Seminary Launches Immigrant Distance Education Program

November 13, 2002

A distance-education seminary program for immigrants to the United States is expected to be "up and running" in mid-February with some 40 students.

The Ethnic Immigrant Institute of Theology, based at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, is a specialized, interdisciplinary program that incorporates distance education, local mentoring and on-campus training. It is designed to provide "the necessary foundation for competent missional pastoral ministry and the process of lifelong learning" for men who are serving as missionaries in ethnic-immigrant and urban cultures in North America, according to Dr. Andrew Bartelt, the seminary's vice president for academic affairs.

Inspiration for the institute came from workers in the Synod's African immigrant ministries, and the program was originally intended solely for African immigrants, according to Rev. Yohannes Mengsteab, facilitator for new African immigrant and urban missions with LCMS World Mission and director of the new Ethnic Immigrant Institute. But students in the program will include Africans, Asians and Middle-Easterners who work with Muslims.

African-immigrant work in the Synod is modeled on "a missionary strategy," Mengsteab said. "So the missionaries that we have called will work in a district and plant multiple ministries. And they will all have leaders, and, in most cases, those leaders are lay people who have been identified by their communities as spiritual leaders. Now these people need training."

While the Synod has more than 70 African-immigrant ministries, the vast majority of them are led by laymen – only 10 African-immigrant leaders are ordained, Mengsteab said. "This institute," he said, "will prepare [the laymen] for ordination."

It is, according to Bartelt, "another way of meeting the missional needs of the church in a creative, alternative way."

The Ethnic Immigrant Institute differs from the Synod's Distance Education Leading to Ordination, or DELTO, program in that courses are tailored more to non-American and urban cultures and take into account the often-limited educational background of foreign students, Mengsteab said.

But, like DELTO, the institute brings the seminary to the student, allowing them to "integrate what they have learned with their day-to-day ministries."

Says Mengsteab: "The Lord is really blessing [the Ethnic Immigrant Institute], and I have no doubt it will continue to be blessed."

Applications to the program will be accepted throughout this month. For information, contact Mengsteab at (800) 433-3954, Ext. 1336; yohannes.mengsteab@lcms.org.

LCMSNews