Rev. Meredith McNabb, Director of Clergy Excellence, Board of Ordained Ministries, Virginia United Methodist Conference, United Methodist Church.

“Wrestling Up” ( )

This is the first of two special Eastern Mennonite Seminary chapel presentations to help us discern our way through complexities related to denominational divisions rooted in different understandings of LGBTQ relationships.

Meredith McNabb is Director of Clergy Excellence, Board of Ordained Ministries, Virginia United Methodist Conference, United Methodist Church.

Clyde Kratz, the April 5 presenter, is Conference Minister, Virginia Mennonite Conference, Mennonite Church USA. He spoke on “”

Neither presenter has been asked or agreed to provide all answers! Rather, both take into account that their national denominational assemblies have had or will be having difficult conversations amid sharp disagreements. Each reflects on what they have learned or implemented in their denominational leadership roles that may offer insights for the rest of us.

President Swartzendruber discusses the as the Seminary Community is called to prayer for discernment.

In the Seminary Spring Convocation address, , EMS Associate Dean and Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, offers Reflections on 鈥淒iscernment, Fear, and Hope.鈥�

Matthew聽 Hunsberger leads the Seminary community in a time of sung discernment awareness. Matt鈥檚 gift of song and awareness of music鈥檚 formative work provide a way for us to experience the questions evoked and responses engaged in hymns and songs as we follow Christ on this journey of faith.

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

, EMS Professor of New Testament, offers perspectives on, 鈥淒iscerning the Good News in the Real World: Subversive God-Learnings from a 3-M Perspective.鈥�

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

inhabits multiple roles as EMS administrative assistant, Director of the , Director of the 聽and Coordinator of the .聽 In this chapel gathering in the Seminary, Linda offers reflections on the topic聽 of, “Personal Spiritual Discernment: Finding God’s Answers to Life’s Questions.”

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

, EMS Assistant Professor of Preaching and Practical Theology, reflects on the theme, “All Saints.”聽 .

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

, EMS Assistant Professor of History, Mission, Intercultural and Interfaith Studies, reflects on the high-profile shooting in relatively recent news, and he articulates the need for hospitality and getting to know our neighbors. and .

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

, EMS Professor Emeritus of Missiology, explores what it means to “discern God’s purposes in extraordinary times,” drawing from and .

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ). This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel service on campus. Eastern Mennonite Seminary hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 11:00.

, 黑料正能量 Vice President and Dean of begins the Seminary’s聽 Fall 2013 Spiritual Life Week with reflections on : 鈥淭he Counter-Intuitive Miracle.” The theme of Spiritual Life Week is, “Let love be Genuine…A Discerning Journey.”

, Professor of Theology, explores the question of whether it is “possible that this penultimate passage of Romans, in the context of the whole letter, could help us to know how our identity in Christ forms us to be a particular, discerning community” (referring to )

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a 鈥淒iscernment Training Center鈥� (see and ).聽 This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

, Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Language, reflects on, “Who has spoken through the prophets: God’s word, human awe, and the Old Testament,” drawing from and .

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a “Discernment Training Center” (see and ).聽 This fall semester, Seminary Faculty are sharing about their own awareness of the topic of discernment through the lens of their own particular discipline or area of study.

Seminary Dean reflects on how the helps us understand the difference between “I get it” and “being gotten.” “I get it” is a way of staying in control; it’s hard for us to imagine living differently. Our whole culture takes us in the direction of emphasizing the value of “I get it.” In contrast, “being gotten” is a way of allowing ourselves to be seized by something larger than us.

A key context for all of this is working toward highlighting EMS as a Discernment Training Center. defines discernment as “involving the community of believers gathered in Jesus鈥� name around Scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit to let God show us the way through the urgent, complicated, and sometimes divisive issues of a given time and place.”

Dr King’s comments and reflections to close this chapel offer a helpful summary of his address:

“I know only in part鈥攐nly as if through a mirror dimly.聽 That means that anything I鈥檝e shared with you is partly wrong, partly misguided.聽 I have tried in what I鈥檝e shared…to be fair to various points of view.聽 But I鈥檓 sure you can read in my fallibilities that I am more connected with some ways of thinking Christ than others.聽 I think it鈥檚 important…as we think about clenched fists…not to equate the passionate holding to our beliefs, with the problem.聽 I don’t see that as a problem. I know that there are passionate views present here among our faculty, our staff, and our students.聽 And my dream is not that those passions would cease being articulated, and even advocated for.聽 My dream, rather, is that this could be a kind of demilitarized zone…a place where we don鈥檛 get shot, the moment we wade into points of disagreement and tension.聽 So I do pray that鈥檚 a piece of what we can experience [at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 2012] in a world that so badly needs this Seminary, this University鈥攖o be in the thick of it all, but in the thick of it all in a peace-giving way. And I share that as a prelude to the blessing, because I鈥檓 so deeply moved by the music we鈥檝e just heard and its tremendous balm of peace, and I鈥檓 struck by how quickly we shatter that experience of peace, the moment we go from sitting here singing it, to actually engaging it.聽 I pray there are ways to keep that peace, in the act of unclenching our fists and opening them up; but also being true to all our own beliefs.聽 If we can鈥檛 find a way to be passionate about what we believe, and also at peace with each other in the midst of that, then I don鈥檛 know a way forward. But if we can, then the way we were moved by our worship, and by the Spirit, precisely through our gathering here in the presence of the Spirit we have named on the command of Jesus, then I think we can become Eastern Mennonite Seminary as we鈥檙e called to be. So in that dream–Go in peace and all the work required and all the blessings that it can give us in the name of the Lord.聽 In that hope and in that prayer, I commend us to the new year.聽 Blessings.”

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel worship service on campus. hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday; 黑料正能量 Campus Ministries hosts chapel gatherings every Wednesday and Friday in Lehman Auditorium. Specifics and occasional changes are noted in individual chapel listings.