We at Highbury offered him a placement ... and we have never looked back. It was a wonderful year.
As it came to an end he told us of another student from his seminary in Marburg who would be coming over for three years to do a PhD.
So it was that we were put in touch with Stefan Kurle who was also looking to do a pastoral placement while studying with Gordon Wenham at the university of Gloucestershire.
Stefan and Birgit joined us for three years and became very much part of a team ministry, sharing with our Time for God volunteers and with me in the ministry and mission of the church.
German speaking Stefan completed his PhD in English has gone on to learn Portuguese and now teaches Biblical studies at the South American Theological Seminary in Londrina in Southern Brazil.
While he is a Professor of Biblical Studies, Birgit is working among people with drug problems and as a teacher of English.
Having been in Brazil for four years they returned home to Marburg at the beginning of July to have a break of six months. They will be joining us in Highbury for a few days from Friday 12th October.
When Stefan invited me to join him in Berlin for the biennial conference of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians it was an invitation I could not turn down!
Particularly so as the theme of the conference relates directly to the course I teach on, the Congregational Federation's Foundation Degree in Pracitical Theology in partnership with the University of Winchester.
Beyond the Bible: Moving from Scripture to Theology and Practice is the theme of the conference and it promises to be a stiumulating few days.
Stefan suggested meeting up a day early and so it was that I found myself leaving the house at 4-00 this morning to catch the coach for Heathrow and the 8-50 flight for Berlin. After all the excitement of the Olympics it was great to see the Olympic Park, albeit from a few thousand feet!!
Meeting up with Stefan, we went by bus on a route that took us past the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag to the Pergamon Museum and a remarkable collection of Ancient Near Eastern artefacts.
It was a museum I had wanted to visit for more than 40 years.
My one adventure as a student had been to accompany friend Paul on the Orient Express to Istanbul and then down the Turkish coast to Kusadasi near Ephesus. We visited four of the seven churches of Revelaion in the days before they were on the tourist trail: Ephesus, Sardis (Salihli), Smyrna (Izmir) and Pergamon (Bergama).
It was a thrilling place to visit. A taxi took us up the windy steep hill to the ancient ruins of the Acropolis with its wonderful theatre and many ruins. The one disappointment was that the centrepiece of the wonderful Pergamon Altar was nowhere to be found.
It had been excavated at teh end of the nineteenth century and taken to Berlin where the Pergamon museum had been built to display it in all its splendour.
Forty years on I found myself explring the wonderful Pergamon altar.
In the museum a number of things caught our eye ...
- the sheer scale of the architecture from the world of the New Testament - what would it have been like to have been a follower of Jesus over against the sheer splendour of the religions of that place?
- a wonderful inscription "to the Imperator Caesar Son of God Sacred God Custodian of all the earth and the sea" dating from the time of Augustus and found in five pieces. Another example of the cult of the emperor ... but a very speical one nonetheless. At the very point between the words 'son' and 'of God' someone in the ancient world had carved a cross. A statement of defiance in the face of the Emperor's claims and of allegiance to Jesus, Son of God. A wondelrful moment!
- Then there were the Amarna Letters with receipts given to the Babylonians by the exiled Judean King Jehoiachin. How real the story of exile seeemed.
- And then the sheer power of the Babylonian empire. The Ishtar Gate was immense leading to a processional route finishing at the five courts of the king, Nebuchadnezzar the Second. What struck me was the as you walked through the processional way originally 180 metres long and three times as wde as in the museum the way was lined with wonderfully ornamental but life-like lions. And the throne room likewise was flanked by lions. These, so our audio guide informed us, were the symbols of Ishtar, goddess of love and war. They were designed to intimidate anyone walking along that way. Daniel is set in this time. When we read of Daniel being thrown into the lions den I have always thought of some den of lions. Is this an allusion to the processional way, the very heart of power and its symbol the lion. How powerfully alive the message of Daniel becomes in any age where the one of faith is called to walk the corridors of power in defiance of the powers that be!
- Then the remarkable model of Babylon, the tower of Babel abnd its dedication to Marduk. Dating from the sixth century it's a reminder of how powerful the Tower of Babel story is when told against the background of the Babylonian power ... how powerful that story today in the face of the powers that seek to control the world of God's creation today. As in the British musuem the Gilgamesh epic is a reminder of the way ancient stories resonate in subsequent generations.
- A wonderful water cistern from the Assyrian king Sennacherib - with streams of water flowing into the priests hands and through to the earth. Echoes of the later Ezekiel and the vision of the living waters streaming out from the temple through the city into the world.
Our day at the musum over, we made our way across Berlin by cycle rickshaw, train and tram and I couldn't help but think of one of the very earliest books that was read to me, the wonderful Emil and the Detectives. Yes, I have got my money hidden away deep inside my clothing ... and yes, Stefan and Birgit have read the book to their children. Only recently, I noticed David squirreling it away to keep up the family tradition and pass the story on to Lake!!
We found our way to our conference centre, run by Christian Endeavour, a key chrisitain youth movement still in Germany and ended the day with a surprise meal, putting the world to rights.
Having been supporting Stefan and Birgit, Marit, Simeon and Jacob in Brazil and sensing a real partnership in theological education not only with Stefan but also with Jonathan Rowe (formerly principal of SEUT the protestant theological seminary in Madrid and now Director of Studies on the South West Ordination course in Truro and in partnership with Exter University, and also knowing that Highbury's services on Sunday are to be taken by Graham Adams recently appointed to the staff at Northern College in Manchester, and occasionally enjoying fellowshi;p with Christina Manohar, teaching in a theological seminary in India ... it has been wonderful to think of the way the years we have been at Highbury have seen the development of our Federation Training Course and a very real partnership with so many in theological education.
More than that talking to Stefan makes me realise that the oldest of the 40 children we named recently as having a real involvement in the church at Highbury is 12 ... and it's 12 years since Stefan was with us at Highbury. And yet it was in that time that he worked with us on drawing into Highbury the experience at Witney of the Noah's Ark servife, which led to the start of the Fish Club and the real push once again at Highbury to build up our work with children and families.
What fruit there has been ... and how encouraging to share those reflections with Stefan.
And so our day has come to an end.
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