Dr. Efrain Agosto will be delivering the seventeenth Annual George W. Webber Lecture in Urban Ministry at NYTS entitled “Theological Education for the 21st Century: Retrospective and Futuring”.
Agosto is the Academic Dean, Professor of New Testament and
Director of the Programa de Ministerios Hispanos (Hispanic Ministries
Program) at Hartford Seminary. He came to Hartford in July 1995 after
serving on the staff of the Center for Urban Ministerial Education in
Boston for 12 years, from 1983-1995, the last five years as director of
this inner-city urban theological education program, a campus of
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Efraín is a 1982 M.Div. graduate
of Gordon-Conwell and completed his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from
Boston University in June 1995. He is currently serving as the Academic
Dean of Hartford Seminary.
Efraín was born and raised in New York City; his parents came to
New York from Puerto Rico in the 1950s. He attended New York City
public schools and received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1977.
Efrain was nurtured in New York Hispanic Pentecostal churches and became
a licensed minister with the Hispanic Assemblies of God in 1984. He
has served on the pastoral staffs of Hispanic Pentecostal, Baptist and
Congregational churches in New York, Boston, and East Hartford,
Connecticut. In 2000, he completed a one-year term on an interim
pastoral team at the Iglesia Cristiana Nueva Esperanza (United Church of
Christ) in East Hartford, where he continues to worship as an active
lay member.
In his work in New Testament studies, Efraín teaches, researches
and writes on the Pauline Epistles, especially the leadership and
ministry of Paul and others in these communities. His book, Servant
Leadership: Jesus and Paul, was published by Chalice Press in
2005. It studies the social status, practices and theology of leaders
in the earliest Christian communities, including the Jesus movement and
Pauline Christianity. He has taught courses in Paul and His Urban
Churches, New Testament Introduction, Readings in Pauline Theology and
Ministry, and Leadership in the New Testament: A Case Study Approach.
He has a new book coming out in Spring 2008, Corintios,
Spanish-language lay commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians for Fortress
Press.
Efrain’s wider service includes the Final Selection Committee
and Mentor for the Hispanic Theological Initiative, a scholarship and
mentoring organization funded by Pew Charitable Trusts and housed at
Princeton Seminary, to develop Latino and Latina doctoral candidates in
religion and theology. Efrain has also served on the Executive
Committee of the Association of Theological Schools and as a faculty
representative to the Board of Trustees of Hartford Seminary.
Date: Thursday,
October 7, 2010 7:00 PM
Location: The
Interchurch Center Chapel
475 Riverside Drive
(Entrance
on Claremont Avenue and West 120th Street)
NewYork, NY10115
for more information visit www.nyts.edu