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Raising up church workers for Tanzania

New pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania kneel at the altar of Ebenezer Cathedral during a March 15 service at Shinyanga. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

The Rev. Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Jr., left, president of Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., gives a student his “Certificate of Accomplishment” at the March 14 graduation exercises of 21 pastors and seven deaconesses. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

The “Certificate of Accomplishment” received by graduates. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

Hands of blessing are placed on a new pastor among 21 who were ordained at Ebenezer Cathedral March 15. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania South-East of Lake Victoria Diocese’s Ebenezer Cathedral in Shinyanga, Tanzania. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

In the same service, seven new deaconesses were commissioned. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

“Today we give thanks to God,” the Rev. Dr. Timothy Quill said March 14, “as we celebrate the graduation of the first pastoral and deaconess classes from the Bishop Makala Training Center” in Tanzania.

The next day, 21 new pastoral candidates were ordained and seven deaconesses commissioned in a service with more than 1,000 worshipers at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania — South-East of Lake Victoria Diocese’s (ELCT-SELVD) Ebenezer Cathedral in Shinyanga.

Quill is director of International Studies and associate professor of Pastoral Ministry and Ministry and Mission for Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. (CTSFW), whose faculty teaches in the two-year training-center program that stems from a partnership between the Synod and the ELCT-SELVD. That partnership developed after Bishop Emmanuel Makala of the diocese requested help in developing the training program in 2013 from CTSFW President Rev. Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Jr. Funding for the training program is made possible by a grant from the LCMS Global Seminary Initiative, which Quill oversees.

Makala preached at the March 15 service of ordination and commissioning. Following the service, he invited Rast, Quill, LCMS Office of International Mission Area Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Rev. Shauen Trump, and a group from the LCMS Mid-South District to offer greetings to the congregation. The Mid-South District provides financial support for the theological education of Tanzanian pastors.

The May-June edition of the Synod’s Lutherans Engage the World magazine is being planned with a focus on pastoral and parish education and will include more about the partnership to prepare church workers for Tanzania.

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Story and photos by Erik M. Lunsford (erik.lunsford@lcms.org), photojournalist and a staff writer with LCMS Communications.

Posted April 10, 2015

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Paula Schlueter Ross

Paula Schlueter Ross (1953–2019), former managing editor of Reporter, was a magna cum laude graduate of Webster University, with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. During her nearly 35-year career with the LCMS, she wrote for both Reporter and The Lutheran Witness and often took photos to accompany her stories. Ross won 17 national writing awards from the Associated Church Press, including seven first-place “Awards of Excellence.”