As the newly appointed vice president of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham NAACP, Dr. David Evans, professor of history and intercultural studies and associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary, presented on the significance of Black History Month during the chapter’s meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 3.
At Hope for the Future 2026 in San Antonio, two dozen BIPOC leaders gathered for deep discernment, rest and strategic visioning asking what faithful leadership looks like in a divided world.
Among them was EMS Doctor of Ministry student Jonny Rashid, pastor of West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship, who reflected: “To be united, we need to work toward collective liberation. We need to ally with all minorities because our liberation is linked.” The gathering, led by Sue Park-Hur, Director of Racial/Ethnic Engagement for Mennonite Church USA and friend of EMS, centered listening, renewal, and a vision of interdependent ministry rooted in 1 Corinthians 12.
Union Presbyterian Seminary has received a transformative $10 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to implement Seminary Extended: Strengthening Pastoral Leadership, a groundbreaking collaborative initiative with Eastern Mennonite Seminary and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary to deliver congregation-embedded leadership development, shared faculty across institutions, and a joint Doctor of Ministry (DMin) in Adaptive Leadership. The initiative will bring the three theological institutions together in a first-of-its-kind collaboration to strengthen pastoral formation for today’s rapidly changing ministry landscape.
As one of the lead organizers for Congregate Charlottesville, Brittany Caine-Conley, MDiv ’14, (aka “Smash”) called for 1,000 clergy and faith leaders of all denominations to counter-protest a gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. Her efforts denied white supremacists key locations that would have made their Unite the Right rally more visible, and later that year, she was honored by the National Council of Churches as a co-recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Faithful Leadership.
EMU’s Intensive English Program (IEP) continues to help English language learners from all around the world find their voice and build a better life for themselves, despite federal funding shortages affecting many similar programs around the country. Hear from IEP students and grads (including an EMS student) about how the transformative program is positively shaping their lives in this video segment from WHSV-TV3.
On the afternoon of July 10, during a seminar entitled “Restitutio Divina: Embodied Biblical Reflection”, Leah Thomas, Ph.D., a theologian and associate professor of Pastoral Care, director of Contextual Education at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and biblical scholar Stephanie Day Powell, assistant professor of Hebrew Bible at Eastern Mennonite University, led participants through a guided, meditative exercise called restitutio divina.
“Sisters, we’ve been brainwashed,” said Rev. Dr. Shannon Dycus, interim president of Eastern Mennonite University, in her keynote address to 185 attendees at MC USA’s Women’s Summit, July 8, in Greensboro, North Carolina. She explained that women carry the weight of systems of oppression that measure their worth by labor and productivity. “There is a binary that tells us that we either need to be working like a machine, or we can rest and fear that we aren’t doing enough,” she said.
A small group of Anabaptists celebrated Earth Month on April 10 in Washington, D.C., by urging U.S. legislators to protect federal clean energy tax credits and urban community forestry grants. Many of these grants benefit churches and low-income communities and are at risk of being cut in an upcoming budget bill. Among this number were EMS alums John Stoltzfus and Steven Pardini and CJP alum Kirstin De Mello.
EMS alum Hendy Matahelemual (MA ’19) reflects on an Intentional Interim Minister training offered by the Shalom Collaboratory at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and the Center for Congregational Health. During a cold, snowy week, several pastors from Mosaic Mennonite Conference and Allegheny Mennonite Conference, representing diverse backgrounds, attended the Intentional Interim Minister training in Princeton, New Jersey.
