During these years, we have worked closely with other institutions to provide training programs for our students and other Christians. We enjoy mutual support with Tao Fong Shan Christian Center and the Institute for Sino-Christians Studies, both located on the same mountain as LTS. In 1994, as part of the process of the computerization of our library, we sought to share our resources with other institutes and so initiated to organize the EIN (Ecumenical Information Network). Through this network, LTS, along with other libraries, aims to provide information for Christians in Hong Kong and other parts of the World. At present, the EIN is made up of five theological Libraries in Hong Kong whose holdings, numbering 300,000 volumes in all, are catalogued in one common computerized system. This allows people from all over the world the opportunity to access information and carry out research from what is the largest Chinese theological common database in the world. Inter-library loans, retrieval and sharing of information and efficient use of resources are all enhancing our teaching.

LTS understands that in order to train our students to have greater vision, wider horizons, advancement in contextual theology, and enthusiasm for mission, contact with students from other ecclesiastical and cultural traditions is needed. With this regard, there are two major developments:

First, the seminary actively formulated plans for recruiting students from places outside Hong Kong. After visiting Jinling Union Theological Seminary in Nanjing, the first group of three students from Mainland China arrived in Hong Kong on Chinese New Year Eve in 1995. After that, our cooperation with China Christian Council has continued to intensify. We also reached an agreement with the Association of Theological Education in Myanmar (ATEM) and in a spirit of cooperation, LTS has been willing to work hand in hand with them to enhance the educational standards of their theological teachers in the seminaries of the association. In 1995, the first students selected by the ATEM came to study in Hong Kong. This teamwork is still continuing up to the present, as we are helping them to train faculty for M.Th. and D.Th. degrees. Beginning in 1995, the seminary joined hands with the Christian Council of Asia (CCA) to help build up leaders for the churches in Cambodia.

In the latter part of 1999, four students came from Vietnam through CCA to Hong Kong. They were trained as future professors for the seminary in Vietnam. This is extremely significant as the church in Vietnam had just received the approval by the government to resume seminary training after decades of forced closure. In 2002, we welcomed two students from Laos to study at LTS. We also help the churches in Nepal, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc. to train their potential leaders. Among all the cooperation programs, our contribution in the Mekong River region is especially valued by others institutions and LTS has been elected by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) as the first coordinator of the Leadership Development, Cultural and Religious Studies in Mekong Region Network in June 2002.

Secondly, we have made efforts to build exchange programs for students, faculty and publications with other seminaries and universities. In 1997, LTS, with five other renowned theological education institutes, formed the International Network in Advanced Theological Education (INATE), and in 2004 with three other seminaries formed Theological Institutions’ Network. At present, we have exchange programs with seminaries or Universities in Norway, Japan, Thailand, Canada, U.S.A., Finland, Germany and Taiwan.

With students from many different countries, and after years of effort, LTS is gradually emerging from being a local seminary to becoming a regional seminary. Furthermore, it has grown from a school whose primary task was to train ministers for pastoral work to a school where theological, seminary faculty members are being trained as well.

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