Greetings from SEATS at the Gathering of Faith and Learning ICHE 2026 Online Conference

SEATS Dean, Dr. Michael J. Fast, had the privilege of bringing greetings from the SEATS community at the recent ICHE Gathering of Faith and Learning, held online this past 10 June 2026. You may recall SEATS had originally planned to host this as a face-to-face gathering that was later cancelled due to the global oil crisis.

Here are Dr. Fast's greetings:

Good day. My name is Dr. Michael Fast and I am the academic Dean and vice president of the South East Asian Theological Schools, Inc. We had hoped that we’d be hosting you in person for this conference, but as we all know circumstances beyond our control conspired against us.

SEATS has integration at its very core, which may seem odd for a theological school. Integration as commonly thought seems more appropriate for universities and colleges. However, SEATS works at integrating in the opposite direction. Rather than trying to figure out how to connect faith with STEM or social sciences or humanities or business, or other courses of study, SEATS emphasizes the church that intentionally engages society.

One of the challenges that churches face is whether we develop a fortress mentality, where we protect what we have against the onslaught of the world around us, or whether we seek to bring the message of the gospel to that world by proclaiming Jesus as our one and only King, by declaring that Jesus’ kingdom has values that are important for the entire world, by encouraging love for God and love for neighbour, and by standing up in speaking truth into the world around us.

Just immediately prior to our gathering last August in Anapolis, Brazil, SEATS had the privilege of conducting two graduations for 48 rural church leaders in the central Philippines. Earlier this year in January, we graduated another 50 students, most of whom also work in churches in the southern Philippines. It was a joy to listen to their capstone presentations as they outlined their detailed plans of how to integrate their church ministries with society.

This past May — just a few weeks ago — we had 13 students at our new Bataan campus’ inaugural class. This campus is an innovative blend of business with theological education and church ministry that we’ve been developing in the Philippines for the past 40 years — a shared space as it were. This class in particular continued this integration by inviting church workers, school teachers, office staff, and power engineers to discuss how the church in particular connects with their worlds. To our great joy, some students said they couldn’t sleep at night thinking about how this new vision of church impacted their long-standing worldview!

Future plans for the facility include it serving as a hub for training Jesus followers from nations that are Jesus-averse by giving them a safe space to conduct training on a meaningful level.

We’re disappointed that you weren’t all able to join us in our launching of this facility. However, we are excited that God is using this for his kingdom. We look forward to seeing you here in 2028.