Five Years after Covid
March 18, 2025Remembering and lamenting after half a decade
Do you remember what you were doing four years ago today?
No, not five years ago. I’m not talking about the onset of Covid. I’m talking about remembering Covid.
On March 18, 2021, I sent out an email to all our THF partners telling the story of how the pandemic that began a year earlier had affected Tyndale. I set the story in the context of the importance of remembering—and, when necessary, lamenting—significant milestones from a biblical perspective. That email was later turned into a blog post, which I invite you to read as part of your own process of remembering.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve read lots of articles and commentary remembering all that transpired in the early months of 2020. It’s appropriate on the five-year anniversary of Covid to recall the emotions, frustrations, anguish, uncertainty, fear, and hope that we all experienced. Most of what I’ve been reading has been written with a political angle, and I think that’s fine. After all, it’s the politicians and social leaders who will have to learn the lessons of history so they can respond better the next time we have a major global event like this (though not anytime soon, I hope). But I’ve tried to frame my own recollections through a biblical lens—not because I’m a biblical scholar but because for us as Christians, God’s Word is our ultimate source of hope.
All of us are going to go through our own processes of remembering and lamenting all that took place five years ago during the next few weeks. That’s good. Remembering is important. But so is moving forward.
I concluded that email from four years ago with these words, slightly edited to make them relevant in 2025: “If the events and emotions of the past five years have taught us anything, it is that the circumstances of our lives are beyond our control. At the beginning of March 2020, none of us could have imagined what the next twelve months would bring. Even today, we don’t know what the year ahead will hold for any of us. There will be challenges, without question. We will face difficulties and obstacles as individuals, families, and organizations. Some of us will face tragedies of various kinds. No matter what, God is still good, and he is still in control. When I think back on all that has happened in the past half decade, there are things that make me sad. When grief exists, we need to allow time to lament. But there is much to celebrate as well. Let us never forget the enduring truths that God is sovereign, that he loves us, and that he has called us to participate in his work of redeeming all the nations of the world. To him be the glory forever, no matter what our circumstances of today.”
Amen.
Here’s what’s happening.
Assessing Competency in Theological Education
One of the people I met with at the ICETE conference in Albania two weeks ago was Manfred Kohl. If there’s such a thing as a legend in theological education, Dr. Kohl would fit the bill. He founded several European chapters of World Vision. He has published over 120 books and articles and has received numerous awards. He was deeply involved in the leadership of Overseas Council (now called Mesa Global), an organization that assists and assesses theological institutions, and he has personally visited 495 theological institutions all over the world. In 2019, Dr. Kohl founded Re-Forma, a South Africa–based organization that provides competency-based training standards for theological education. He, along with several other global leaders, developed a list of 37 competencies, or outcomes—essential skills that properly trained pastors and leaders should exhibit. The competencies are broken down into four main categories: Leading like Jesus (11 outcomes); handling the Word (11 outcomes); reaching and making disciples (7 outcomes); and shepherding God’s people (8 outcomes). All the outcomes begin with “Students shall be able to.” The first one is “Recount 10 of the main events in the Old Testament and share the stories of at least 10 of the main characters in the Old Testament.” Another is “Practice kindness and hospitality.” On the practical side, there’s “Use technology and social media for ministry” and “Help a couple prepare for their marriage.” I suspect even most trained pastors wouldn’t be able to claim all 37 competencies; if you’re interested in knowing how global theological organizations are assessing pastoral training (and maybe seeing how you would measure up), check out the full list.
Publishing Words of Light in Darkness
In Chapel at Tyndale last week, I showed this video about Gökhan Talas and his publishing ministry, Miras. Gökhan was visiting the Foundation all last week, and THF staff got to spend a lot of quality hours with him, strategizing about sustainability and impact in Turkey (officially called Türkiye since 2021). Miras is part of THF’s Ministry Sustainability Initiative program, so we’ve been talking a lot with him about these issues over the past couple of years. In 2007, Gökhan worked for a ministry called Zirve Publishing House in Malatya, a city in the eastern part of the country. On the morning of April 18, 2007, Gökhan showed up for work only to find the door locked from the inside. He called one of his colleagues, who answered but sounded strange on the phone, and Gökhan heard someone crying in the background. He called the police. When the police arrived and finally entered the office, they found the mutilated bodies of three of Gökhan’s colleagues. The men had been tied to chairs and tortured before being killed, likely after the police had arrived. Five suspects were still on the scene and were arrested immediately. For Gökhan, more than two decades later, this event serves as a reminder of the great need for shining the light of God’s Word into the darkness of a culture where only 0.3 percent of the population are Christians. In 2020, Miras Publishers received the Robert B. Reekie Global Publisher Award for excellence by THF partner Media Associates International. Gökhan said at the time, “In Turkey it is very hard to sustain a publishing ministry, but we still believe in the power of writing because His Word overcomes.”
Ukraine Ministry Update
When I was in Albania, I had a chance to sit down with Taras Dyatlik, one of the Ukrainian seminary leaders Tyndale has been supporting since the start of the war in February 2022. Taras was instrumental in the early relief efforts that took place through seminary networks with THF seed money, and he has been an influential voice calling for reforming theological education in the region in light of the current hostilities. He and his team (including THF board member Evan Hunter) are also thinking about what the future of theological education in Ukraine and Russia should look like once the war is finally over. For the past three years, Taras has been posting pretty much daily in a special WhatsApp group dedicated to sharing on-the-ground updates from Kiev and other cities where we have partner seminaries and ministry organizations. (This Christianity Today article provides a sampling of his writing.) Taras’s brother Andrii was killed by Russians less than a year ago, so everything that’s happening to Ukrainians is very personal for him and his family. When I met with him, he expressed gratitude to everyone at Tyndale for praying, funding, and standing with him and his country during the past three years of war. In the past several months, Taras has been highlighting (and lamenting) social-media posts by Russian Christians that seem to be supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine. Please continue to pray for peace, for justice, and for God’s sustaining grace to be with our partners struggling amid war.
Who’s Reading the THF Weekly Briefing?
I first started sending weekly email updates to the Tyndale House Foundation board back in March of 2020, during the earliest days of Covid. Both of our board meetings that year had to be held online, and I was looking for ways to keep board members connected to the impact their work was having. After the April 2020 board meeting, I continued the weekly updates for a couple of months before slowing down to monthly updates through the summer and fall. In early 2021, I resumed the practice of sending information to the THF board every week. There was always plenty to report on—we were working through results from a big survey we had conducted about the impact of Covid on ministry organizations, we had just published our first Impact Report, and there were lots and lots of grantee meetings I thought people should be aware of. Writing slowed down quite a bit in early 2022 as travel resumed, but by September of that year, I was once again sending weekly emails to the board. On December 6, 2022, I titled the update email “THF Weekly Briefing” and sent it to Tyndale employees for the first time along with an invitation to subscribe to future updates. In 2024, we began posting edited versions of the THF Weekly Briefing to Tyndale’s intranet and the THF blog for even wider distribution. Today, the weekly update is read by over 100 Tyndale employees, but it’s also going out to Tyndale authors, Tyndale House Ministries board members, international ministry partners and grantee leaders, retirees, other foundation leaders, and friends of Tyndale around the world. I spend a fair amount of time putting this resource together each week, so I hope at least some of it is helpful for all our readers! I always close with an invitation for feedback, so if you have ideas or suggestions, please do send them along.
That’s it for this week’s briefing. Please send any questions, comments, and the number of Re-Forma outcomes you personally exhibit to [email protected]. I send out this email resource most weeks primarily for a Tyndale audience, but you should feel free to share it with others who may be interested, inside or outside of Tyndale. Thanks for continuing to pray for and support our partners around the world.
Jeremy Taylor
President | Tyndale House Foundation
The THF Weekly Briefing provides information about significant events happening in the wide universe of Tyndale House Foundation partner organizations as well as an occasional peek behind the scenes of THF’s operations. It is available to anyone at Tyndale who’s interested in learning more about the Foundation side of the organization. Was this email forwarded to you? Contact [email protected] to be added to (or removed from) the distribution list.