Our TEE class has come to the end of its first semester! I can't believe that 5 months have already passed and that we're at the start of a new section. Our class has grown and shrunk a bit over the last months with some students leaving the class because they received new jobs that don't allow them the time off, some students being released back to their congregations for service with the option to re-enter TEE at the next enrollment period, and a student being added to the class after unexpectedly finding himself in Kampala for a year. So coming into our second semester we have 21 students.
This class session was focused on wrapping up the last semester and setting us up for this semester. We had a couple of "fun" assignments based on a test question from Rev. Dr. Utech's Pastoral Ministry 101 class in the Seminary:
Church leaders are often asked very important and deep questions about God. But the person who asks sometimes is seeking a very short answer. You have 5 minutes now to prepare a 1 minute response to this opportunity:
You have a friend at the radio station that broadcasts Dr. Chameleone’s music in your area. Your friend has offered you a free 1-minute “commercial” to testify about your faith in Jesus Christ as part of their Sunday programming. Your one-minute will be followed by the radio announcer presenting the programs at your church, so you need not mention them in your testimonial. You should be sure to mention the things that are most important to your faith along with the most interesting or meaningful aspects of Christ’s work in your life.
Although the Ugandan culture isn't one that lends itself to short "sound bites," the exercise is a good test of how well you understand something. If you can condense what you feel is most necessary into one minute, you've got a good grasp of the issues and have a logical framework to support your information. You should try it!
Then I presented a discussion about the key elements of the Christian faith - again, a framework through which we can interpret and evaluate. We talked about how Christians learn about God. We put all kinds of suggestions on the board - the Bible, theology books, the Lutheran Hymnal, the Book of Concord, songs, even the Creeds. Then we asked which were authoritative (the question was posed in slightly different language, of course). Our discussion finally led to (of course) the Bible as the sole authoritative source for our knowledge of God. All the other stuff was written by men and we don't attribute any divine inspiration to those other sources. I did point out, of course, that just because we don't believe something to be divinely inspired it means that it does have theological error. I explained that even though the Book of Concord was written by men 1500 years after the time of Christ, I do believe it to be an accurate and true explanation and description of what we find in the Bible. After this long discussion about the formal principle (the authoritative source of theology), we moved on to the key teaching - the most important thing we can teach about that theology (the material principle). We had lots of suggestions, lots of good ideas. They eventually talked me into asserting that the key and central doctrine and teaching should be that we are saved by grace, through faith, according to Ephesians 2:8-10. Right on.
Also this weekend, my fellow missionary Rev. Jacob Gillard lectured about ordination, since on August 2nd our three Ugandan Vicars, Jerome, Aaron, and Samuel, will be ordained as Pastors in the Lutheran Church Mission in Uganda! So we wanted our TEE class to be informed about ordination.
We have our schedule set for the next 6 months and it looks like we might even make it within the budget. We'll be teaching on Stewardship, Major World Religions, Christian Denominations, Law and Gospel, Adult Confirmation Classes, the African Roots of Christianity, Responding to African Traditional Religion, Responding to Pentecostalism, and we'll have a weekend Servant Event. It's going to be a great semester! -Shauen