‘Shalom in the Streets’: January 2020 School for Leadership Training

Right in the midst of what is being dismantled, biblical narratives beckon us to discover shalom in genuine relationships with the people in our neighborhoods, communities and cities. In the flourishing of the places where we live, we flourish as well. (Jeremiah 29:7)

Eastern Mennonite Seminary’s School for Leadership Training (SLT) in January 2020 will gather religious leaders and scholars to engage with the theme, “Shalom in the Streets: Recapturing God’s Vision in Ordinary Places.” The event runs Monday, Jan. 13, to Wednesday, Jan. 15. Seminars will cover pastoral responses to climate change, how to help families with the spiritual journey of death and grief, faith-based community organizing, Bowen family systems theory, disability and other topics.

The keynote speakers for this year’s SLT are:

• Shannan Martin, of Goshen, Ind., speaker and author of The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You and Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted.

• Leroy Barber, of Portland Ore., author, professor, developer of congregational vitality with the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church, and co-founder of The Voices Project, which trains and promotes leaders of color.

• Jennifer Davis Sensenig, pastor of Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg and president of Faith in Action, a multi-faith coalition of congregations addressing local justice issues.

• Kenton T. Derstine, associate professor of supervised ministry at the Eastern Mennonite Seminary and director of the CPE and Mentored Ministry programs.

A free pre-conference event on climate change sponsored and hosted by the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions and Mennonite Creation Care Network is Monday morning. Doug Kaufman, pastor at Benton Mennonite Church, Goshen, Ind. and the director of pastoral ecology at the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions will lead the conversation for pastors concerned about climate change. 

CPE’s 20th anniversary celebration

The SLT schedule also includes anniversary celebration for the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program, which has been training people for ministry in congregations and healthcare contexts for 20 years.

Guest speaker Sara Wenger Shenk, former associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary and president emeritus of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, will give a talk at the evening banquet. The family of Lena and Norman Yutzy ’55, SEM ‘58 will also be honored for their endowment of the program.

A panel during SLT includes former CPE participants speaking about the program’s impact on their lives.

Reflections have also been offered this fall in a guest writer series. Melanie K. Lewis MDiv ‘14 said the program changed the course of her career.

“I did my clinical rotations in a level II trauma center, and experienced a summer of trauma, crisis and death, Lewis wrote in a blog post reflecting on the training. “I remember telling my husband at the end of that summer, ‘Being a hospital chaplain is amazing work, but I could never do it. It’s just too hard.’ Over time, however, I realized that God was calling me to this ‘too hard’ ministry.”

Anne Kaufman Weaver MDiv ’16 and Shawn Gerber MDiv ’04 also contributed to this series on CPE.

---

The SLT planning committee includes Sarah Bailey MDiv ‘18, pastor, Clover Hill United Methodist Church, Dayton, Va.; Mark Schloneger MDiv ‘05, pastor, Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship, Goshen, Ind.; Ron Zook MDiv ‘02, pastor, Laurel Street Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.; Brenda Martin Hurst, director of Lilly Grant, Eastern Mennonite Seminary; and Veva Mumaw, SLT coordinator, Eastern Mennonite Seminary.