The new academic term begins with the installation of a new faculty member at Westfield House. On Saturday, 14th of January at 2.00 pm in the Chapel of St. Titus Westfield House will celebrate the installation of Jonathan Mumme as international tutor and Rachel Mumme as project coordinator. 

The Revd. Drs. theol. Jonathan Mumme grew up on a farm in Minnesota and attended Concordia University, River Forest (now C. U. Chicago), where he graduated with a major in theological languages and a minor in English (2000). His course of seminary studies included time spent at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Westfield House, Oberursel & Berlin. In addition to his studies, he served as a fieldworker at Zion Lutheran Church (Mascoutah, Illinois), as curate under the Revd. Dr. Gottfried Martens at the St. Marien Gemeinde (Berlin/Zehlendorf, Germany), as curate under the Revd. Karl Bollhagen at Trinity Lutheran Church (Hampton, Iowa), and twice as research assistant to the Revd. Dr. Norman Nagel (professor of systematic theology at Concordia Seminary and former preceptor of Westfield House). During his year in Iowa he became engaged to Deaconess Rachel Kennell of Milwaukee; they were married in2005. Upon completion of his M. Div. in 2006 the Mummes moved to Tübingen, Germany, where Jonathan began a Th.D. in systematic theology under Prof. Dr. Oswald Bayer. In the summer of 2009 the Mummes relocated to Berlin, where he composed the dissertation, “Die Präsenz Jesu Christi im Amt am Beispiel ausgewählter Predigten Martin Luthers (1535-46)” (“The Presence of Jesus Christ in the Office of the Ministry on the basis of Selected Sermons of Martin Luther [1536-46]”), submitted in June of 2011. In August 2011 the couple welcomed Miranda Berlin into the world, who was baptized on 11 September at Mumme’s former vicarage congregation, St. Mary’s, where the couple has been members since 2009. In the spring of 2011 Mumme received a call through the LCMS’s Board for International Mission to serve as tutor for dogmatic theology and church history at Westfield House and as assistant pastor of Resurrection Lutheran Church in Cambridge, where the family relocated in December of 2011. Mumme was ordained at St. John Lutheran Church in Wheaton, Illinois on 6 January, 2012. Revd. Mumme has been a recipient of grants from the Munderloh Foundation, the German-American Fulbright Commission, Concordia Seminary (Walther Faculty Development Fellowship), and the Hanns-Seidel Foundation. He currently leads an online theological workgroup of young Lutheran clergy and graduate students and is a member of the editorial board for Lutherische Beiträge.

Deaconess Rachel (Kennell) Mumme hails from Wheaton, Illinois. Rachel also studied at Concordia University in River Forest, After an internship at a hospital and then a congregation, she graduated in 2001 and was called to serve as the Director of Discipleship and Outreach at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where she stayed until she and Jonathan were married in 2005. She subsequently took up a new position with LCMS World Relief and Human Care. Upon moving to Tübingen, Germany, in September of 2006, where Jonathan was beginning work on a Th.D. under Prof. Dr. Oswald Bayer, Rachel was able to continue working part-time from Germany for LCMS World Relief and Human Care while learning German and working part-time at a gift shop in the old part of town.

In December, 2011, Rachel, Jonathan, and Miranda made their way to Cambridge where Rachel will be working to boost the communications from and about Westfield House and touring the United States in the hopes of raising funds to support the work of Westfield House. Rachel enjoys traveling and hiking, cooking and baking, singing songs with Miranda and playing her flute whenever she has opportunity.