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The Future of the Seminary: The Challenges

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At the beginning of the last academic year our seminary hit a point of crisis. For a long time our enrollment has been low, finances have been sparce and our faculty has been small, but last year we lost two teachers and all of a sudden we had to start cutting corners. We realized we could no longer continue according to the status quo. At the beginning of this year, the founder of our seminary (The Slovak Evangelical Alliance) appointed a task force and gave us the job of putting together a strategy for the future of the seminary.

In this post I’ll describe the challenges we’ve been facing that have brought us to our current situation. In the following posts we’ll look at the special place our seminary has not just in Slovakia but in our region of Central Europe and then in a third post I’ll look at the strategy we have for moving towards sustainability.

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Ministry in the Days of the Coronavirus Pandemic

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Things happened fast in Slovakia from Monday to Friday, with news coming everyday about how the coronavirus was spreading throughout the world and governments began taking drastic steps. On Monday morning I held my last class on campus before switching to online only. Here’s how the coronavirus is affecting our family and ministry in Slovakia.

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Back to Volunteer Status at the Seminary

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For the past two years I’ve held an official position at the evangelical seminary (~associate professor) in Slovakia. This has been a good arrangement as it has helped me feel more a part of the faculty and it allows for my publishing activity to contribute to the seminary’s accreditation. Financially, however, it has proved to be a challenge for us and I have decided to go back to volunteer status until we can increase our regular financial support levels.

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Todd’s 2019 Ministry Review

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I’ve always said that my main calling is not to teach at a seminary but to help the church better read and live Scripture (which includes teaching at a seminary). In 2019 my ministry expanded further beyond the seminary through theological mentoring for pastors and preaching elders, teaching an overview of Scripture for more local congregations, and involvement in the theological and ordination committee for our denomination.

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Changes at the Seminary

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It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a spontaneous road trip like the one in college where we just up and went to the beach for the weekend (from Urbana, IL to Wilmington, NC!). This August I took a semi-spontaneous road trip of similar length and duration to help Peter Malik move his family from Dortmund, Germany to Banská Bystrica. Peter will be joining our faculty at the seminary as we say farewell to one of our professors.

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Twenty-five Years of Theological Education in Slovakia (gallery)

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In October of this year our seminary commemorated its 25th year with a celebration event at the university. Alumni, representatives from our founding denominations, former professors and current faculty and students got together to thank God for his work in establishing this important ministry for the Slovak church. 

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Employed at the University, but Still a Missionary

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Just recently I became an official employee of our seminary in and so also of the University of Matej Bel in Banská Bystrica. On the surface, this doesn’t change my ministry priorities or day to day activities, but it does increases my long term ability to influence the viability and direction of the seminary and it changes our financial situation.

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Threats from All Sides

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It’s that time again. The accreditation process comes around every five years in Slovakia. This time, along with accreditation comes news that the government is wanting to do some house cleaning to improve the quality of the university system and decrease the number of schools. Some of these threats have already materialized and will be affecting our seminary next September. [Read more…]