"Diakonia is the beginning of missionary work"

For me, my time as a missionary began with my training at the Hermannsburg Missionary Seminary (1982-1988). There I received a solid and praxis-orientated theological education, experienced the growth and maturation of my faith and spirituality, as well as personal development, which taught me tolerance and diversity.

This multidimensional, holistic training was the elementary foundation for my ministry as a theological teacher and principal of the Onesimus Nesib Biblical Seminary in Ethiopia. In a prosperous missionary environment, practical, theological reflection and education were in demand and were gratefully received. Building on a decades-long Hermannsburg missionary tradition and thus a tradition of trust, I repeatedly became a mediator between the revival-orientated innovators and the tradition-preserving conservatives. Tolerance and diversity had to be taught and learnt together. As a European freed from various local social conventions, I was also expected to take some unpleasant but objectively and institutionally necessary decisions and measures.

A church orientated towards concrete social needs taught me to understand John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word ..." as the Christ who first paid attention to physical and social needs. So in the beginning (and up until now) helping, healing action was primary, not the sermon. This realisation ultimately guided me in the management of a rapidly-growing social ministry with the conviction that "diakonia" is the beginning of missionary work.

 

Hubert Stotter worked as a missionary in Ethiopia from 1993 to 2000.