“We have forgotten our own passion for Christ and we have failed to show others that we are impassioned,” Emily Peck-McClain told participants at Eastern Mennonite Seminary‘s Spiritual Life Week in Harrisonburg, Va. “Youth are passionate people. It’s a gift of being young. In our churches youth fail to see where their passions can find a home, so they look elsewhere where their passions are noted, and welcomed, and celebrated.
“As you can imagine those places will not develop their passions for the building up of the kingdom of God. Since youthful passion is a gift of the spirit for the church, we, the church, are missing it.” Listen to all of Tuesday’s chapel sermon online.
Peck-McClain is associate professor of Christian formation, preaching and worship at the seminary. The theme for Spiritual Life Week, “The gospel in our hands,” included two chapel presentations by Peck-McClain and a retreat time during the week of Sept. 22-26.
On Thursday Peck-McClain told spiritual life participants that we are hard-wired to mimic. “Attend your mimesis to Paul, Christ and the saints of the church,” she said. “If our hearts and minds are kept in Christ, we will keep our passion.”
She said Paul often encouraged Christians to be like him, not because he was perfect, but because with the help of others we can learn to be more like Christ.
She concluded by encouraging listeners that when they are unable to fulfill Paul’s call in Philippians 4 to think about whatever is honorable, just, pure and true, then they should find someone who is able to do these things and rely on the wiring of the brain that encourages us to mimic. Listen to all of Thursday’s chapel sermon online.
Spiritual Life Week is an annual event at Eastern Mennonite Seminary to encourage students, faculty and staff to slow down, take stock of their spiritual well-being, and refocus.
On Wednesday, students, faculty and staff took part in a retreat together, spending time in scripture, service and prayer.
