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NEWS FROM AUSTRALIAN LUTHERAN COLLEGE
Change
ISALLAROUNDUS
the
CHANGING
FACE of ALC …as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. That is why we never give up… 2 C O R 4:1 5B,1 6A
This edition’s cover reveals the changes our church has seen over nine decades. The top photo— Immanuel Seminary students—was taken within two years of the seminary opening in North Adelaide in 1923. The bottom photo—Australian Lutheran College (ALC) students—was taken this year. The contrast is striking.
a periodical of Australian Lutheran College 104 Jeffcott Street, Adelaide SA 5006 phone: 08 8267 7400 email: alc@alc.edu.au web: www.alc.edu.au stories by Australian Lutheran College edited and designed by LCA Communications printed by Openbook Howden Design & Print
Australian Lutheran College is the training institution of the Lutheran Church of Australia. LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA
Remarkable change has occurred even in my own lifetime. I remember my first impressions of ALC, then Luther Seminary. It was 1972. There were 23 students in my first-year class, and the boarding house was filled with pastoral students. They were all single, white, and male. Forty years on, the majority of ALC students are female, and the boarding house is home mainly for university students. Pastoral students (still all male) can be embarking on their second or third career, married, with children or even grandchildren. Education students are often post graduates. Many are learning theology for the first time. Diaconal students, training as lay workers or volunteers, range from youth workers to retirees. They sacrifice careers and possessions in order to serve parishioners, prisoners, the bereft, the sick, the aged and the young in the name of Christ. Our North Adelaide campus community is made up of people from all over the globe: Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, Singapore, America and even Bhutan and Nepal. They might be staff, students studying to be pastors, teachers or church workers, family members of international students, workshop
AC T I N G PR I N C I PA L
Rev Dr Stephen Haar participants or tertiary boarders—yet every one of them is learning about the grace of God in Christ. Today our ALC community extends far beyond North Adelaide. We are increasingly an online community. We are spread across Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia. We acknowledge the members of ALC’s ‘virtual community’—those studying through long-distance education and online learning. 2013 has been an eventful year for the college. In February we acknowledged the 90th anniversary of the opening of Immanuel Seminary on our North Adelaide campus. Early in July we farewelled our principal, Rev John Henderson, who has since been installed as bishop of the Lutheran Church of Australia. We thank God for the faithful service of our governing board of directors: former LCA President Mike Semmler, Roger Hunter, Chris Bartholomaeus, Kim Kernich, David Nivala, and Michael Proeve, who retired this year. We ask for your prayers as we seek to identify the new principal of ALC. We give thanks for the wisdom, leadership and oversight of our new board of directors and for the project team as partners in the planning and decision-making for the North Adelaide redevelopment and the changes before us. At the same time, they would acknowledge and give thanks to God, in whom alone our confidence is sure. My sincere thanks to those of you who have supported this year’s annual appeal, and at the same time I would remind you that donations are gratefully accepted all year round. We thank God for your generosity, prayers and encouragement. ALC is your college, built on the traditions handed to us, but focused on a future worth having—our future in Christ. That is why we never give up …
I cringe when I see the label ‘one size fits all’. I reckon it’s industry speak for ‘it really doesn’t fit anyone’. Perhaps Australian Lutheran College (ALC) has been accused in the past of offering a one-size-fits-all education, where students enter the institution, proceed through the theological factory, and exit with a degree or two and the correct (or corrected) way to view the world. Well, let me assure you that theological education at ALC has changed and is changing.
The Certificate IV in Christian Ministry & Theology can be completed part-time in one to two years. It’s a practical ministry course that covers the Bible, our Beliefs, Christian Reconciliation, and Spiritual Resilience. The study also equips you for volunteering or employment in ministry with subjects—like Toolkit for Ministry, Building Healthy Relationships and Equipping for Leadership.
First, ALC doesn’t have one shape in our wardrobe. Our training comes in a variety of shapes, ranging from Grassroots Training courses, that meet the needs of everyday people for everyday ministry, through to studying towards a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy).
You can choose to complete a unit on Child, Youth and Family Ministry, or a unit called Connection (on sharing the gospel). And did you know that our Cert IV workshops can be attended by both Cert IV students (sorry, there’s assessment to write) and by participants (no assessment, just attend and learn).
When it comes to gaining an initial qualification we have the: • Certificate IV in Christian Ministry and Theology (30772QLD)* • Diploma in Theology • Bachelor of Ministry • Bachelor of Theology.
If you are looking for something more —something deeper, something at the higher-education level—then I recommend the Diploma in Theology. It’s a one year full-time course, though most of our students study part-time for up to three years. We offer some of the units via workshops in Adelaide and Brisbane each year, and we offer all of the units via Flexible Education. We come to you.
For those who already have a Bachelor’s degree, whatever the field, we offer the: • Graduate Certificate in Theology • Graduate Diploma in Theology • Master of Arts (Theology) • Master of Arts (Education and Theology) • Master of Philosophy • Master of Theology And there’s more!
So if you are interested in trying theology on for size, no matter what your ministry shape is, then contact the School of Theological Studies on sts@alc.edu.au or freecall 1800 625 193. Tania Nelson is Head of School of Theological Studies. *ALC is a partner in the Australian College of Ministries training network RTO # 90965
Then there’s the issue of size. We may be a small specialist university, but we are big on personalising your study experience to meet your needs. We may be located in only two locations— Adelaide and Brisbane—but we have students across Australia, and we also welcome international students. Many of our courses can be completed by Flexible Education (distance education), and as more and more of our units are available through iLearn (online delivery) you can study from the comfort of your computer chair. Now let me tell you about two excellent training opportunities.
ONE SIZE FITS ALL?
We don’t think so! BY
TaniaNelson
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Emma joins team
To find out more about Grassroots Training, please visit our website www.grassroots.edu.au or email admin@grassroots.edu.au
In February we welcomed a new team member at Australian Lutheran College (ALC). Emma Graetz joined us as Grassroots Training Coordinator and VET Officer. Emma’s employment within the Lutheran Church has led her to many children, youth and family ministry roles in South Australia, New Zealand and Queensland. Before taking on this role at ALC, she helped to establish the leadership trainer position at Lutheran Youth of Queensland. Emma was one of the LCA Twenty20 participants, through which she obtained a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and a Diploma of Management. Grassroots Training is a ministry of ALC that offers a wide variety of training options to the wider Lutheran Church. Together with the School of Theological Studies, Grassroots Training co-presents the workshops that are part of the Certificate IV in Christian Ministry and Theology (30772QLD). These workshops are also available for any individuals wishing to attend for professional development or personal interest. Grassroots Training also offers customised training to congregations, ministry teams and schools. Past workshops have included leadership-development training for school students, leadership skills for camp and youth leaders, and team ministry relationship-building for congregational ministry teams. We are also in partnership with several national and district departments. As one example, we are working with the LCA Board for Lay Ministry to equip lay workers with the training required to become accredited lay workers of the church. Another example: the newly established Grow Ministries (LCA Board for Child Youth & Family Ministry) is working closely with Grassroots Training to help develop a Children, Youth and Family Ministry workshop which will also be available as a unit in the Certificate IV in Christian Ministry and Theology (30772QLD) from 2014. Emma brings to the team an enthusiastic energy and vast amount of knowledge that she shares through the training opportunities Grassroots Training offers to schools, congregations, individuals and VET students. She sees her new role at ALC as a great opportunity to contribute to the wider church.
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‘I have been blessed to join a great team at Australian Lutheran College and to be able to use my gifts and skills to equip people in their ministry context’, she says.
CALLED TO STUDY
Three pastoral ministry students explain how God led them to ALC. I was born in Hong Kong and went to school there for a couple of years. My mother and I moved over to Sydney when I was in Year 2 and I attended Eastwood Public School.
Towards the latter years of high school I became very passionate about following Christ, spreading the gospel and defending the Christian faith. After several discussions with my pastor, he suggested that I should consider pastoral ministry. After some reflection, I came to study in the pastoral ministry program at ALC. My current fieldwork congregation is St Stephens in Adelaide city, where I lead a small Bible study group. MY NAME IS
Anthony Kwong I come from the Minden Valley in South-East Queensland. I was born and brought up in a Lutheran family. During confirmation classes, I realised the true multitude of God’s power and full extent of his love. I felt a strong calling from God to get more involved in the church and that there was more I could do to serve him. Not understanding how I should live out this new-found calling, I spent my senior years at high school investigating different options, and I was led to look at the vocation of pastor. At the end of Grade 12 I was still unsure where God wanted me to go. After the tragic and sudden death of my father I fell into a deep depression, but God did not abandon me. He walked with me and assured me that I could use this experience to assist others, and so I have come to ALC to study for the pastoral ministry.
MY NAME IS
Jake Zabel
I am happily married to Sal and we have five lovely children, with a sixth child due in September, which is very exciting. My wife and I enjoy home-schooling our children, and they all are enjoying the blessings of being on campus and engaging with the ALC community. I am originally from Adelaide but have spent nearly ten years in England, where I met Sal and we started our family there. I also began my career there as a clinical music therapist, working with people with mental illness, severe disabilities or in prison, and in child and family therapy. We moved back to Adelaide five years ago and through a series of events and experiences, including a friend guiding me to Titus 1:6-9, I am here studying pastoral ministry at ALC. MY NAME IS
Matthew Huckel
While studying full-time, I still continue to work one day a week for the government as a music therapist in brain-injury work, and God uses so much of my experiences in disability work to richly complement my current theological and ministry studies. Our move to ALC has been a whole family decision and we are excited to explore where God is taking us. As a family we are really looking forward to the next five years of study and all the challenges and blessings the Lord brings our way to grow us in our faith.
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ALC STUDY DIARY
This is the second in a series of articles by pastoral students about what they study at ALC.
More than once we’ve been asked why, in this day of multiple good Bible translations and whizzbang translation software, we still need to learn New Testament (Koine) Greek. And yes, we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t hard work. But have you ever had a conversation where you don’t quite speak in the same terms as the other person and can’t quite see the significance of the point they are making? That’s more frustrating. Accordingly, learning New Testament Greek helps to overcome these problems with Scripture. Words get uncovered, phrases become less obscure and figures of speech are seen in their proper historical and cultural context. When someone speeds through a windy road in a national park, they take in only the big picture. They miss the diversity of life and detail on offer. So it is with Scripture. There is nothing like reading Scripture in Greek to slow things down in order to better see its connections, absorb its impact and highlight its contours. What church wouldn’t want that from its pastors? Admittedly, the two semesters allotted to Greek do not make us into expert Greek linguists. (Just ask our Greek teacher Dr Stephen Hultgren, whom we suspect even dreams in Greek!) Yet it’s amazing how much we can learn in a short space of time, especially if being marked on it and we put our iPhone flashcards to good use. Moreover, New Testament subjects such as The Gospel of John give us extra translation practice to help consolidate what we have learnt.
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME BY AND
Matthew Bishoper Michael Prenzl
And, thankfully, studying and keeping Greek is interesting in its own right, not least because of its strong connection to English. In this regard those of you who have seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding will recall how apparently every English word derives from Greek (and that Windex cures everything …) But, more seriously, perhaps the best thing about studying Greek is the spiritual reward. For example, in the crescendo of the crucifixion account of John 19:30, the words, ‘It is finished’, are just one word in Greek, Tetelestai. So simple, yet of eternal and immense consequence for the way these words reconcile us as baptised believers to our creator for all time. Which is just as well ... at this rate it feels as though we’ll need eternity to get our Greek anywhere close to right!
Matthew Bishop is in his third year and Michael Prenzler in his second year in the School of Pastoral Theology.
B O A R D I N G H E R E T O S TAY F O R N O W ALC has been advised by those managing the LCA property redevelopment that we will still be able to offer boarding for 2014, 2015 and 2016. If you have a son or daughter coming to Adelaide for tertiary studies next year, enrolments for boarding are now open. For more information please contact our Boarding Manager, Kristine Leonard, on 1800 625 193 or email boarding@alc.edu.au
LDP pa rticipants C orrin
Townsend from Unity College Murray Bridge, M
ictory Lutheran College Wodonga elanie McDonald from V
on the edge
Lutheran teachers are on the cutting edge of the mission and ministry of the LCA.
Lutheran schools have been a part of the Australian landscape since 1839. Back then, the communities looked for teachers who were theologically sound, fluent in German and English and prepared to work for the low wages being offered. The ground has shifted somewhat in 175 years, although if the media are to be believed it cannot be assumed that even white Anglo Saxon undergraduate teaching students speak fluent English! However, in order for a school to be authentically Lutheran, it is still important that staff understand the ways in which Lutheran theology drives education practice. In the School of Educational Theology at Australian Lutheran College (ALC), we understand that an authentic Lutheran school is one where lively theological dialogue takes place, and where there is a robust interaction between Lutheran theology and education. This obviously demands that teachers develop a degree of theological understanding. This is not the same as a faith position, or even a faith journey. It is an exercise in systematic theology. This might sound scary. And it certainly is for some teachers, but good instructors make difficult concepts accessible. That’s our role at the ALC School of Educational Theology: to make Lutheran theological understandings accessible to teachers in our schools. ALC offers awards recognised under the Australian Qualifications Framework for pre-service and in-service teachers. Our faculty assists teacher trainees to become better teachers of Christian Studies, and experienced teachers to step up to their responsibility to engage in the theological
BY
Merryn Ruwoldt
conversations in and with the school. In partnership with Lutheran Education Australia (LEA) and the Australian Catholic University, the Lutheran schools’ teacher leadership development program (LDP) represents one opportunity for ALC to work with a group of emerging leaders. The LDP cohort complete the masters unit ‘Education and Theology in Dialogue’ as part of the program. The teachers consider a number of key Lutheran theological principles, and then go back into their school community and facilitate a theological discussion around an educational issue. We are looking forward to the new understandings which will be generated in and for our schools during this process. Lutheran schools are on the cutting edge of the mission and ministry of the LCA. The activities of the teachers are the closest contact many members of our school communities have with the church. Stephen Rudolph, LEA Executive Director, says, ‘Lutheran school leaders benefit enormously from the teachings of ALC staff, as was so clearly evident at a recent Leadership Development Program. Over 45 prospective Lutheran school leaders were engaged in rigorous and relevant theological and educational dialogue with ALC faculty.’ The ALC School of Educational Theology is proud to work with teachers seeking to better understand the theological nuances which inform their school context and educational practice. Dr Merryn Ruwoldt is the Head of the School of Educational Theology.
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Muller, Levi Graham, Dylan Miegel, Ste Vicars Joshua phen Cron au, Andre w
the
Dockerill and Mich ael Rudo lph
I once read, ‘Vicarage is a joyous, challenging, risky venture for student, pastor and congregation’.
BY
Alice Lamnek
Vicarage Venture
As pastoral students at Australian Lutheran College (ALC) set out each year on their six-month vicarage placement, they are surely faced with mixed feelings. On the one hand there may be a sense of excitement as they begin the next stage of their learning journey. Perhaps there is also a sense of dread caused by the unknown. Are they really prepared for what lies ahead of them? Will the congregation accept them for who they are: a student with L-plates? We thank God for the pastors and congregations who believe that the benefit of taking on a vicar far outweighs any possible risk. Our current vicars have just returned from their placements and this is what they had to say about their vicarage experience.
Andrew Dockerill
Dylan Miegel
Vicarage was an opportunity to experience what real ministry looks like in the lives of God's people, and to put all the foundational theory learnt at ALC into practice. There were many challenges, but Christ taught me to trust in him for strength.
Vicarage was a challenging experience and certainly didn't play out like I imagined it would. That said, I grew a lot and learnt from the different ways my vicar father approached tasks. Putting the needs of people first, especially through visitation, was the most important, challenging and rewarding part of my vicarage. It was a lesson modelled by my vicar father and the congregation itself.
St Paul, Enfield, with Pastor Eugene Minge
Stephen Cronau
Trinity, Pasadena, with Pastor Detlev Vosgerau Vicarage was a very positive experience for me, as I gained confidence in leading worship and preaching. The congregation at Pasadena were very welcoming to our family and we felt like we belonged from day one.
Levi Graham
St Philips, Werribee, and Martin Luther, Altona, with Pastor Mark Winter
During my vicarage placement I lived in an old farmhouse right next to the church and Good News Lutheran School. I greatly enjoyed working with the youth and had many exciting adventures with the young adults, in the Scriptures as well as out. It was a blessing to be able to do my vicarage outside of Adelaide. I received many opportunities to prepare myself in anticipation of the ordained ministry, as well as developing my pastoral heart, a skill I will take with me wherever God is leading me.
St Stephens, Adelaide, with Pastor James Winderlich
Joshua Muller
St Michael’s, Hahndorf, with Pastor Stephen Schultz Vicarage was a wonderful opportunity to bring God's word to everyday people living everyday lives. It was very affirming, and I felt greatly blessed by the community at St Michael's. The wide range of experiences it has given me means that I feel ready to serve God's people wherever I end up.
Michael Rudolph
Lobethal, with Pastor David Preuss I had a wonderful time of growth and affirmation on vicarage. It was a joy to work under the guidance of my vicarage supervisor, and the members at Lobethal were incredibly welcoming and encouraging. My vicarage not only helped me find my feet and confirmed my call but it was also a time of blessing for my family in preparing us for our life in ministry.