Blog post
Today, as Educational Consultant for GETI 2025, I find myself not just supporting an educational program, but living into a vocation I was not sure I was being called to. This journey has been one of profound growth, challenging me to become a bridge between worlds I once thought separate: academic rigor and pastoral sensitivity, global vision and local context, traditional pedagogy and innovative learning.
Working on GETI 2025 has taught me that supporting ecumenical theological education is not a job—it is a form of ministry. When I began designing the online platform, translating the curriculum and methodology document into a living digital space for learning, I realized I was creating more than content delivery systems. I was crafting spaces for encounter. Each module, each discussion forum, each interactive element became an opportunity for participants from different continents, traditions, and experiences to meet one another before they even arrived in Egypt. The platform needed to embody what we believe about theological education: that it happens in community, across difference, and through genuine dialogue.
This design work connected deeply with my PhD academic background in economic theology, ethics, and decolonial studies in ways I hadn’t anticipated. As I structured the online learning pathways, I kept asking: whose voices are centered here? What pedagogical assumptions are we making? How can we create space for multiple epistemologies? These aren’t abstract theoretical questions—they’re practical challenges of decolonizing theological education. When we designed sessions on poverty and social disparities, or persecution and genocide, I drew on my training in economic theology to ensure we weren’t just discussing issues but examining the systems and structures that create them.
What has moved me most profoundly is discovering that theological education can be expressed and taught in countless ways. Beyond the platform and timetable, I’ve worked on integrating contemplative practices with critical analysis, weaving together academic lectures with small-group storytelling, balancing structured curriculum with space for the Spirit to move. Some truths emerge through rigorous theological argument; others reveal themselves only in shared silence at the monastery, or in the vulnerability of cross-cultural friendship, or in the discomfort of having one’s assumptions challenged by a sister or brother from a different context.
But I must be clear: none of this is my work alone. GETI is fundamentally a collective enterprise, and this has been one of my deepest learnings. Every aspect I’ve contributed—the online platform design, the learning pathway structure, the integration of different pedagogical approaches—has been shaped, refined, and enriched by the wisdom of each GETI working group. Among others, the International Planning Group brought voices from all eight WCC regions to challenge my blind spots. The Curriculum and Methodology Working Group pushed me to think more carefully about how we learn together. The Spiritual Life Working Group reminded me that formation happens as much in prayer as in study.
These collaborative processes have themselves been lessons in ecumenical accompaniment. In our Zoom meetings across time zones, in our shared documents edited by hands from every continent, in our sometimes-difficult conversations about priorities and approaches, I’ve experienced the ecumenical movement not as abstract ideal but as living practice. I’ve learned to hold my convictions lightly enough to be transformed by others, yet firmly enough to contribute meaningfully. I’ve discovered that authentic cooperation requires both confidence in one’s own gifts and humility about one’s limitations.
Each GETI has been different—Busan awakened me, Arusha expanded me, Karlsruhe challenged me—but one constant remains: the transformative power of encounter, challenge, and friendship. Supporting GETI 2025 has meant creating conditions for these encounters, knowing they cannot be programmed or controlled. My role has been to build frameworks flexible enough to hold diverse experiences, robust enough to sustain deep learning, and open enough to allow for surprise.
Working for the ecumenical movement globally through GETI has shown me that theological education is inherently multidimensional. It engages head, heart, and hands. It requires intellectual rigor and spiritual depth. It demands both rootedness in tradition and courage for innovation. As I’ve supported GETI 2025 across its various dimensions—digital platforms, curriculum design, pedagogical integration—I’ve felt less like a educational consultant and more like a weaver, helping to interlace different threads into something larger than any single strand.
This experience has fundamentally reshaped my understanding of vocation. GETI is not just a platform I’ve helped build; it’s a community I belong to, a vision I’m called to serve, and a movement I’m privileged to support. From student to bridge-builder, my journey continues—and I am grateful.
About the author :
David is Argentinian, Colombian, and Canadian scholar, Ph.D. candidate at Emmanuel College of the University of Toronto, and member of the United Church of Canada. Currently, Deivit (David) is Seasonal Professor of Religious Ethics and Culture at Emmanuel College, Victoria University, University of Toronto, and Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow. In addition to his academic research, he works as Associate Secretary of Intercultural Leadership and Learning for the Canadian Council of Churches, and serves as an International Educational Consultant for GETI 2025 of the WCC Ecumenical Theological Education Program of the World Council of Churches.
