“Today we begin again, with a new generation of young people, the continuing process of having pastors—well-trained, committed, faithful pastors—to serve and to lead the Lutheran Church of Senegal.” With these words, Pastor Jean-Pierre Abdou Thiam, President of the Eglise Luthérienne du Sénégal (ELS) officially declared open the first session of the new Pastoral Formation Program or PFP. After two years of extensive planning and preparation, plus countless more years dreaming, envisioning, and awaiting God’s own time, the ELS will be training pastors in Senegal for the first time since becoming a self-governing church in 1987.
PFP Students and teachers are joined by ELS leaders in Dakar.
1st Row, (l-r): Pr. Moussa Marone (Dakar Parish), Sandrine Diatta, Saliou Faye, Mame Coumba Faye, Pr. Thomas Diouf (Director of Formation).
2nd row, l-r: Anne-Marie Dione, Jean-Noël Faye, Pastor Abdou Thiam (President, ELS), Fulgence Diouf, Pr. Peter Hanson (Coordinator, Dept. of Formation and Theology).
The PFP is in many ways the brainchild of Pr. Thiam, who served as the Director of Theological Formation before his election as president last year. Returning to Senegal in 2008, after completing a Masters’ Degree at the Protestant University of West Africa in Benin, Pr. Thiam became concerned about the fact that the church was not training pastors quickly enough to assure a continuation of the ministry once the first generation of ELS pastors began retiring. Pastoral candidates were typically sent to seminaries in Cameroon or Benin for theological education, and the limited financial resources available for such scholarships meant that in the past several years only three new pastors had been trained. The idea was to begin to offer a theological education here in Senegal, one that offered a more rigorous academic schedule than much of what had been offered here before, but one that still was more accessible than the university level formation available only in neighboring countries, and often at great expense.
After a call went out to all of the ELS’ thirteen parishes, a total of eighteen people participated in the two-day process of testing and discernment. After reviewing the applications, scoring the written tests, and speaking directly with those listed as references, ten were called back for personal interviews—similar to the candidacy intake process used by the synods of the ELCA. Finally, a total of eight students were selected to be part of this next generation of pastors-in-formation.
Among the eight, two students—Djibril Diallo and Lademda Faye—were selected to apply for scholarships to the Lutheran Institute of Theology in Meiganga, Cameroon, based on their current academic level as university students. We hope that they will be able to secure scholarships in order to begin their studies in September. Among the six others, five were selected to be full-scholarship students here in the local program, with a sixth participating as an “auditor,” attending the courses and completing the work, but not necessarily pursuing ordination at this time. The six PFP participants—Sandrine Diatta, Anne-Marie Dione, Fulgence Diouf, Mame Coumba Faye, Jean-Noël Faye, and Saliou Faye—have now begun their first two courses here in Dakar.
It’s well worth mentioning that among these eight potential pastors, two of them are from ethnic groups other than the Serer who make up the vast majority of the members of the ELS. One is a Diola and one a Fulani, representing two of the ethnicities that the ELS wishes to reach out to more fully in the coming years. Also well worth celebrating is the fact that for the first time in its history, the ELS now has women who have been accepted as pastoral candidates. While it won’t necessarily be an easy road for these women, we hope that by God's grace, and with the support of one another, their teachers in the program and the leadership of the ELS, they will be able to face up to the obstacles before them, and hopefully take their place as ELS pastors along with their male classmates.
Classes began yesterday with an introduction to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) which I am teaching. Today was the beginning of a (re)introduction to the Lutheran Confessions, taught by Pastor Thomas Diouf as part of a larger survey of Systematic Theology. Following a modular system of one class a month (or two classes during a two-month session), the PFP is planned to last three academic cycles, with two "contextual phases" offered between academic years and a year-long pastoral internship coming at the end of the cycle. If all continues more or less as planned, most if not all of these eight people should be ready for ordination sometime in the second half of 2014.
It's an exciting time in the life of the ELS!
Rendons grâce à Dieu! Thanks be to God!
Peter
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