My name is Philip Jürgen Wortmann and I come from Wartburg, from the Our Saviour Congregation.

My parents are Erwin and Elisabeth Wortmann. I grew up in Wartburg and also went to the Wartburg-Kirchdorf School, where I matriculated in 2014. The thought to become a pastor has been with me since my youngest childhood, because of the influences of my grandparents (Schroeder) and because growing up in a small, tight-knit mission congregation, brought about a lot of interaction with different pastors. Thus my interest in Theology developed and because my parents were very active in the congregation, I had lots of opportunity to expose myself to Bible studies and the like.

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When I had finally finished my high school career, I, therefore, knew exactly what I wanted to do and moved to Pretoria. My theological studies began with the Classics (Greek, Hebrew and Latin). For the first two years, to inform and colour Biblical context a bit, I took Ancient Cultures and I am now, in my final year, taking Philosophy. Here I have learned how great and, sometimes, how tragic the influence of Philosophy has been on Theology throughout the History of the Church, and am grateful that I have had the blessing of growing up in the Lutheran tradition.

Here in Pretoria, I am taking part in the Arcadia Youth, but I am actually more engaged in the mission work with Lutheran@UP under the leadership of Pastor Jacob Corzine, where we get together weekly for evening services and Bible studies. We often also get together, to watch movies or to play games. In the last couple of years, we’ve even gone on outings with this group, on which we either, in the vicinity of Newcastle, did some community service, or on the Farm of O. Hugo and T. Rosa Meyer, we went for a short hike, getting to know each other a bit better and taking some time away from the city noise. There was also an English Youth Retreat, led by Pastor Corzine, last year, which was relatively well visited and during which we got to know the English side of the FELSISA, especially from here in Gauteng, a little better.

In the upcoming year, I am off to Germany, and I’m glad for the opportunity to broaden my perspective on the world and to come to a deeper knowledge of our Faith. Hopefully it all goes as planned until (and beyond) then.

With greetings in Christ

Philip Wortmann.

University of Pretoria