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 “Discernment, Fear, and Hope.”

Matthew  Hunsberger leads the Seminary community in a time of sung discernment awareness. Matt’s gift of song and awareness of music’s 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 “Discernment Training Center” (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, “Discerning the Good News in the Real World: Subversive God-Learnings from a 3-M Perspective.”

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a “Discernment Training Center” (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  and Coordinator of the .  In this chapel gathering in the Seminary, Linda offers reflections on the topic  of, “Personal Spiritual Discernment: Finding God’s Answers to Life’s Questions.”

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a “Discernment Training Center” (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.”  .

Seminary Dean has begun to articulate a vision for EMS as a “Discernment Training Center” (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 “Discernment Training Center” (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 “Discernment Training Center” (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.

, 91¶ĚĘÓƵ Vice President and Dean of begins the Seminary’s  Fall 2013 Spiritual Life Week with reflections on : “The 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 “Discernment Training Center” (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.

, 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 ).  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’ 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—only as if through a mirror dimly.  That means that anything I’ve shared with you is partly wrong, partly misguided.  I have tried in what I’ve shared…to be fair to various points of view.  But I’m sure you can read in my fallibilities that I am more connected with some ways of thinking Christ than others.  I think it’s important…as we think about clenched fists…not to equate the passionate holding to our beliefs, with the problem.  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.  And my dream is not that those passions would cease being articulated, and even advocated for.  My dream, rather, is that this could be a kind of demilitarized zone…a place where we don’t get shot, the moment we wade into points of disagreement and tension.  So I do pray that’s a piece of what we can experience [at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 2012] in a world that so badly needs this Seminary, this University—to 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’m so deeply moved by the music we’ve just heard and its tremendous balm of peace, and I’m struck by how quickly we shatter that experience of peace, the moment we go from sitting here singing it, to actually engaging it.  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.  If we can’t 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’t 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’re 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.  In that hope and in that prayer, I commend us to the new year.  Blessings.”

The entire campus community is invited to every chapel worship service on campus. hosts chapel gatherings in Martin Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday; 91¶ĚĘÓƵ Campus Ministries hosts chapel gatherings every Wednesday and Friday in Lehman Auditorium. Specifics and occasional changes are noted in individual chapel listings.