3/4/2008 Tuesday

It seems that faculty meetings are the same no matter where the school, especially the first faculty meeting after a semester ends. Tough decisions, academic readiness, student services, financial aid [bursury here], relationship with ordination panels are made in every environment. For students, final classes needed before placement in a congregation, passing all courses, turning papers in on time are the pressure points that seem to have no geographical limit. This time I can listen and know that I do not have to participate in difficult conversations.

Yet the request to speak to some of the pastors from the German church about Stewardship, seems to carry with it the same kind of pressures that instigated the ELCA Blue Committee on Mission Funding. I was not aware that every Lutheran Church in South Africa may still receive funding from the mother church up north. Moving to internally supported generous giving is as much a challenge for the churches in the southern hemisphere as it is for those of us in the north. The difference being that northern churches are expected to have deeper pockets.

It’s been fun looking at the internal resources by former professors at the predecessor institutions that make up the LTI. Muendanyi Mahamba in 1993 wrote a stunningly prophetic piece on church support that needed to be grounded in scripture and based upon the generosity of the People of God. I always knew that I had walked in the footsteps of great persons.

I’m overwhelmed at the opportunities for theological discussion and debate. On Wednesday our competing lectures were a faculty paper on “Surviving the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in South Africa and a Norwegian Bishops “View of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”. There are just not enough hours in the day. Peace.