Creating a culture of call

A two-day conference held in the Seminary building last week gathered select Mennonite representatives in an effort to bring the broader Mennonite community together as partners in calling out future church leaders. Aptly dubbed "Partners in the Call," the conference was the first of its kind at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Church leaders of all ranks, from laypersons to bishops, were invited to represent the Atlantic Coast, Franconia, Franklin, Indiana-Michigan, Lancaster, New York, Ohio, Southeast, and Virginia Mennonite Conferences. Select directors, council members, presidents and provosts from numerous other church organizations and institutions were also invited to the conference. One attendant mentioned afterwards that the most influential minds of the Mennonite world were in Martin Chapel last Thursday and Friday.

The vision that came out of the conference was to create an environment consisting of church, family, and community which calls and nurtures young adults to ministry. This environment has been named the culture of call. This is in contrast to providing youths with isolated programs outside of the community which they cannot integrate into their daily lives.

Jill Landis, associate director of EMS Church Partnerships, equated what EMS is trying to do to what Jesus did when he called out the woman at the well (John 4) who went on to bring her entire town back to Christ. In the past decade, EMS has attempted to live this out through resources such as Distance Learning Courses, the CRC (a lending library), STEP and LEAP (both experiential ministry programs) and the preaching institute.

This conference was created to work with and encourage the church to help create this culture of call. Having high school students preach in church was one of the ideas that will be used to build this vision. This is an example of an opportunity for students to apply what they learn in programs such as STEP and LEAP to real life situations, which they can claim as their own.

A further emphasis of Partners in the Call was to evaluate the effectiveness of the EMS programs in the communities to which it serves. The conference, in fact, was one of four ideas which came out of a task force funded and assigned by the Lily Grant to keep the vision of EMS going once the five year grant ran out.