Concordia College Alabama will start the new academic year Monday morning with an opening convocation and worship service.

The program will take place starting at 10 a.m. in the Julius and Mary Jenkins Center.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and Lutheran pastors will gather for the ceremony, which will also include an installation of new faculty.

The keynote speaker for the ceremony will be Pastor David Stechholz, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) English District.

Stechholz graduated from Valparaiso University with a B.A. in political science and from American University in Washington, D.C. with a master’s degree in International Relations.

He worked both for the Environmental Protection Agency and as a minister of music at Lutheran Church of St. Andrew in Silver Spring, Md, and did further course work in music before enrolling in seminary.

He graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind. in 1978 with a master’s in divinity in historical theology.

Stechholz served as pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer in Oakmont, Pa, Messiah Lutheran Church in Danville, Calif. and West Portal Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in San Francisco and was elected president and bishop of the English District in June 2006.