Posts tagged ‘Seminary’
Ghana Eye Clinic – Day 3
Today’s numbers: We shared the gospel with 354 people and gave away 253 pairs of glasses. This was our biggest day yet!
Check out the pictures and captions below to find out more about today’s clinic.
Pam works hard sorting reading glasses for the hundreds who need them.
Arnold and Tristina have been working hard all clinic long!
Our host, Ivan, talks to the pastor who is the president of the Lutheran seminary in Ghana and is taking some time out of his busy schedule to share the gospel with hundreds during the eye clinic.
Tristina poses with one of our fabulous volunteers, Justice. Justice works hard routing people through the clinic to make sure everyone gets to the right place.
More of our fabulous volunteers! This devoted group sat outside all day in the hot Ghana sun welcoming visitors to the clinic.
Tristina and Pam are still smiling even after a long day at the clinic.
This little boy’s name is Michael and our team has decided to “adopt” him. He has a degenerative eye disease and will need ongoing medical care to preserve what little vision that he has.
Michael’s eyes.
Our host, Ivan, has a friend, Mustapha, who works to build bridges between the Muslim and Christian communities in Accra. Thankfully, the relationships between Muslims and Christians are very good in Ghana. Mustapha has invited several of his friends to the clinic.
Tristina uses the portable autorefractor to measure a boy’s eyes for new glasses.
The children of St. Paul Lutheran School in Accra are a talented bunch! Check out this video of their mad musical skills.
Weekend Extra – Seminary Training
My graduate alma mater is Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. In 2004, I walked away with a Master of Divinity. The classes I took there and the lessons I learned there have proved invaluable to me over the course of my ministry. They prepared me to make a solemn pledge of fidelity to the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ. And, by God’s Spirit, I intend to keep that pledge through my ministry and through my life.
Seminaries have a long and storied history in the annals of Christianity. Tradition has it that Basil of Ancyra, who gathered around him a group of students to professionally train them in Holy Scripture, started the earliest known seminary. The term “seminary” fell out of favor in the Middle Ages, but resurfaced at the Council of Trent, which mandated that a seminary be opened in every diocese:
The holy council decrees that all cathedral and metropolitan churches and churches greater than these shall be bound, each according to its means and the extent of its diocese, to provide for, to educate in religion, and to train in ecclesiastical discipline, a certain number of boys in their city and diocese, or, if they are not found there, of their province, in a college located near the said church or in some other suitable place chosen by the bishop. (Council of Trent, Twenty-Third Session, Ch. XVIII)
The council continues with stern rebukes of those dioceses which refuse to open or adequately maintain their seminaries.
Even though the advent of the modern seminary is generally attributed to the above declaration of the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century, the notion of a seminary is as old as Christ Himself.
In Mark 6, Jesus encounters a mob of hungry people. Although very few of us are confronted face to face with the tragedy of hunger because of our stations in life, hunger was widespread and commonplace in the ancient world and, indeed, is still widespread and commonplace in our world today. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, over 1.02 billion people suffer from hunger. In Mark 6, 5,000 of these 1.2 billion are together in one place.
So what does Jesus do? How does Jesus respond to such a pressing need? He starts a seminary! “Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties” (verses 39-40). The Greek word for “groups” in verse 40 is prasia, meaning, “seed plot.” Interestingly, this is also what our word “seminary” means. It is from the Latin word seminarius, meaning a seed plot in which men are planted to grow in knowledge of God’s Word and to be trained to share that Word with others. Thus, before Jesus feeds the masses with loaves and fish, He plants and prepares them in seminaries so that they may properly receive the blessings that He will soon give them.
By means of His Word, Jesus desires to give you a seminary education. His desire is that you are planted in groups of Christians, being planted and prepared to receive the good gifts which He has prepared for you. Time in worship, small groups, Bible study, and prayer are all seminary training! And it is in these times that Jesus comes and feeds you – not just with loaves and fish, but with the sustenance of His Scripture. And make no mistake about it, we sorely need this feeding from God’s Word. For God’s Word gives us life. As Moses reminds us, we do “not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3)! May you join with other Christians this week to be trained in Christ’s seminary!
Want to learn more on this passage? Go to
www.ConcordiaLutheranChurch.com
and check out audio and video from Pastor Prieto’s
message or Pastor Goodwill’s ABC!
Pastor Zach's Blog 