Winter 2007 | Volume 65, No. 2

From this place we will impact the world

The Bibelseminar, Bonn, seeks to ignite revival in Germany and beyond

by Lauri Arnold

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Sitting on the top of a hill in west-central Germany is House Wittgenstein, which has overlooked the village of Bornheim since 1845. The large house has changed hands numerous times since then. For many years it was headquarters for the liberal Green Party of Germany whose motto was “From this place we will impact the world.” Providentially, when the Bibelseminar, Bonn (the BSB) took over occupancy of the house from the Green Party in 1996, BSB founders felt this motto was a perfect fit for an institution that had its sights set even higher.

“Our highest goal is to train students to reach out to the Russian-German people in Germany,” said BSB President Heinrich Derksen. “To train them better for ministry in Germany, and, no question, the whole world is our next goal.”

According to Derksen, there are now 2.5 million Russian-Germans in Germany – Germans whose families made the journey to Russia from Germany around 250 years ago, but began to return to Germany around 1975. Some Russian-Germans are still making the journey back to their German homeland.

John N. Klassen, a Russian-German, serves as a professor of systematic theology at the BSB, and recalled when the school was first started in 1993. At that time, he said, there was a group of Russian-German churches that felt distanced from the existing schools and their teachings but felt burdened to reach out to more Russian-Germans in Germany.

“They had their own traditions, their own theology, and they felt ‘why should we not have a school of our own understanding, of our own theology,’” Klassen recalled.

The school began with three professors, including Klassen; current professor and director of the International Center for World Missions, Wilhelm Daiker; and former BSB president Heinrich Loewen. Over the years since it started, the BSB has had trying times, but encouragement has always followed.

“In this case, it proved itself that after being tested for some years, help came, not only through America, but also through more sponsors,” Klassen said. “We have more sponsors today than we had for some time.”

But leaders at the BSB believe that its success comes from a far greater source than earthly sponsorship – and with that God-given success comes responsibility. Derksen explained that of the more than 2.5 million Russian-Germans in Germany, only about 100,000 are Christians, but nearly 300,000 guests visit these churches on Sunday.

“More than two million people haven’t heard the gospel, and coming back from Russia, you can imagine that they have no idea about Christianity,” Derksen said. “To reach these people with our students or our graduates is a burden for us as a school.”

The BSB began as a three-year undergraduate Bible school and continues to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees. In 1999, the BSB began offering a master’s degree in conjunction with Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and in 2005 began offering an accredited master’s degree through Southwestern Seminary.

“In some cases, students decided to come to this seminary because they know that it is possible to get here, on this campus, a degree from Southwestern,” Derksen said.

In the 2006 fall semester, 110 students were enrolled in the undergraduate program, and 12 students were enrolled in the Southwestern Seminary graduate program. In the previous semester, a total of 80 students were enrolled in
both programs.

“That is a 40 percent (increase),” said Friedhelm Jung, director of the master’s program at the BSB, who was elected to the Southwestern faculty by the seminary trustees last year. “That is tremendous, really tremendous. We have never had this situation before.”

With growth happening so quickly, leaders at the BSB are looking at ways they can make more space. Currently, House Wittgenstein houses classrooms, offices and a cafeteria. Some classes are housed in small buildings nearby.

House Wittgenstein has headquartered several organizations over the years, including the Green Party. Though many investors have sought to purchase or use vacant land that the BSB owns, leaders are hopeful that it can instead be used in the future for a new building.

“We need a new building, that is no question,” Jung said. “We need a better building for classrooms, libraries and offices, and this space is the only possibility.”

The BSB not only has hopes of expanding its facilities, but also its programs. Derksen said that since the BSB began its cooperation with Southwestern Seminary, he has become excited about future opportunities for new programs. He noted, for example, that there is a great need for training in Christian education.

“First we have to establish the master’s program, but for the future, it would be a great help for our churches to have more people that are better trained in Christian education,” Derksen said.

For the BSB, the bottom line is serving the church. That is one of the primary reasons why all of the professors at the BSB, including Derksen, are involved with off-campus ministry.

“While serving in the church, you are coming back (to the BSB) and you know why you are here, and you know why you have to serve the church,” Derksen said. “When we serve in the churches, we have a better understanding of what we can do to make things even better, and we can then communicate that through our teaching.

Serving churches also means encouraging and helping unity among the approximately 500 Russian-German churches in Germany. Derksen said that there are at least 13 different conventions represented by those 500 churches, and some churches are not part of any convention.

“This is a dream of the seminary from the beginning on: To bring these churches together and to work closer with these churches,” Derksen said, noting, however, that many of the Russian-German churches are cooperating and many currently support the BSB.

Considering the high quality of students there, Derksen, Jung and all the Russian-German churches that are involved in the mission of the BSB have every reason to be optimistic about the future. Students like Viktor Fröse, in his first-year in the master’s degree program at the BSB. Fröse, who studied to be an officer in an industrial company, gave up an opportunity for a potentially lucrative secular career to pursue studies at the BSB.

“For me, it was not hard,” he recalled. “I think it is the way God wants.”

In the final analysis, the future evangelization of Germany and beyond rests in the hands of such students. From this place, they will change the world.