Teaching the Lutheran Confessions in Uganda

Rev. Stephen Preus baptizes a child at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Buhweju, Uganda, at a service where the Rev. Asiimwe Humphrey confirmed many more in the Lutheran faith. (Photo by Rev. Stephen Preus)

The Rev. Stephen Preus serves the saints of Trinity Lutheran Church, Vinton, Iowa. During his short-term mission trips to Uganda in 2023 and 2025, he taught at pastors’ conferences and served as a guest lecturer at Lutheran Theological College Uganda. He also taught as a guest lecturer at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Pretoria, South Africa in 2020.

By Rev. Stephen Preus

Nothing can break them

“Nothing can break them because of the doctrine.”

The Rev. Asiimwe Humphrey said this about the participants of a pastors’ conference hosted at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Ibanda, Uganda.

In January 2025, I spent a week teaching two of our Lutheran Confessions: Martin Luther’s Smalcald Articles and Philip Melanchthon’s Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. Laity, vicars, and deaconesses also joined in to dive deeply into the doctrine of Christ which these documents teach and confess.

The participants are members of the Lutheran Church of Uganda (LCU). She is a young church: started as a mission in 1993, she transitioned to a church body in 2015. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) declared altar and pulpit fellowship with the LCU in 2023. The LCU cherishes this fellowship. So do I.

They are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ. They love the pure Gospel of God’s grace declaring us sinners righteous for Christ’s sake through faith alone. They love Scripture. They love the Sacraments. They love to sing. They love the Lutheran Confessions. They want to be Lutheran. They are building Lutheran schools. They are planting Lutheran churches, some of which I was able to visit.

At Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Buhweju, a growing congregation in the mountains of southwestern Uganda, I preached to well over 150 people one day. I even baptized two children, and Rev. Asiimwe Humphrey confirmed many more. They loved hearing our Scriptural Lutheran teaching.

This is why the LCU welcomes Lutheran pastors like me from the LCMS to come and deepen their knowledge and commitment to the pure teaching of Scripture that our Lutheran Confessions give. It is my pleasure and honor to help them in this small way to strengthen their Lutheran identity during short-term trips to teach in Uganda.

Rev. Stephen Preus teaches the Lutheran Confessions at Lutheran Theological College Uganda, Jinja, Uganda, seminary of the Lutheran Church of Uganda. (Photo courtesy of Rev. Stephen Preus)

Gratitude for the pure teaching

My teaching in Uganda actually began in South Africa. For years, Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS) in Pretoria, South Africa, has been training men from several African countries to be pastors.

As a member of St. Philip Lutheran Mission Society, a Recognized Service Organization of the LCMS that supports LTS, I was invited to teach at LTS in 2020. While there, I met a dedicated Ugandan student named Asiimwe Humphrey.

Now Pastor Humphrey, he told me that he was grateful for the clear Lutheran doctrine. He wanted me to come to Uganda to teach the same. True to his word, the invitation for me to teach came, and I first taught in Uganda in 2023.

That year, I taught for two weeks at the seminary of LCU: Lutheran Theological College Uganda (LTCU). This seminary outside of Jinja is also young, planting the seed of God’s Word in young men only since 2016.

Last year, after spending a week teaching at the pastors’ conference in Ibanda and visiting mission congregations in southwestern Uganda, I traveled again to LTCU to teach 23 seminarians the same Lutheran Confessions for another week.

As we walked our way through these documents, their hunger to devour the teaching amazed me. Eagerness and immense gratitude for the pure teaching of Scripture exuded from them each and every day.

They asked insightful and practical questions. They anticipated using the teaching of the Lutheran Confessions in their future preaching, teaching and evangelizing. They discussed how the Confessions related to our hymns. They understood how remarkably practical they are.

Seminarian Denis Ngambwaki, guild president of the seminary students, summed up their gratitude for learning the Lutheran Confessions.

He wrote to me as I departed, “As we bid you farewell, we want to assure you that your investment in us will bear fruits. We will carry the lessons you have taught us both in and out of the classroom, into our future ministries. We will strive to be faithful stewards of the Gospel, just as you have been.”

Rev. Stephen Preus holds a fowl with a friend and brother in Christ while visiting a church is southwestern Uganda. (Photo courtesy of Rev. Stephen Preus)

A bright future for Lutheranism in Uganda

The future of the LCU and her seminary is bright. Several of their pastors and professors are getting master’s degrees from our LCMS seminaries. This will allow them to dive deeper into the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions as they themselves teach their people and seminarians. It will also provide the LCU with competent leaders for years to come.

Guided by LCMS short-term missions, and God willing, I plan to return in the future to continue teaching the Lutheran Confessions to our brothers and sisters of the LCU.

In the meantime, I pray that God would bless their endeavors so that they remain faithful to their Lord who bought them with His blood and to the sound confession of the Lutheran Church.