From SLT to "Shalom Academies"

For many years, Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosted the School for Leadership Training (in some corners known only by its acronym, SLT) as a regular conference-style program in early January. With this event, we hoped to achieve several goals at the same time: an intensive learning period for current students, a touch point for our beloved alumni, continuing education for pastoral and lay leaders, and a space for extending learning to a wider community.

Over the last several years, we have reflected deeply on how to accomplish these same goals in the ever-changing landscapes of church, higher education, and our primary societal context.

Topically, this has meant re-focusing on where our faith leads us in the pursuit of peace with justice, opening spaces to consider questions of race and place, disability theology and cultures of belonging, restorative justice and abolition, and navigating a divisive political climate world.

Perhaps more than that, we have also reflected on the times and formats that work best for engaging the learning community we so deeply care about—from current students and alums to leaders in churches and nonprofit settings and the wider populations in which we all live and serve.

A New Day for Leadership Training

Through our Shalom Collaboratory, we are experimenting with formats for learning and engagement, like leadership retreats with local churches and workshops planned in partnership with regional conference clergy.

For example, when we set out to build an event around “The Promise and Possibility of Anabaptist Organizing,” we experimented with a conference format event set in the fall. This exciting event brought over a hundred leaders and organizers to our Harrisonburg, Virginia, campus to:

1. build connections among leaders working in both movement organizing and broad-based organizing who, while aware of others doing similar work, are rarely given the opportunity for mutual enrichment and
2. raise theological questions about synergies and tensions between organizing and traditional Anabaptist theology, among other goals.

And we have found that we very much enjoy these opportunities to consult closely with our partners who have questions they want to explore with us in the neighborhood of our unique mission to nurture agents of justice and peace by opening spaces for theological learning and practice rooted in Jesus’ radical ministry of beloved community.

This work is refreshing our imagination for what a “School for Leadership Training” can be: creatively responsive academies that promote a justice-forward approach to seeking God’s shalom in and for our world.

So, while we have turned the page on SLT, we invite you to bring your ideas and your energy to help EMS extend our beloved learning community through more occasional “Shalom Academy” events and other collaborative endeavors. One way to do that is through a custom training request.