaired the deans' sessions.
The seminary presidents and deans met with representatives of the ELCA's 65 synods who were in Chicago for their own consultation with churchwide staff. On Oct. 4, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, gave the full audience a major address on "The ELCA in 2012."
Lull noted that the groups were able to share in briefings on three key issues faced by the ELCA: a churchwide strategic planning process, an evangelism strategy and studies on sexuality. "All of these are not only of great interest on our campuses, but several of them involve real theological judgments and the use of theological resources," he said. "We want to be good and informed partners."
"Part of our engagement with the evangelism study or the sexuality study would be to say, 'Don't just go out and do this without us.' We know some things," said Lull.
The seminaries have gone through a phase of realizing they have a "tendency to speak too much and not listen enough," said Lull. They've been working hard on being better listeners, he said.
"Some of that specific listening right now is with a new executive director of the division," said Lull. The seminary presidents and deans met separately for informal conversations with the Rev. Stanley N. Olson, bishop of the ELCA's Southwestern Minnesota Synod, who will become executive director of the ELCA Division for Ministry on Nov. 1.
"This partnership [between seminaries and the ELCA] works when we listen not only to our own constituency in a narrow sense, but when we know the types of debates the bishops are having, when we listen to the presiding bishop, when we see relations with churchwide staff not as something that has to be endured but actually see people who are doing their own listening," said Lull. "These meetings are good chances to check out what are the larger dynamics."
The seminary presidents used their time together for training from their peers. The Rev. David L. Tiede, president of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., presented a workshop on development. Tiede shared "some of the success and real-experience wisdom that he has on this with presidents, most of whom are relatively new," said Lull, noting that most of the presidents have held those positions for less than five years.
In one session the deans and presidents conducted an open conversation about their working relationships at the seminaries. The administration of each seminary is structured differently, and deans are selected through a variety of processes, which creates a different president-dean correlation at each seminary.
An important aspect of the meeting was being able to discuss financial realities and the strategies the seminaries are using to cope, said Lull. He said the seminaries are beginning to make decisions based on anticipated income from the endowments they are building, so the recent stock market decline has had a direct effect on seminary operations.
The presidents met with representatives of The Fisher's Net -- http://www.fishersnet.net/ -- to discuss the seminaries' online center for theological education courses offered on the Internet.
Deans discussed the roles candidacy processes and internships play in their master of divinity degree programs, training opportunities for diaconal ministers, the development of an association of teaching theologians and cross-registration for online courses.
The deans met with Dr. Gwen W. Halaas, M.D., project director, Ministerial Health and Wellness, ELCA Division for Ministry, to discuss the project's 2002 report and its implications for seminary education and campus life.
Deans also met with the Rev. Gregory J. Villalon, director for multicultural leadership development, ELCA Division for Ministry, to discuss preparing pastors and lay ministers for ministry among Spanish- speaking people.
"These are very pleasant meetings," Lull added. "We're still trying to ask the hard questions, even the ones that self-interest makes difficult to ask of ourselves," he said. "What has come is a good sense of collegiality and realizing more heads are better than one."
The eight ELCA seminaries are: + Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. + Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago + Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa. + Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia + Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C. + Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif. + Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio + Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa -- -- --
A display on ELCA seminaries is at http://www.elca.org/dm/te/seminaries.html on the Web.
A home page for the strategic planning process, "Faithful Yet Changing," is at http://www.elca.org/planning/. The evangelism strategy, "Toward a Vision for Evangelism," is at http://www.elca.org/visionevangelism/. The studies on sexuality web site, "Journey Together Faithfully," is at http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/.
A RealMedia presentation of Hanson's "ELCA in 2012" address is at http://media.elca.org/ramgen/bishop/ELCAin2012.rm on the ELCA Web site.

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