The conference, “Thriving in Ministry: Family Systems Theory as a Resource for Faith Communities,” was hosted by the seminary in partnership with The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family and supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc. and the Joe Carolin Memorial Fund.

Throughout the conference, participants explored family systems theory as a resource for understanding and strengthening relationships and congregational life. Ordained and lay leaders, along with others interested in family systems thinking, considered how Bowen theory and differentiation of self, along with their faith traditions, could guide reflection and cultivate thriving in ministry.

Keynote speakers Rev. Dr. Robert Creech and Dr. Dan Papero presented from their expertise in the fields of practical theology and psychotherapy, respectively. Over the two days of the conference, Dr. Creech shared keynote addresses about the intersection of language between systems thinking and Christian theology, as well as how the practice of differentiation of self enhances pastoral care. Dr. Papero spoke about the most recent neuroscientific research regarding the impact of stress on brain functioning. Both contributed to panel discussions with other presenters.  

Conference keynote speaker Dr. Dan Papero (left) has been a faculty member of The Bowen Center since 1982. He has written numerous articles and book chapters on various aspects of family systems theory and family psychotherapy. The Rev. Dr. Robert Creech (right), a former pastor and faculty member of Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, is the author of “Family Systems and Congregational Life” (2019) and co-author of “The Leader’s Journey” (2020), both with Baker Academic.  

Workshops and presentations included discussions on preaching, biblical studies, parenting, and tools to help participants thrive in ministry and daily life.

Among the goals of the Thriving in Ministry conference were to help participants:

• grow in their capacity to differentiate self through an increased understanding of the science of human relationships in families and congregations
• apply family systems theory to the work of faith leaders in pastoral care, preaching, youth work, religious education, and other ministry settings
• explore practical applications, including family diagrams, triangles, and other ways of shifting from an individual to a systems perspective

Other guest presenters included Chaplain Penny Driediger, the Rev. Melanie Lewis, Pastor Lana Miller, Janis Norton, the Rev. Dr. Emlyn A. Ott, the Rev. William Pyle, and the Rev. Chet Yoder. Faculty presenters included Dr. Kenton T. Derstine, Kathleen Cotter Cauley, the Rev. Randall Frost, Dr. Barbara Laymon, the Rev. Jennifer Long, and Amie Post.

For more information about the conference, visit .

The service was co-sponsored by Eastern Mennonite Seminary and led by graduate students Makinto and Mukarabe Makinto-Inandava. It included musical selections from Makinto, as well as the 91����Ƶ Gospel Choir led by Kay Pettus ’25, and biblical readings from Mukarabe.

Reflections on Easter were shared by English Professor Dr. Kevin Seidel, who teaches and writes about the changing relationship between religion, secularism, and literature. His message, titled “Women Explain Things to Me: A Sermon on Luke 24,” focused not so much on Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead but on the “slow, difficult coming to terms with the significance of the resurrection by Jesus’ followers as portrayed in Luke 24.”

“In Luke, the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a simple, triumphant end of the story, but a kind of difficult beginning that unfolds in the Book of Acts,” Seidel said. “The resurrection doesn’t settle debate among Jesus’ followers about who he is. The resurrection proves, I think, profoundly unsettling for them.”

After the service, Seidel said he was glad for the chance to reflect on parts of the resurrection story in Luke 24. “The service was a good way to mark and celebrate the beginning of the seven-week Easter season in the church calendar,” he said.

University Chaplain Brian Martin Burkholder said Wednesday’s Easter celebration follows 91����Ƶ’s practice of honoring and observing significant Christian traditions and holidays, including Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

“This morning, as we gathered, there was an opportunity for education about Easter,” he said, “as well as an invitation to worship in the spirit of Easter through Scripture, singing, and reflection.”

Makinto, a frequent worship leader at chapel events, performed Jesus Is Risen, an original song he wrote in 2013, as the opening song for this year’s Easter worship service. The song tells the Easter story and connects it to our own lives, he said. 

“So, as he is risen, we as well can rise above all the challenges we have, above the pains we have, above the solitude we have, and also conquer death and situate ourselves squarely in life with our community around us,” Makinto said.

Makinto and his wife, Mukarabe, moved from California to pursue degrees at Eastern Mennonite Seminary and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, respectively. They are the directors of , an organization that connects people at the local and global levels for the purpose of development, unification, and spiritual and physical well-being.

University Chaplain Brian Martin Burkholder speaks during a campus worship service on Wednesday in Martin Chapel.

Mukarabe Makinto-Inandava reads a selection from Luke 24 (left). Members of the 91����Ƶ Gospel Choir (right) sing during Wednesday’s campus worship service.

91����Ƶ Campus Worship

Campus Worship is an invitational space for gathered worship in Christian traditions and a variety of styles. Services are held in Martin Chapel of the Seminary Building on Wednesday mornings every other week.��

Campus worship continues with a final service of the academic year on April 22 recognizing 91����Ƶ’s senior student chaplains: Emily Suarez Nunez, Dia Mekonnen, Sara Kennel, and Miranda Beidler. The event will be livestreamed on .

Watch a video recording of the service below!

“She had a presence and an authority that made her quiet words deeply significant wherever she spoke them,” said Professor Emerita Dorothy Jean Weaver, who taught Miller at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) and worked alongside her on faculty for 19 years. “In her own way, she was a giant. She had a huge impact wherever she was, and certainly here at EMS.”

Miller served the seminary from 1991 to 2010 in roles including campus pastor and assistant professor of spiritual formation. She was committed to helping people discover their story within “God’s great story,” establishing EMS’ spiritual formation program, and founding training programs for spiritual directors within Mennonite Church USA and The United Methodist Church.

At EMS, she led the Summer Institute for Spiritual Formation and developed “Soul Space,” an online guide for scripture reading and prayer. Many of her lasting contributions, through the gifts she shared and the lives she touched, endure today.

In addition to her two decades on seminary faculty, she was an ordained minister in Mennonite Church USA’s Virginia Conference and was a leading author. Among her writings, Invitation to Presence: A Guide to Spiritual Disciplines (Upper Room Books, 1995) was translated into several languages. She maintained a private spiritual direction practice until entering hospice care last summer.

Formerly of Broadway, Virginia, Miller was living in West Chicago, Illinois, when she passed away on Oct. 8, 2025. She was 87. A memorial service celebrating her life, held on Dec. 6, can be viewed on YouTube . A full obituary is available at .

Her husband and partner in ministry of 65 years, the Rev. Edmond F. Miller, died in October 2024.

‘Her imprint remains’

Because of Miller’s “gentle and steady efforts” beginning when she joined the seminary faculty in 1991, said the Rev. Dr. Sarah Ann Bixler, dean of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, EMS centered spiritual formation in its curriculum “long before theological schools in general and Anabaptist schools in particular caught on to the importance of tending the inner life of ministerial leaders.”

“Today, hundreds of EMS graduates have been sustained in their ministerial vocations because of the ‘invitation to presence’ Rev. Miller modeled and extended to them,” wrote Bixler. “Her imprint remains on the EMS curriculum, and students today cite the contemplative attentiveness cultivated by EMS as a distinctive and transformative aspect of their theological education. They are more compassionate, discerning, and resilient because of Rev. Miller’s influence.”

Her influence also lives on in the touches and traditions that have become part of the fabric of the seminary.

As reported in a in the Daily News-Record, Miller was “the driving force behind getting the (prayer) labyrinth installed” on the 91����Ƶ Hill above the Seminary Building. Dedicated in 2007, the labyrinth offers a unique way to connect with God.

Visitors to the Seminary Building might be familiar with the rectangular wooden “free table” just outside the second floor kitchen. It displays food and other items that people can leave or take. “That was Wendy’s idea,” said Weaver. “That’s how tangible and simple her ideas could be. She had a deep heart for the collective community.”

Another contribution she made to the seminary was the awareness that its faculty retreats should be held away from campus, Weaver said. For several decades, those retreats were held at Camp Overlook, a nearby United Methodist camp and retreat center. “She was someone who looked around and dreamed of things that could be,” Weaver said.

‘She saw potential in (us)’

One of Miller’s first students in the spiritual formation program, the Rev. Dr. Kevin Clark MA ’96 (church leadership) was trained and trusted to lead the program when she retired in 2010. “She was my teacher, my professor, my mentor, my friend, my spiritual director, and my colleague, all wrapped up in one relationship,” said Clark, a former campus pastor and retired assistant professor of spiritual formation at EMS.

“Wendy had this wisdom and insight into others that was unique,” he said. “Part of it was just rooted in who she was, as someone who paid attention to how God’s spirit was at work within others, and offering and evoking that in her quiet, questioning way. I was always amazed at how she would be in a classroom, we’d be in conversation, and she would have these wonderful little pauses, then come back with a question that was profound for a student to begin to think about. It opened up the whole classroom to a deeper understanding and awareness of their own spirituality.”

Les Horning ’86, MDiv ’98, director of admissions for EMS from 2012-18, also had Miller as a professor. He described her as “one of the most formative presences” of his MDiv experience.

“She saw potential in folks and would find ways to let them know,” he said. “Suddenly, you realized, Oh, she’s seeing my heart. I think that was one of her gifts, helping people dig beneath the surface and find out who they were.”

Horning graduated from 91����Ƶ with bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry and worked as a research chemist for five years before feeling a call for ministry and enrolling at EMS. “For me to come to seminary was a huge change and Wendy was a key part of helping me see that it was a good and right thing,” said Horning, pastor at Stephens City Mennonite Church. “She was very good at pulling out folks’ unique contributions to the community and making people feel valued and accepted and wanted.”

Along with Clark and Horning, Weaver traveled on an overnight train to Chicago last month to attend the memorial service. She remembers Miller for her love of Winnie the Pooh, her delightful laugh, and whimsical sense of humor. 

“She was a blessed woman who shared blessing with everyone she came in contact with,” Weaver said. “I consider it a major gift of my life to have been a friend of hers.”

She grew up in England

The following is from an obituary printed in the :

Born in 1938 in Westham, England, Miller was a child in London during World War II and later lived in Eastbourne, East Sussex. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1959, settling in Chicago with her husband. They served as missionaries in Frankfurt, Germany, and pastored churches including Woodland (Basye) Mennonite, as well as across the Midwest and eastern U.S. Following retirement, they lived in Virginia, Texas, and North Carolina before returning to Illinois.

Rev. Miller earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa Wesleyan University, a master’s degree in church leadership with a concentration in pastoral care and counseling from EMS, and a master of sacred theology in spiritual theology and spiritual direction from General Theological Seminary in New York City.

She leaves five children, Paul (David Selmer) of Maine, David (Julie) of Georgia, Mark (Wendy) of Kansas, Scott (Laura) of Illinois, and Heidi (Gary MacDonald) of Georgia; 14 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren, three brothers, and four sisters-in-law.

Seminary Extended is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative. This initiative is designed to help theological schools across the United States and Canada as they prioritize and respond to the most pressing challenges they face as they prepare pastoral leaders for Christian congregations both now and into the future. The grant to Union Presbyterian Seminary, in support of the collaborative partnership with Eastern Mennonite Seminary and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, is one of 45 approved in this competitive round of funding to support theological schools as they lead large-scale collaborations with other seminaries, colleges and universities, and other church-related organizations.��

Seminary Extended: Strengthening Pastoral Leadership will equip Union Presbyterian Seminary, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary to provide pastors and congregations with practical, grounded support for ministry in a changing world. Through a shared Doctor of Ministry (DMin) in Adaptive Leadership, pastors will study with faculty from all three schools, join short in-person learning intensives, receive coaching, and walk alongside peers as they learn to lead through change, conflict, and trauma. At the same time, congregations will engage in yearlong cohorts where each church’s pastor and a small team of lay leaders learn together, with mentors helping them grow in Bible study, community engagement, trauma-aware care, and planning for future ministry. The goal is to make strong, theologically rooted leadership development more accessible and useful to local churches across many Protestant traditions.

• “The generous grant from Lilly Endowment for Seminary Extended will significantly increase UPSem’s capacity to strengthen pastoral leadership within and for the Church, thus enhancing congregational life more broadly. Our ability to engage this work is powered by our strong partnership with 91����Ƶ and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, each of which brings unique institutional gifts and expertise to our common mission of building up the Church. I am so excited to begin this journey of missional work with these terrific partners for the sake of the Church in the world that God loves so much,” said President Jacqueline E. Lapsley of Union Presbyterian Seminary.

• “This partnership is a powerful expression of what can happen when theological institutions lean into shared mission and imagination. With gratitude for Lilly Endowment, Seminary Extended: Strengthening Pastoral Leadership will allow our faculty, pastors, and congregations to learn alongside one another in ways that honor the realities of ministry today. This collaboration reflects our commitment to supporting leaders who can engage a complex and changing world with courage, compassion, and theological depth. This grant gives us the capacity to do that work together—stronger, more connected, and with greater impact,” said Dr. Tynisha Willingham, Provost at 91����Ƶ.

• “Partnerships like this strengthen our ability to be the Church in the world. By uniting and sharing resources for this congregationally focused project, our institutions are demonstrating the possibility of future collaborations between churches and seminaries across ecumenical and regional boundaries. I’m honored to participate in this project with such supportive partners at UPSem and 91����Ƶ,” said President Andrew D. Pomerville of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

Lilly Endowment launched the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative in 2021. Since then, it has provided grants totaling more than $700 million to support 163 theological schools in efforts to strengthen their own educational and financial capacities and to assist 61 schools in developing large-scale collaborative endeavors.

91����Ƶ Lilly Endowment Inc.
is a private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, the Endowment is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of religion and lift up in fair, accurate and balanced ways the roles that people of all faiths and various religious communities play in the United States and around the globe.

91����Ƶ Union Presbyterian Seminary
Union Presbyterian Seminary is a community that is bound by the love of God, and united in bold Christian service for the church in the world. With campuses in Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, the seminary has prepared leaders for ministry since 1812 through rigorous theological education that is scholarly, pastoral, and engaged with contemporary life. Offering a range of degree programs, Union is home to distinguished faculty, a historic campus with one of the nation’s finest theological libraries, and a vibrant community of worship, service, and fellowship. Graduates serve as pastors, educators, chaplains, mission workers, and scholars, carrying forward the seminary’s long tradition of equipping leaders for the church and the world. Learn more at .

91����Ƶ Eastern Mennonite Seminary
Eastern Mennonite Seminary is the graduate theological school of 91����Ƶ, founded in 1917 in Harrisonburg, Virginia. As early as 1918, courses at the college level were offered in advanced biblical training, and seminary master’s programs emerged in the late 1960s. The seminary is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools and offers continuing education, certificates, and master’s and doctoral degrees. 91����Ƶ is a world-renowned center for the study of peace, justice, and religion and an educational institution of Mennonite Church USA, serving students of diverse religious and cultural backgrounds. 91����Ƶ confers undergraduate, graduate, and seminary degrees in the liberal arts, applied sciences, and professions. Learn more at .��

91����Ƶ Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Founded in 1853, Louisville Seminary offers an inclusive and diverse learning community, welcoming students from wide ecumenical backgrounds while maintaining its long, historic commitment to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). Louisville Seminary is led by the Holy Spirit to educate people to proclaim the Gospel, to care for all, and to work for justice in communities everywhere. It is distinguished by its nationally recognized marriage and family therapy and field education programs, its black church studies program, the scholarship and church service among its faculty, and a commitment to training people to participate in the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ. For more information, visit .

The Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright, associate professor of religious education at Yale Divinity School and author of Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change (Oxford University Press, 2024), will present at 91����Ƶ’s annual Augsburger Lecture Series on Monday, Oct. 27, in the MainStage Theater (University Commons 170). The lecture starts at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a reception.

Her lecture will explore the lives and pedagogical genius of 20th century African American educators. 

“We will wrestle with the ways that teachers are often underacknowledged as exemplars of faith and social change,” states a description of her lecture. “We will focus on the lives of Anna Julia Cooper and Septima Clark, who, like many other 20th century African American women teachers, embodied an unwavering faith in God, in their cause, in their students, and in themselves that pushed them to continue working for justice despite efforts to thwart them.”

Wright’s research focuses on African American religion, adolescent spiritual development, and the intersections of religion and public life. Prior to her arrival at Yale, she served for four years as assistant professor of religion and youth ministry at Pfeiffer University and, before that, was an adjunct faculty member and teaching assistant at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. 

She is also the author of The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans (Oxford, 2017) and the co-editor of Children, Youth, and Spirituality in a Troubling World.��

Wright is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches and has been on the ministerial staff of several churches, including Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Victory for the World United Church of Christ in Stone Mountain, Georgia. 

She holds a PhD from Emory University, an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, an MA in teaching from Simmons College, and a bachelor of science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Augsburger Lecture Series was founded in 1984 by Myron S. and Esther Augsburger to address “topics in the area of Christian evangelism and mission for the stimulation and development of a vision for evangelism and missions for the 91����Ƶ community.”

For more information, visit .

When Eastern Mennonite Seminary Professor David Evans set out to write his book about religious white progressives in the fight for Black freedom, he didn’t expect that his main thesis would flip by nearly 180 degrees.

“I thought I was going to be writing about white allies who could be exemplars for other white people in predominantly white institutions,” said Evans, professor of history and intercultural studies and associate dean of the seminary. “And then I stumbled onto some problems and thought, Maybe we should spend some time talking about where we’re going wrong.”

After seven years of research and writing, Damned Whiteness: How White Christian Allies Failed the Black Freedom Movement is just weeks away from publication. The book, published by The University of North Carolina Press and due out on Oct. 28, offers an unflinching history of white allies—namely Clarence Jordan, Dorothy Day, and Ralph Templin—and the fracturing relationships that followed when their strategies and philosophies didn’t align with Black leaders and communities.

“That’s what my book is trying to figure out: if both groups were willing to put in all this energy and risk their lives to end Jim Crow segregation, why couldn’t they work together?” Evans said. “I’m suggesting that part of it is a kind of arrogance, a haughtiness, that white folks believe they know better than Black people about what needs to be done.”

Damned Whiteness explores the work of three white allies: Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm, an interracial Christian community in Americus, Georgia, and spiritual father of Habitat for Humanity; Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement; and Templin, a Christian missionary who studied nonviolence in Gandhi’s India. The 302-page book serves as both a warning and call to action, but also as a lament, reflecting on what went wrong and what could have been.

Rather than confronting the systems and economic structures that reinforced racial inequality, these white allies focused more narrowly on creating spaces to cultivate interracial friendships, Evans said. “Had they been able to come together with Black folks to really hear what they were saying, see what they were doing, and join in solidarity with them around freedom instead of just trying to be friends, I’m curious to see what could have happened.” 

Evans is set to present his book at George Mason University in November and has also been invited to appear on several podcasts to discuss it. 

Rev. Dr. Sarah Bixler, dean of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences division, said the book is expected to make a splash after its release. “This book represents the kind of critical historical scholarship that we value at 91����Ƶ,” she said. “Thanks to our expert faculty’s commitment to researching and writing with integrity, Dr. Evans’ book will drive important conversations in religion and society deeper, and open new opportunities for our students to engage with this level of work.”

91����Ƶ the professor

Evans is co-editor of Between the World of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Christianity (Cascade, 2018). His teaching and research focus on the braided identity categories of race, religion, and nation.

He holds a master’s degree from Wesley Theological Seminary, in the history of Christianity, a second master’s from Drew University in historical studies, and a doctorate degree in historical studies from Drew University Graduate Division of Religion. In concert with his teaching and scholarship, Evans practices a local “eco-lutionary” lifestyle that promotes a sustainable future for the diverse people of the Shenandoah Valley Watershed.

In addition to the publisher’s website, the book is available to preorder at online booksellers including , , and .

AS ONE OF THE LEAD ORGANIZERS FOR CONGREGATE CHARLOTTESVILLE, BRITTANY CAINE-CONLEY MDIV ’14 (aka “Smash”) called for 1,000 clergy and faith leaders of all denominations to counter-protest a gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. Her efforts denied white supremacists key locations that would have made their Unite the Right rally more visible, and later that year, she was honored by the National Council of Churches as a co-recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Faithful Leadership.��

Caine-Conley believes in the importance of connecting Christian communities with radical activists, using her pastoral presence as a bridge to form meaningful relationships between the church and social justice movements. She has been selected by 91����Ƶ’s Alumni Association as the 2025 Outstanding Young Alum. The award is given annually to an alum who, through professional achievement and/or Christ-like compassionate service, is making a significant contribution to the local, national or global community. 

“I feel honored,” said Caine-Conley. “As a queer, Christian woman called to serve in the clergy, the space hasn’t always been welcoming. This award feels like an acknowledgement of my work and an affirmation for other queer folks who are serving the church and the kin-dom of God.”

The space between 

Caine-Conley learned to bridge the gap between communities at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS), where she earned a master of divinity degree. Professor David Evans’ Christianity through the Eyes of the American Outsider course impacted her deeply. Reading from the texts of enslaved people, Jewish individuals and queer Christians, she was able to explore the experiences of marginalized groups within Christianity.��

In another course, Formation in God’s Story with Dawn Monger, Caine-Conley’s small group was challenged to think about life journeys and how they intersect with God’s story.��

“Our group considered how many loops, intersections, roadblocks, obstacles, and reversals we experience in our individual paths. The conversation led us to one word: mangled.” 

The “mangled” moment stuck with Caine-Conley, as did the seminary experiences of discussing theology over beers at Billy Jack’s and sitting on the campus lawn learning about peacemaking from people across the globe. 

Caine-Conley graduated from EMS in 2014, the same year she married her wife, Lindsay. The two met while working on the leadership team for RISE United Methodist Faith Community in Harrisonburg. 

“My love for ministry was significantly shaped by RISE and its pastor, Amanda Miller Garber. There, I learned to yearn for beloved community, and now I seek to co-create such community wherever I go.” 

Baptism by fire

In the summer of 2017, co-creating community in Charlottesville meant undergoing “baptism by fire.” 

“Everyone remembers that night on August 12, but there’s so much that came before it… prayer and worship meetings, late-night strategizing, direct action training on nonviolence, even active shooter training. It was a lot,” said Caine-Conley. 

Through it all, she was focused on building bridges between communities that didn’t want to interact with each other, between people—particularly white, progressive Christians—who had different ideas about what it meant to resist, from peacefully protesting to doing nothing. 

To build greater understanding between progressive groups who desired change, Caine-Conley organized educational seminars and anti-racism training. She wrote various post-rally articles, and Congregate Charlottesville received national press coverage. 

Vocation and community 

Caine-Conley is now bringing her experience to the classroom at Denver’s Iliff School of Theology where she is a PhD student in religious studies and adjunct instructor of Identity, Power, and Vocation in Community. A theme of the yearlong course is understanding how individuals are shaped by histories, structures, systems, practices, and memories. She aims to create a “disruptive,” yet caring, environment to help students become better ministers, leaders, and caregivers.��

“I am inspired every day by people who allow the spirit to shake their assumptions, trajectories, and long-held orientations,” said Caine-Conley. “It takes so much courage to allow the spirit to truly move us in new directions.” 

Caine-Conley will share her story at 91����Ƶ TenTalks, held on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 1:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel during Homecoming 2025. For a full schedule of Homecoming events and activities, visit emu.edu/homecoming.

Stutzman taught at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) as associate professor of church ministries starting in 1998, and served as academic dean of the seminary from July 2000 to December 2009. He then led Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) as executive director from 2010 until his retirement in 2018. 

He was known by many as a master woodworker, skilled handyman, prolific author, disciplined goal-setter and writer of life-purpose statements, problem solver and mentor, teacher and preacher, and loving husband, father, and grandfather. He is also remembered for his seemingly limitless reserve of energy, his deep commitment to Christ and the church, and the close relationships he formed with those he worked with and served. 

Stutzman died on June 3, 2025, at age 72 from complications following a five-year battle with cancer. A memorial service was held on June 8 at Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, where he was an active member. View a recording of the service, along with the full obituary, on the church’s website here:

“Ervin was deeply committed to the church and to preparing seminary students to serve and lead in pastoral and other roles,” said Dr. Loren Swartzendruber, president of 91����Ƶ from 2003 to 2016. “He was a gifted administrator who contributed wisdom and energy to the entire university while serving as dean of the seminary. He was also a much-loved professor and mentor to many students.”

Professor Emeritus Lonnie Yoder, who was on the seminary faculty from 1991 to 2021, described Stutzman as a caring administrator and “very supportive dean.” “He was incredibly committed to his role and to the relationships he had with faculty and students,” Yoder said. “He was very purpose-driven. He believed we should all develop life-purpose statements and encouraged all of us to work on them.”

Stutzman himself had written a life-purpose statement that he often referenced, Yoder said. According to an by MC USA, part of Stutzman’s statement read: “In response to God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I purpose to follow after God with all my heart … so that God may be glorified in my life at all times and in every way.”

“He was one of the most highly disciplined people I think I’ve ever met,” Yoder said. “I was always amazed at his capacity to do everything that he did.”

Among Stutzman’s contributions to EMS was a $2 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to develop the LEAP (Learning, Experiencing, And Participating) Program. The initiative, which began in 2003, aimed to help high school students hone their leadership skills, explore Christ-centered theological studies and pastoral ministry, and engage in intercultural learning experiences (with travels to countries including Zimbabwe, Jamaica, and Colombia).

“The key was that Ervin, and it was a stroke of genius by him, wanted the program to be characterized by diversity,” Yoder said. “It allowed high school-age youth to get outside their comfort zone and engage with other talented and committed youth. In that sense, I think Ervin was ahead of his time.”

Stutzman was born on April 27, 1953, in an Amish home in Kalona, Iowa, to Emma and Tobias Stutzman. He grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, where his family moved after his father’s death when Stutzman and his twin, Erma, were just three years old. He was the only one in his family to graduate from high school.

Stutzman received his PhD in rhetoric and communication from Temple University (1993), MA degrees in religion from EMS (1999) and communications from the University of Cincinnati (1979), and a BA in Christian ministries from Cincinnati Bible College (1978).

He wrote several historical novelizations of true Amish stories, including those of his parents’ lives, Emma: A Widow Among the Amish and Tobias of the Amish, and Return to Northkill, a three-book series on the life of his ancestor, Jacob Hochstedler. He also wrote several other books about Mennonite history, life, and thought.

Professor Emeritus Dorothy Jean Weaver, who joined the seminary faculty in 1984 and retired in 2018, noted Stutzman’s productive nature. “The fact that, in the midst of everything else he was doing, he wrote all those books, shows some real commitment and focus,” she said. 

Weaver co-led a 2007 study tour to the Holy Land that Stutzman and his wife, Bonnie, joined and recalled that the couple were part of a small group that climbed the steep slopes of Mount Tabor on foot. “I was always a little worried that Ervin would assume the rest of us had the same level of energy he had,” she said.��

Another vivid memory Weaver has of the former EMS dean is of the beautifully handmade wooden crafts that Ervin and Bonnie gifted seminary faculty and staff each Christmas. One of those gifts, a domed wooden paperweight inscribed with the EMS motif and initialed “ERS ’06,” remains on some office desks in the Seminary Building today nearly 19 years after being given. 

“I think of him being well-placed in this seminary because he was naturally gifted as a strong administrator and he cared ever so deeply about the church,” Weaver said. “He was the right person at the right place.” 

At EMS, Stutzman succeeded George Brunk III ’61, SEM ’64 as dean. He was followed by Dr. Michael King ’76, who became dean in July 2010 after a six-month interim term by Sara Wenger Shenk. Before becoming dean, King, as owner of Cascadia Publishing House, had worked with Stutzman to prepare his book, Tobias of the Amish, for publication. “In that sense, I had a lot of opportunity to get to know him,” King said.

“He was a very hard worker,” King said. “He was passionate about fulfilling his assignments as a leader.”

One of the most challenging roles of the dean’s job is to maintain accreditation with the Association of Theological Schools (EMS has been an accredited member since 1986), as well as the support of the United Methodist Church for training its Methodist students. Both of those accreditations were key to maintaining a student body in numbers high enough for EMS to remain successful and viable.

“During my tenure, I worked closely on both accreditations, always building on the work Ervin had done,” said King, dean of EMS from 2010 to 2017. “I always knew I owed a tremendous debt to the very careful work Ervin had done in setting the stage in prior accreditations.”

While dean, King was an advisory council member of the seminary’s Preaching Institute, a program Stutzman established and chaired that provides pastors and lay leaders with an opportunity to develop their preaching skills. “That was an excellent experience,” King said. “I believe it may be on hiatus at this point, but it was a very valuable program in its day.”

Ervin married Bonita “Bonnie” Lee Haldeman MA ’05 (church leadership) of Manheim, Pennsylvania, in 1974. Together, they served as volunteers for Rosedale Mennonite Missions in Cincinnati for five years.

In 1982, at age 29, Ervin moved with his young family to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and became associate pastor of Mount Joy Mennonite Church, while also serving as the associate director for Home Ministries at Eastern Mennonite Missions. Just 18 months later, he began a half-time role as district overseer for Lancaster Mennonite Conference, and from 1991 to 2000, he served as their conference moderator.

“As I recall, he once joked that he lived his adult life in decades,” Yoder said. “He was involved in Lancaster Mennonite Conference for a decade, and then EMS for a decade, and then MC USA for a decade, approximately.”

Bonnie, who supported Ervin as his wife for 51 years, described him as “everyone’s dream of a husband—he would do whatever needed to get done.” At their home just a handful of blocks from campus, Ervin built all the cabinets, countertops, bookshelves, and furniture. She said he spent six months creating a 290-page, leather-bound book of journal entries, photos, and reflections as a gift for their 50th anniversary. “He was always teaching himself new skills,” she said.

“He was a visionary,” she said, “a big-picture person.”

In their retirement, Ervin and Bonnie biked thousands of miles on their e-bikes and traveled the country in their RV. Before he died, he wrote a yet-unpublished memoir.

“He was nourished by being outdoors, eating good food, regular church attendance, a spiritual life of prayer and contemplation, and keeping peace with fellow people,” Bonnie said. “He was a man of integrity.”

Ervin was preceded in death by his son Daniel Tobias Stutzman. His beloved spouse Bonita survives, as do two children: Emma Ruth (Stutzman) Dawson (Iowa City, Iowa), along with her sons Felix Tobias Dawson and Caius Lysander Dawson, and Benjamin Lee Stutzman and his wife Andrea Joy (Kniss) Stutzman (Harrisonburg, VA), along with their children Eva René Stutzman and Evan Rafael Stutzman. His twin Erma Mae (Stutzman) Yoder (Ephrata, PA) is his only surviving sibling.

Portions of this article are from the on Ervin Stutzman. 

“Every course in this series is brand new,” said Cook, academic program director for the seminary’s Pathways for Tomorrow grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and visiting assistant professor of Christian ethics. “We built an academic and professional degree that’s cohesive, integrative, and invites students to bring their whole person.”

The D.Min. program at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS) is the first of its kind to combine study in the fields of justice, peacemaking, and theology. Students who graduate the three-year online program will receive a terminal degree that equips them to lead in faith-based settings, including in congregations, nonprofits, community organizing, and some teaching roles. The program is accredited by The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and is pending accreditation approval by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS).

Applications are now being accepted for the first cohort of students starting in August 2025. Cohort capacity is limited, so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. Along with their applications, candidates must submit three references, an academic writing sample, and a personal statement. 

EMS looks forward to begin extending offers of admission in March, and will continue to review applications as part of a rolling admissions process. Scholarships will be awarded to D.Min. program applicants on the basis of academic merit, leadership strengths, and financial need.

Students in the online doctoral program will complete one course at a time, devoting about 15 hours per week to their coursework. Those courses can be completed fully asynchronously, allowing students — who also will be engaged in practicing ministry — to fulfill their personal and ministerial commitments.

The Rev. Dr. Sarah Ann Bixler, assistant professor of formation and practical theology and associate dean of EMS, said this flexibility and balance is essential in providing support for student success.

“We want our D.Min. program to contribute to leaders’ wholeness,” she said. “EMS will support students to complete their doctoral degree in a timely fashion with integrity and flexibility. Students will be encouraged to pursue doctoral research that enhances their current ministry, rather than draining energy from the heart of their calling.”

Each course in the D.Min. program is designed and taught by continuing-contract, full-time EMS faculty with terminal degrees (PhD or D.Min.) in specific fields relevant to the courses they’re teaching. That’s something not seen at a lot of other Doctor of Ministry programs, which are often run on the labor of contingent faculty, Bixler said.

“This struck me as a justice issue, unethical for the program we envisioned in peacemaking and social change,” she said.

The D.Min. program reflects 91����Ƶ’s core values of academic excellence, peace and justice, and active faith, providing a transformative education that prepares leaders to engage in ministry with integrity and purpose.

For more information about the Doctor of Ministry degree offered at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, visit:

Read more

• 91����Ƶ News (July 2024): “Board of Trustees approves new Doctor of Ministry program”

• (January 2025): “Eastern Mennonite Seminary to offer first doctor of ministry program”

The Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) in Peacemaking and Social Change program, approved by the 91����Ƶ Board of Trustees at its meeting in June, is an advanced, professionally oriented degree that will equip graduates to lead in faith-based settings, including in congregations, nonprofits, community organizing, and some teaching roles. EMS faculty have designed this program to invite students to  engage in embodied, critical theological reflection on theories and practices of peacemaking and social change, developing their capacity to strategically foster communities of action for constructive change toward peace.

Courses in the three-year program can be completed fully asynchronously online, and are expected to begin during the summer or fall term of 2025.

These courses include: Theologies of Nonviolence, Justice and Peace; Theologies of Liberation; Religion and Social Change; Peacemaking Practices; Scriptures and the Ministry of Peacemaking; Trauma-Informed Spiritual Care; Analysis of Self and Systems; and Research Methods and Design. Each of these courses has been designed specially for the D.Min. program. 

In a 2021 survey of seminary alumni and students, 37 percent of respondents named a doctoral degree as something they believed EMS should consider adding. With enrollment in D.Min. programs steadily rising at ATS schools each year, the addition will help EMS meet an increased demand for a professional ministry doctorate.

“No other theological schools offer a D.Min. program in peacemaking and social change,” said Jacob Cook, academic program director for the seminary’s Pathways for Tomorrow grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and visiting assistant professor of Christian ethics. “This is who we are. This is at the heart of all we do.”

Candidates for the D.Min. program are required to have a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree from an accredited school — or achieve M.Div. equivalency — with three or more years of post-M.Div. ministry experience.

The new program is pending accreditation approval by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. 

For more information about Eastern Mennonite Seminary degrees and programs, visit. 

Stay tuned for future 91����Ƶ News updates on this significant new academic program!

The new degree, grounded in Anabaptist theology, is among the seminary’s latest innovative offerings. EMS is distinguished among U.S. seminaries for its historic emphasis on peace and justice and its location within a larger Anabaptist university, according to The Rev. Dr. Sarah Bixler, associate dean of the seminary and assistant professor of formation and practical theology.

“Our seminary faculty members are excited at the new possibilities this degree offers to attract a global community of students seeking deeper academic study in theology and culture, biblical studies, or peacebuilding infused with an Anabaptist perspective,” exclaimed Bixler.

A growing number of seminary students are coming to EMS with professional and personal interests outside the traditional avenues of pastoral ministry, she said.

“This new degree answers their need to expand their knowledge and skills in culture and peacebuilding within EMS’s long-standing curricular excellence in skills for ministry,” Bixler shared.

The MATS includes 15 core units, with 21 elective units focusing on the student’s specialized study in concentrations of theology and culture, biblical studies, or peacebuilding. 

This degree will equip nonprofit leaders, leaders in nonpastoral settings who want to explore the intersection of theology and another field of study, students who wish to pursue further graduate study below the PhD level, and students who want to study theology for personal enrichment.

“This flexible, short, new degree program is a unique slice of EMS’s distinctive curriculum, with core grounding in spiritual formation, biblical studies and peace theology and more coursework in elective offerings that students choose to meet their personal interests and vocational needs,” said The Rev. Dr. Jacob Cook, academic program director for the seminary’s Pathways for Tomorrow grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and visiting professor of Christian ethics.

Lilly Endowment’s consistent financial support places EMS on the cutting edge of education among select North American theological schools. In 2022 and 2023, the seminary received two separate grants of $1 million or more each: The Pathways for Tomorrow grant focuses on resources and training for pastoral and lay leaders to address 21st century challenges, while a second grant received in 2023 supports research, practice and resources in Christian parenting. 

Students can expect to become well-versed in seminary distinctives with direct practical application such as formation for peacebuilding, adaptive leadership and conflict transformation, Cook said. Learning is rooted in Anabaptist perspectives, threaded with an invitation to explore theologies of nonviolence and practices for just peacemaking and transformational leadership.

Prospective students are encouraged to talk with seminary faculty and staff about their learning goals and objectives, as each degree program has been designed with a different focus, Bixler said.

The MATS, with 36 required units, is the shortest graduate degree offered by the seminary with an academic focus and integrated emphasis. The 48-unit MA in Christian leadership is focused on professional skills for pastoral leadership, while the 60-unit MA in religion prioritizes academic preparation in the theological disciplines. The Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree, at 81 units, is required for ordination in some denominations.

Imagine your congregation shape-shifting into and out of spaces as it grows – a good problem – but one with its own stressors.

Imagine one of your most fervent members being a man who lives under a bridge and struggles with addiction, whom you affectionately call “Tony the Evangelist,” because he hands out the church’s business cards among his homeless friends. “You gotta come and see,” he said, of Ripple Church. And they do.

Think about how it would feel to get a phone call in March from the police, who found one of those business cards in Tony’s pocket. He had been sleeping in a garbage dumpster and was crushed by a compactor early one morning, later dying from his injuries.

“Three hundred people turned out for his funeral, and we’re still grieving,” says Tom Albright, an Eastern Mennonite Seminary graduate who founded Allentown’s , a congregation in the of , with his wife Carolyn.

Imagine the uncertainty, the conviction, the joy, the challenge of such work.

Reviving Spirits and Hearts

Oasis. The name implies a place where thirsts are quenched and spirits revived. Each summer for two weeks, opens its doors and classrooms to pastors and church leaders seeking respite and soul care. The program is part of the (SISF), which provides training and optional certification for spiritual directors.

Director calls both programs “a spiritual camp for adults, a truly life-giving program for many pastors who need space and support in processing their work and their own spiritual direction.”

For Tom and Carolyn Albright, Oasis was a welcome opportunity to worship, to meet with spiritual directors, to enjoy the stimulation and engagement of classes without the obligation to meet credit requirements. The week at EMS was, in some way, an anniversary celebration of their past milestones: the Albrights both earned certificates of spiritual formation by attending SISF every summer from 2007 to 2009; additionally, Tom and Carolyn both earned certificates of ministry studies in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

Ripple Church: an ‘experiment’ in urban ministry

Those years at the seminary, beginning in 2007, also mark a time of transformation, uprooting and calling when the SISF environment of openness and questioning helped the Albrights discern their future.

The couple started Ripple Church in 2006 in their home community of Whitehall and after three years, moved with the church into the heart of Allentown – with more than 118,000 residents and a 42 percent Hispanic population, Pennsylvania’s third-largest and first Hispanic-majority city.

One reason the couple decided to live in urban ministry was a question posed by a regular attendee: “Why,” she asked, “are churches leaving the city? Why don’t you bring Ripple into the city?”

When they did, hosting weekday meetings at a community center in Allentown called , “I felt the call,” Tom said, “and Carolyn did too.” In 2009, with the blessing of their adult children, they embarked on what was at first a conference-related ministry of the Franconia Conference. After multiple moves, Ripple lives comfortably at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in the downtown area.

Five pastors, all of whom are bi-vocational, work with Ripple’s congregation of more than 100: Carolyn, a bilingual fourth-grade teacher; Tom, a career counselor for special needs youth at Freedom High School; Angela Moyer, MDiv ’12, an occupational therapist; Danilo Sanchez, MDiv ’13, who also works for ; and Ben Walter, a Biblical Theological Institute graduate who also is a house painter.

Worship in circles joins hearts, community

Tom calls Ripple a “restorative church,” a concept that he fine-tuned while earning a second master’s degree at Bethlehem’s . Speaking at the IIRP World Conference in 2013, that traditional churches measure success by how many people attend and how much money is being brought in. “In a restorative church, though, we measure by relationships and ripples. How are relationships forming and how is that spreading out into the community? It’s a whole different way of living, working and worshiping in the city.”

The church meets in three smaller groups, with pastors sharing leadership in a rotation pattern – an innovative idea that developed because of lack of space, but eventually has become the congregation’s much-beloved format. The Church of the Tables, the Church of the Circles, and the Church of the Sidewalk each have their own unique feel. Worship services begin with a simple and short message, and then move into discussion.

The Church of the Sidewalk, held on the steps in a semi-covered porch, was immediately popular with smokers and people who wanted to bring their dogs. Hosting worship here provided a welcoming symbolic place, because, as Tom says, “the doors of church are incredibly hard to get people through.” Those who worshiped at this church were a hardy and loyal bunch. When winter came to Allentown, the group turned down offers to come inside. Ripple Church bought pole heaters and blankets and carpet squares to sit on, and the Church of the Sidewalk missed only one Sunday through the winter because of snow.

During their week of Oasis, the Albrights enjoyed bike rides in the country, daily worship at Martin Chapel, visits and dinner with friends, and mentoring by spiritual directors. Carolyn took a class in sustaining practices in congregational worship, “good because we are meeting so many different needs,” she said, adding that the church ministers to many on “the margins,” such as the homeless, non-native speakers, people struggling with addiction, and single parents.

The Albrights returned to Allentown refreshed and thankful. “The spiritual direction feeds my soul,” Tom said. “Sometimes you just need someone to listen to what you’re thinking and what you’re going through. We know that self-care and discernment are important parts of pastoring and this place has been formative for us in so many ways.”

On Saturday, April 25, he made one final trip to campus for the seminary’s commencement ceremony to celebrate the earning of two degrees: a master of divinity and a .

In contrast, Seth Miller, also a new seminary graduate, simply walked up the hill from the Maplewood Residence Hall, where he is residence director for 91����Ƶ undergraduate students. Miller came to the seminary after several years as a teacher at Lancaster Mennonite School and in public educational settings in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

And then there’s Kathryn Fenton, of Harrisonburg, who created seven mixed media paintings based on the principles of Mennonite faith to partially fulfill thesis requirements for a . And Misty Wintsch, a Church of the Brethren pastor from Pennsylvania, whose ministry specialization project for her included studying about and performing funerals for the “unchurched.”

These are a fraction of the various stories that could be shared about this year’s graduating class of 33, the largest since 1988.

“There is sorrow in letting go of such a large and gifted class of graduates,” said , vice president and seminary dean. “Yet the very qualities that make it hard to see them go underscore the great gifts of ministry, leadership, and authentic relating they’re primed to share with the world.”

Twenty-five students received master of divinity degrees, with five of these also receiving dual master’s degrees in conflict transformation or . Four students received a master‘s degree in church leadership and four students received a master‘s degree in religion.

Additionally, nine students received .

Religious backgrounds and affiliations varied, including Mennonite, United Methodist, Church of the Brethren, Presbyterian, and non-denominational. The class includes students from India, Honduras, and Chile.

“It is challenging to do what you are going forth to do,” said L. Gregory Jones, PhD, professor of theology and Christian ministry at Duke Divinity School. His commencement address, “For Such a Time as This,” was based around the Biblical book of Esther and suggested that perhaps these graduates were prepared for just this moment in the church.

“God raises up people like you in order to do things you would never have done,” he said. Jones encouraged graduates to practice fasting and spiritual disciplines, hospitality and peacemaking – practices that will provide spiritual sustenance in challenging times.

“We have a responsibility to God who calls us to become what we are not yet,” said Lizzette Hernandez, class president, speaking to the ongoing journey that continues after commencement. “We respond to God so that we can minister, not to the church that is, but to the church that will be.”