In a Facebook post about his passing, the shared that Augsburger had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer on Oct. 23. He died peacefully at his California home surrounded by family and loved ones on Oct. 30, the post reads.

A memorial service for Augsburger will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 19, at La Verne Church of the Brethren in La Verne, California. 

Augsburger was recognized as an authority in the fields of pastoral care, counseling and reconciliation. He was a prolific writer, penning more than 20 books including Conflict Mediation Across Cultures (1992), The Freedom of Forgiveness (1988) and Sustaining Love: Healing and Growth in the Passages of Marriage (1989). He authored the popular Caring Enough series of books, beginning with Caring Enough to Confront: How to Transform Conflict with Compassion and Grace in 1980. His feature articles have appeared in more than 100 different periodicals. 

Former Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) Professor Lonnie Yoder, associate dean of the seminary from 2010 to 2016, called Augsburger a pioneer in the field. 

 “If he didn’t write the first book, it was among the first in pastoral counseling in terms of culture: Pastoral Counseling Across Cultures (1986),” Yoder said. “He was at the forefront of that dimension of pastoral counseling, which is now complete with lots of work. He was one of the first to recognize that when you do counseling, cultural context is really important.”

Augsburger also was known by many for his voice. From 1961 to 1975, listeners across the country tuned in to hear him speak and promote the Gospel on The Mennonite Hour radio program, which was based in Harrisonburg. His productions won 10 awards for creative religious broadcasting.

“His style focused on the Anabaptist evangelical response to the social concerns of the day: war and peace, racism and interpersonal relationships. Witty turns of language and thought held attention and conveyed truth” (). 

Augsburger held a bachelor of arts degree with a major in Bible from Eastern Mennonite College (EMC) and a bachelor of divinity degree from EMS. He received a PhD from the Claremont School of Theology in Southern California.

His brother, Myron, was a professor of theology at EMC and led the college and seminary as its fifth president from 1965 to 1980. Another brother of his, Aaron Donald “A. Don,” graduated from EMC and EMS and taught in the field of Christian education at the school.

Augsburger was a pastor at Trissels Mennonite Church in Broadway, Virginia, from 1963 to 1971. He taught at Northern Baptist Seminary near Chicago and at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, before joining Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He served as professor emeritus of pastoral care and counseling at Fuller from 1990 to 2018. He and his wife Leann pastored Peace Mennonite Fellowship, a church in Claremont, California. 

In a , Fuller Theological Seminary touted Augsburger’s work as a dedicated minister of the Mennonite Church and as a diplomat of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. 

“Augsburger’s impact reached far beyond the classroom,” it reads. “He taught counseling, led workshops internationally, and provided supervision and therapy, embodying the principles he espoused in his teachings.”

‘A communicator of outstanding ability’

George Brunk III ’61, SEM ’64, was a year behind Augsburger at EMC and EMS but the two were close friends. The duo sang “shoulder to shoulder” in choral groups as bass singers, Brunk said.

“He was a person of multiple talents,” Brunk said. “He was always a prominent voice in whatever setting he was in.”

Brunk would later serve as a professor at EMS and as dean of the seminary from 1977 to 1999. Although Augsburger was not employed by Eastern Mennonite, he would often return to campus for speaking engagements. 

“He was a communicator of outstanding ability,” Brunk said. “He had an ability to grasp onto big ideas, but he gave attention to communicating those ideas and to applying them in practical ways to life.”

Yoder, a former professor of pastoral care and counseling at EMS, recalled Augsburger speaking at the School for Leadership Training — now called Shalom Academy — at the seminary a few decades ago.

“He did an amazing job of connecting with students,” Yoder said. “He was obviously a very brilliant individual, but he could communicate in a way that people understood.”

When EMS Professor Tim Reardon, who received his PhD from Fuller, was a pastor at Pasadena Mennonite Church in California, he asked Augsburger for help resolving a conflict within the congregation.

“He was a great resource for understanding reconciliation issues,” Reardon said.

He lauded Augsburger’s support for members of the LGBTQ+ community in the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference, and spoke highly of him as a mentor. 

“He was such a loving, genuine and honest person,” Reardon said. “His family loved him so much. It’s hard to imagine he’s gone.”

The Crusaders Quartet remembered how to get the most out of singing around one microphone during a “reliving radio” segment at a celebration of 85 years of Young Peoples Christian Association at 91����Ƶ (l. to r.): Aaron King, Eugene Souder, Paul Swarr, Roy Kreider. Photo by Matt Styer

The gathering – part of homecoming and family weekend – was emceed by John R. Martin, YPCA president in 1953 and ’54. Among many other facts, he noted that the “Y,” as it is affectionately known, is the longest running student-led group in the school’s history.

“Perhaps at this anniversary celebration it behooves us to ask ‘Why?’ of the Y,” noted Carmen Schrock-Hurst, YPCA co-president 1980-81. “Why,” she wondered, “when there is pressure to study and work to pay the tuition bills, and infinite opportunities to socialize and participate in extra- curricular activities – why do students consistently continue to chose to give of their time and money to keep alive the Y?”

Belief in God’s Word

The answer, she said, is at the heart of what makes 91����Ƶ unique: a belief in God’s word and the call to find one’s life by losing it. Y participants have exemplified and continue to model the “desire to have education be rooted in the real world and not tucked away in an ivory tower of isolationism,” she said.

Special among the invited guests were representatives at each table from area congregations known as “Y churches,” that is, churches started and/or sustained by participation of YPCA students over the years.

Noted author and speaker David Augsburger, shared how participation in YPCA in the late 1950s helped to form and shape him, and others, for later ministry. Currently a professor of pastoral care at Fuller Theological Seminary, he recalled a formative lesson in pastoral care that he learned through a YPCA contact.

He recalled a walk around a country block in the cold rain with a man from his Y church whose wife had recently died. “I felt ashamed,” Augsburger recalled, “because I could find no words to offer the grieving man. But I came to realize it was enough to simply walk with him, soaked to the bones, in silence.”

‘Sincere desire to serve the church’

“The shape and focus of YPCA has been remolded from time to time, but the sincere desire to serve the church and others in the name of Jesus remains firm,” reflected campus pastor Brian Martin Burkholder after the event. “Students involved in the current YPCA commissions are expressing their faith in passionate ministry, service and outreach.”

Current Y commissions, or programs, include: Saturday adoption, grandparent adoption, prison ministries team, Y-church teams, and spring break Y-trips. More information about them is available on the campus ministries section of 91����Ƶ’s website, www.emu.edu.

Copies of an eight-page, full-color booklet about YPCA’s 50 years is available on request while supplies last from alumni@emu.edu.

A retired 91����Ƶ faculty member is working to keep alive a rich musical legacy.

John L. Horst, Jr., professor emeritus of physics at 91����Ƶ, hosts a weekly program, “Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Cappella,” 8-9:30 a.m. Sundays. The show repeats 10:30 a.m. to noon on the university’s public radio station, .

The four-part, a cappella singing that is part of the heritage of worship in Mennonite congregations is featured on his 90 minute program. Horst draws from a variety of sources, inter-Mennonite and beyond, in selecting material to feature.

Horst, who taught at 91����Ƶ from 1967 to 2004, sang bass from 1956 to 1963 as a member of one of the original “Mennonite Hour” quartets. The group recorded regularly for the radio broadcast and also toured the country with speaker B. Charles Hostetter to promote the program.

The “Mennonite Hour,” produced by Mennonite Broadcasts, Inc. (now Mennonite Media) based in Harrisonburg, started the program in 1952. Distribution peaked at more than 140 stations across North America in the early 1960’s. In 1965, the program was shortened to 15 minutes with less music, and in 1978 it went off the air.

“With the exception of [the late] 91����Ƶ professors J. Mark Stauffer and Earl Maust, the singers in the 1950’s era were all dedicated amateurs from many walks of live in the greater Harrisonburg community,” Horst said. “However, all of them were well-schooled in the traditional Mennonite art of unaccompanied, four-part harmony singing.

“The singing was unpretentious, direct and committed to communicating the Gospel message,” he said. “The distinctive ‘Mennonite Hour’ sound was unmistakable – simple arrangements, solid harmony and clear diction.”

Horst noted that a recording studio built by Richard Weaver on S. College Ave. – converted from a chicken house in 1954 – “provided an excellent environment for good a cappella singing. In the 1950’s, a single, well-placed microphone was used with limited electronic processing.”

After Maust and Stauffer, leadership in the ‘second era’ of the 1960’s came from Marvin Miller, David Seitz and David Augsburger, Horst pointed out, adding: “The singing and sound is noticeably different, with stereo added in this period.” Augsburger went on to succeed B. Charles Hostetter as “Mennonite Hour” speaker.

In 1999, Horst began delving into the Mennonite Media archives and found himself reviewing archival tape recordings that were used on the “Mennonite Hour” broadcasts. He has since produced five compact disc reissues of hymns, gospel selections, folk hymns, spirituals and choral works, including two just-released recordings. Mennonite Media had released six CD’s on their own earlier.

The first of two new recordings, “Sing Them Over Again,” is a compilation of 27 original a cappella recordings by the “Mennonite Hour Singers from the early era, the decade of the the 1950’s.

A second collection, “A Symphony of Hymns,” employs the movements of a classical symphony – prelude, exposition, adagio, scherzo and finale – as a framework to present 26 songs of the church. These selections feature the music groups from the decade of the 1960’s.

“It was an honor to listen to and critique the rich ‘Mennonite Hour’ archive of about 900 acappella hymns and anthems,” Horst said. “It has been a pleasant journey . . . ‘This All My Song Shall Be.'”

For more information on Horst’s a cappella project and available recordings, see or call (800) 999-3534.