Picture

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked,
"Do you understand what you are reading?"
And he said, "How can I, unless someone guides me?"
ACTS 8:30-31a

MISSION
Forming African Christians To Be Teachers Of The Faith

Founded in 2010, Lutherans in Africa (LIA) equips Africans to be teachers of the saving faith in Christ Jesus. This is done through training pastors, evangelists, deaconesses, and Sunday school teachers in the pure doctrine and its instruction, liturgy, and hymnody and through translating key doctrinal resources into African languages.

TEACHING

 Picture
The adage if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for life is never more apt than with the mission of Lutherans in Africa (LIA).  By training pastors, evangelists, and church workers, we are teaching not merely this generation, but the ones to come.

In Africa, the lack of resources available for education, coupled with traditional beliefs and practices, leads to misunderstandings of the Living Word.  From the congregational level to the national church body, an overwhelming need exists for basic doctrinal teaching for Lutheran pastors, evangelists, and deaconesses.
Consider that the East African region alone (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) covers 1.8 million square kilometers with a combined population of 126 million, over 60 percent of which are Christians.  The Lutheran Church in Tanzania alone has over 5 million members, but many struggle to understand what Lutherans believe and why.  The average pastor serves 12 parishes but only visits one each Sunday.  The other eleven are served by evangelists who have had little or no training.  Even those who are trained have few books and limited opportunity for further formal study in the Living Word and doctrinal theology.

TRANSLATING

 Picture
To provide doctrinal resources in African languages, the translation arm of Lutherans in Africa (LIA), Lutheran Heritage Foundation-Africa (LHF-Africa), also headed by Rev. May, is translating Good News magazines and key texts such as Luther’s Small Catechism, the Book of Concord, and God’s No and God’s Yes into Kiswahili.  Yet the work does not stop with translation.  Since most pastors have never heard of the books, LIA then offers workshops on Lutheran doctrine so clergy can better understand how our Confessions are the pure exposition of the Living Word.

TRAINING
Currently working in 23 countries, LIA addresses this issue by not only teaching confessional Lutheran doctrine, but also training African pastors to be the teachers in their own communities.  Continuing education seminars cover:  liturgy, hymnody, how to teach the Small Catechism, and doctrinal topics such as justification, prayer, eschatology, and the proper division of Law and Gospel.