Dr. Sue Cockley, Dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary, opens the EMS Fall 2018 Semester with her convocation address, “Christian Leadership in a Divided World.”

Fall Convocation 2016 鈥淎fter the boxes are packed鈥� Lamentations 3:1-26.

Dr. Michael A. King, Eastern Mennonite Seminary Dean

Theme: Clinging to the Lord鈥檚 steadfast love and mercies when nothing else seems available and even the assurances that our hope is in God seem insubstantial.

In his Spring 2016 opening convocation address, , Associate Dean and Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, engages our awareness of ministry that happens 鈥淥n the Way鈥� !

Seminary Dean, Dr. Michael King, opens the EMS fall semester with his convocation address, 鈥淩ecognizing Jesus when Phone Booths Vanish.鈥澨�

King writes:

When I saw a PBS video on seminaries posted under a heading that asked if听what we teach is repairing phone booths, that caught my attention. Maybe听because I turn 60 next month, I remember phone booths! Are seminaries,听universities, congregations, denominations doing the equivalent of听teaching phone booth repairs even though cell phones long ago made them听obsolete?

I’ll ponder this at Eastern Mennonite Seminary convocation听Tuesday听morning, August 26, at听11:00听in Martin Chapel, seminary building second
floor.

I’ll ask whether pointers for moving beyond phone booth repairs might be听found in that memorable story of followers of Jesus ruminating on his
death with a stranger. They don’t realize they’re discussing with Jesus听the absence of Jesus.

Do we similarly fail to recognize Jesus? If so, are there fresh ways we听can live, theologize, educate, structure our churches to meet Jesus
precisely where we think he’s absent? As 黑料正能量 discerns hiring policy for听persons in same-sex relationships, might we even gently help each other
learn to see Jesus across our divided understandings of right and wrong?

If you’re interested in exploring with us how through meeting Jesus anew听we might do more than repair phone booths, we warmly welcome you.
Blessings –Michael听A.听King, seminary dean

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

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�

, Associate Dean and Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, offers the Spring semester convocation address for听 Chapel Gathering at the Seminary.

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

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.听 That means that anything I鈥檝e shared with you is partly wrong, partly misguided.听 I have tried in what I鈥檝e shared…to be fair to various points of view.听 But I鈥檓 sure you can read in my fallibilities that I am more connected with some ways of thinking Christ than others.听 I think it鈥檚 important…as we think about clenched fists…not to equate the passionate holding to our beliefs, with the problem.听 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.听 And my dream is not that those passions would cease being articulated, and even advocated for.听 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.听 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.听 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.听 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.听 In that hope and in that prayer, I commend us to the new year.听 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.

Chapel Gathering services held in Martin Chapel at Eastern Mennonite Seminary are planned by the Seminary community but open to all.