Emmanuel (pictured here with his wife Vicky) is the Principal of Bishop Allison Theological College, Yei in South Sudan. Recently he received a grant from St Augustine’s to complete a masters degree. The topic of his thesis is fascinating and very pertinent:

“The effect of civil conflicts on the development of the church: A Case of the Episcopal Diocese of Yei.”

HIs thesis had three main objectives:

1. Investigating the causes of civil conflicts in South Sudan

2. Assessing how civil conflicts affect the development of the church

3. Examining strategies devised by the Church to maintain its development amidst civil conflicts in South Sudan.

His thesis helps the church and the community to prevent the emergence of civil conflicts after identifying the causes of the conflicts in the society and how it affects the development of the Church and the community so that the church should keep its development awake amidst conflicting civil societies.

Emmanuel pointed out that, “Most researchers focused on the conflicts within the church and how it affects her development and growth; the role of the Church in conflict resolution and peace building. But few research is done on how the external factors influence the affairs of the Church and affects her state of development and growth. In this regard, my study established its foundation from this phenomenon based on the theories of conflict emergence and its effect on the society.”

We have three areas of our grant programme: Scholarships, Fellowships and our Innovation Fund.

The main aim of our grant programme is to support theological education for church leaders, theological educators and students across the world but specifically in the Majority World.

Funding is often one of the biggest barriers to in depth and quality theological study and so have a look at how we can support you, your Diocese, church or Province.

Keila Bichet da Silva Gomes is a Priest and the secretary of the Anglican Diaconry and Development service in Diocese Meridional, Brazil. A grant from St Augustine’s Foundation enabled her to study English at a higher level enabling her to better communicate with the Anglican church globally and with local foreigners and international missions.

She serves in three communities: Missao da Santa Criz, Missao do Bom Pastor and Missao Maria Madelana doing a wide variety of work on top of teaching and lecturing. In one, she works as a University Pastor providing a space for young people of different nationalities. The project aims to serve vulnerable people prone to depressive and suicidal thoughts. Communicating in English in these situations is a vital tool.

Judy is a full-time Lecturer & Dean of Studies in Sabah Theological Seminary in Malaysia. She is also a tutor in the Anglican Training Institute of the Diocese of Sabah and has been teaching in the Sabah Theological Seminary too. She is a licensed Pastor and preaches regularly at All Saints Cathedral in Kota Kinabalu, Sabh as well as in other Anglican & indigenous churches in Malaysia.

A grant enabled her to have a refreshment programme in Ridley Hall, Cambridge and finish her PhD thesis and write a book on worship in the Malay language. It is wonderful to see this photo of her at the Christian Conference Asia this year.

In 2021, a grant was awarded to Missio Africanus in partnership with CMS to enable four students to train in their pioneer leadership training programme.

One student was Rachel Karanja: Rachel is in her second year studying with CMS, and also works with the sister organisation CMS Africa in Kenya where she leads a range of holistic mission and community transformation projects.

For Rachel, training with CMS is providing her with incredibly valuable, in depth biblical knowledge to aid her in her social outreach in Kenya. She has shared that for her the African MA is unique in having been designed specifically with African-background learners in mind. This has made it easy for her to apply what she is learning to her own context in Kenya.

She has also expressed immense gratitude for the bursaries provided and writes that:

“After I joined the MA course I was worried on how to raise the funds for my course. The generous bursary support from St Augustine’s Foundation is greatly appreciated and I am very confident that my dream of attaining an MA in African Christian Diaspora will soon be a reality.”

Having resources and funding to train new evangelists is one of the biggest hurdles the Diocese of Biharamulo in northern Tanzania.

St Augustine’s Foundation was therefore delighted to be able to support this Diocese in 2022 with a grant to train 45. These evangelists are planning on planting new churches and training 25 more evangelists in the future.

We continue to pray for them that their faith has deep roots in the gracious, loving and peace-filled Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We were delighted to support the Ministry Experience Scheme Diocese in Europe visit to the Holy Land in July 2022.

Listen to some of the quotes from its participants:

“Visiting the Holy Land for the first time is one of the best experiences I have ever had.”

“The most heart wrenching part of the trip was visiting Yad Vashem. What surprised me was howmuch actually survived, especially the stories. Just hearing them really humbles oneself. It was good to also hear both sides of the story.”

Take time to watch to this video from the group about their time in the Holy Land and how impactful it was

In October 2021, St Augustine’s trustees awarded five new Innovation Fund grants to support exciting new initiatives.

Two grants – to the Province of Tanzania and Bishop Balya College, Uganda – were in direct response to the necessary innovative changes due to the restrictions imposed by Covid. The Province of Tanzania are to mount a training programme for the Heads and Academic Deans of the provincial theological colleges in making better and greater use of IT in their teaching. Bishop Balya College is setting up an E-Learning Centre in the College to strengthen its teaching approaches.

The Diocese of Muyinga in Burundi wishes to offer further training to it ministers by bringing cohorts of 50 together for an intensive 5 day course. By doing it in this way the grant will have an impact of significant numbers of their clergy and lay ministers.

Two grants were awarded that will offer opportunities for African ordinands and the African diaspora to build their capacity in ministry. St George’s College, Jerusalem will be working with CAPA to offer bursaries so African ordinands can participate in the study pilgrimages the College runs. Church Mission Society (CMS) in partnership with Missio Africanus were awarded a grant to offer bursaries to those in diaspora churches to explore the issues behind their ministries through a recently created Master’s degree course.

There will be more news on each of these together with formal reports as these initiatives get underway.

St Augustine’s Foundation and the Li Tim-Oi Foundation have established a partnership so that working together, in the words of the Li Tim-Oi Foundation‘s website, we might “empower Christian women as agents of change within their own cultures.”

We wish to do this by encouraging more women to take up the opportunities offered by the St Augustine’s Foundation Scholarships and Fellowships in the field of theological education.

Elsewhere on this website are details of the Scholarships and Fellowships which we offer each year. The closing date for these applications is December 1st each year and the relevant application forms and other guidance can be accessed through this website. The Administrator is also available for initial enquiries or advice about an application.

For the past decade, universities worldwide have been experimenting with multi-modal teaching and learning to increase and broaden access. The COVID-19 pandemic propelled this forward.  The sudden closure of university campuses across Uganda necessitated the virtual delivery of vast numbers of courses.  Here, Uganda Christian University [UCU] was thrust into the delivery of e-learning of unprecedented scale and scope.  Most UCU faculty, not least in Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, were not adequately equipped to deliver online teaching……

UCU convened a team of those with prior knowledge of, and experience with, online teaching to run a practical training programme called “Online Pedagogy Professional Development.” In order to facilitate the training, the Dean of the School applied for funds from St. Augustine Foundation…..This programme was run by both online and face-to-face modes for three weeks in December 2020

The objectives of the training were, broadly speaking, two: first, we wanted faculty to have capacity to develop own course units that met best practices in online pedagogy.  Secondly, we wanted them to transform the syllabi of the course units they taught for face-to-face teaching into course syllabi suited for online pedagogy.

The programme was designed in such a way that faculty of the School would have time for practical exploration and application of what they were learning through the programme.  They did this through a series of structured assignments. 

The programme outcome - a key outcome for this training was the skills to design or develop a storyboard.  A storyboard for online learning is a document that outlines the text, visuals, and audio elements, interactions, navigation and anything else that will be used in the online teaching and learning for the given course unit….. storyboards of the following course units developed:

Systematic Theology course units: Major themes in systematic theology, African Christian theology, African Christian theological method(s), Anglican theology, Christin theologies of the Global South, Doing theology from the context of poverty, History and theology of the ecumenical movement, Ecclesiology and Ordered ministry.

New Testament Book Study course units: Mark and John, Gospels and Acts, and Bible Interpretation.

Biblical Languages and New Testament course units: Basic New Testament Greek 1 & 2, Basic Old Testament Hebrew 1 & 2, Advanced Greek, Advanced Hebrew, Introduction to the New Testament, Biblical foundations of development.

Old Testament course units: Introduction to OT. Developed and Genesis to Deuteronomy, Prophets.

Historical theology course units: (a) General Church History, Christianity in Africa, Major themes in African Christianity, History of new religious movements in Africa. (b) Christianity in Uganda, History of Anglicanism. (c) Church in Africa and globalization.

Practical Theology course units: (a) Mission and evangelism, Pastoral Care, Pastoral Counselling. (b) Christian Education for Ministry, Contemporary issues in church and society, Chaplaincy, Christian education for ministry, Church leadership, & management, Urban theology. (c) Christian Worship, Christian stewardship and development, Pastoral psychology and sociology, African traditional religion and beliefs. (d) Islamic theology and law, Muslim evangelism, Islam for mission and ministry, Christian-Muslim relations.

Christian Ethics: Introduction to Christian ethics, Christian ethics, Theological research methods, Advanced ethics.

The Future Plans - as UCU continues getting new students and faculty, we intend to: (a) conduct refresher courses on online teaching especially for new faculty and students. (b) Carry out assessment of the effectiveness of online teaching and learning once every semester.

Abbreviated version of the report given to the Foundation by Christopher Byaruhanga, Dean, Bishop Tucker School of Divinity and Theology, Uganda Christian University.

The full report can be read here.