Visit of Dennis Lindsay - new Institute Director- in Tübingen

by Dennis Lindsay

After 30 years the Lindsays are making Tübingen their home once again!  This was home for Karen and me from 1985-1992 when I was working on my doctorate at the University here and served as pastor of the Christliche Gemeinde.  In the intervening years, we served at Springdale College in England and then, the past 22 years, at Bushnell University in Eugene, Oregon.  I have now stepped into the role of Director for the Institute for Early Christianity, and Karen and I have spent the month of July in Tübingen preparing for our permanent move later in September.  It has been a whirlwind of a month as we have shopped for an apartment (we’ve got one!), as we have navigated the bureaucracy of obtaining residence permits and other legal requirements (we’re making progress…), and as we’ve had our house in Eugene on the market for sale (just received and accepted an offer this past weekend!).  The Lord has been paving the way for us to transition into this new ministry, and we are most grateful.  We’ll be back in the States in August/September to complete the sale of our house, free ourselves from the years of accumulated “stuff”, and get our essentials packed and moved to Germany.  And, of course, we will spend lots of time with our daughter Mia, who is entering her senior year at the University of Portland!

In the meantime, the ministry and the activities of the Tübingen Institute continue to take place through the end of July, when the “summer semester” comes to an end.  The weekly German-English Colloquium for New Testament has continued to attract and engage participants from all over the world, both through the in-person and simultaneous online (Zoom) opportunities.  I have been “initiated” into the online platform of the University so that we can begin our offerings of Theological English and Theological German when the winter semester begins in October. I have also had preliminary discussions with Prof. Tilly of the Protestant faculty about our next co-sponsored international symposium. We’ll keep you updated on that as we make further plans.

The publication of essays from the last symposium on the Lord’s Prayer will be released this fall. At Loren Stuckenbruck’s initiation, we decided to delay the publication a few months so that we could include in the frontispiece a special dedication to Dr. Beth Langstaff.  We are grateful for Loren’s work on this and it will provide a wonderful and fitting tribute to Beth and her work, not only on this volume, but throughout her ministry here in Tübingen as Institute Director.

As always, Birgit Hallmann continues to provide invaluable support for our work here, and we are grateful for her faithful service and always cheerful disposition.  I couldn’t imagine stepping into this new role without her assistance.

I would ask you to keep Karen and me in your prayers as we continue to navigate this major life transition.  We are excited about the opportunity to serve here once again, and I look forward to providing updates in the future.

Blessings,

Dennis Lindsay