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Start here: serving in Asia

Thirteen essays from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Essay File for pastors, students and evangelists working among Buddhist, Confucian and traditional-religion communities.

Lutheran Leader’s Companion

Most of what a seminary library holds about Asia is in essays, not books: papers written by missionaries and professors for conferences and classes, then filed away. Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary has given permission to share its Essay File here, and this collection gathers the papers that speak most directly to ministry in Asia. They range from 1976 to 2025, so read the older ones for their questions and the newer ones for their answers. Each is free to download; click the title to open it, or use the tag links to browse everything nearby.

Understanding Buddhism

  1. Bringing Jesus to Buddhists: The Basics of Buddhism for the Purpose of Evangelism — John J. Wenzel (2025). The most recent paper in the set and the best place to begin: what a Buddhist neighbour actually believes, and where the gospel meets it. Browse: missions →
  2. Buddhism — Joseph P. Burkhardt (1989). A compact survey of Buddhist origins, schools and teaching, written for pastors who need the outline before the conversation. Browse: missions →
  3. The Buddhist Scriptures Compared with the Bible — Robert H. Krueger (1993). Sets the Buddhist scriptures beside the Bible to show where the two part ways on God, sin, salvation and the life to come. Browse: missions →

Confucianism, Chinese culture and the Chinese church

  1. Confucianism – Ju Chia — James A. Thrams (1989). The teaching of Confucius and the tradition built on it, and why its view of family, duty and virtue still shapes how the gospel is heard across East Asia. Browse: missions →
  2. The Chinese Term Debate as Presented by Geo. Lillegard and Examined by the Synodical Conference — Matthew J. Martin (1997). Which Chinese word should name God? The history of a question every Chinese Bible, hymnal and catechism has had to answer, and how confessional Lutherans weighed it. Browse: missions →
  3. Teaching the Doctrine of Church Fellowship in a Chinese Context: A Western Perspective — Andrew J. Ewings (2018). How the Lutheran teaching on fellowship lands in a culture that prizes harmony and relationship, and how to teach it without either softening it or giving offence. Browse: missions →

Fear, spirits and the freedom of the gospel

  1. How the Gospel of Jesus Can Free Someone from the Fear that Comes with the Traditional Hmong Religion — Jacob Scott (2013). Written about Hmong spirit religion, but the pastoral pattern applies wherever people live under the fear of ancestors and spirits: name the fear honestly, then show what Christ has already done about it. Browse: missions →

Bringing the gospel across cultures

  1. Contextualization of the Gospel: What are the Implications for our Work? — Richard E. Lauersdorf (1984). What may change when the gospel crosses a cultural border, and what may not. A clear statement of the line between adapting the message's form and altering its content. Browse: missions →
  2. Bridge Building: Being Sensitive in Cross-Cultural Preaching — Samuel Lor (2022). Practical counsel for the preacher whose hearers do not share his culture: illustrations, assumptions, and the things that are obvious to you and invisible to them. Browse: missions →
  3. Reaching Out to the Japanese — Daniel J. Habben (1999). A missionary's account of evangelism in Japan: the cultural and religious background, the obstacles, and the approaches that opened doors. Browse: missions →

Training pastors and teachers in Asia

  1. The Use of Luther's Catechisms in Our World Mission Fields — Ernst H. Wendland (1979). Why the Small Catechism travels so well, and how it has been used to teach the faith in new churches with few books and little formal schooling. Browse: missions →
  2. How Can We Use T.E.E. in S.E. Asia? — Gary V. Schroeder (1976). Theological Education by Extension: training leaders where they live and serve rather than removing them to a residential school. Fifty years on, the questions are the ones distance and online programmes are still answering. Browse: missions →
  3. Exegesis Courses and Aims in Our World Mission Fields S.E. Asia — Gary V. Schroeder (1976). What a national pastor needs from a course in reading the biblical text, and how to teach it to students who come without Greek, Hebrew or a seminary library. Browse: missions →

The Essay File on this site also holds the doctrinal papers a student will want beside these: Siegbert Becker on universal justification, John Jeske on Christology and justification, Hermann Sasse on the Lord's Supper and Thomas Nass on the public ministry. Browse the whole set under the tag WLS Essay File; more essays are added as permission is confirmed.

To download any title: click it above, or open Resources, type the title in the search box, and click Download. The essays are shared with the permission of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and are not official statements of the seminary or of WELS.