CTS Students Receive Awards for
Witness, Mercy, Life Together Essays

FORT WAYNE, IN (CTS)— Four students from Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana, have received awards in the 2012 writing competition sponsored by World Relief and Human Care of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). This contest seeks to elicit original scholarship on the part of LCMS seminarians and deaconess students which reflects some aspect of the Synod’s threefold emphasis: witness, mercy and life together. The awards, in the amount of $500 for each student, were presented in Kramer Chapel on May 8, 2012. Each of the winning essays will be published on the LCMS website.

The writers of the winning essays are:

Travis Loeslie, a fourth-year seminarian from Warren, Minnesota, who contributed an essay entitled “Wretched Man that I Am: St. Paul, Romans 7, and the Christian Life Under God’s Mercy.”
David Buchs, a second-year seminarian from Rochester, Minnesota, wrote on “L.A. Petri’s Die Mission und der Kirche: Lutheran Mission Must Lead to Lutheran Churches.”
Weslie Odom, a fourth-year seminarian from Austin, Texas, submitted a paper under the title “It is Always Advent: Bo Giertz on Witness, Mercy, and Life Together.”
Adam Koontz, a second-year student from Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, wrote “Reading Joshua and Judges for Church Planting.”

“I am pleased with the quality of essays evoked by this contest,” said Prof. John T. Pless, CTS Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Missions and coordinator for the essay contest. “The essays demonstrate that our students are engaged in articulating and applying confessional Lutheran theology to issues of church life and mission in the twenty-first century. They show that our doctrinal legacy is lively and informative for the challenges which confront our graduates.”