Identity and Vocation

In every generation God's spirit emboldens God's people to ask anew what we are called to in this time and this place.  As Eastern Mennonite Seminary, we deepen our search with the following questions:  What saving work is God initiating in the world that summons our wholehearted participation as a community of learning?  How do our lives become an offering of praise and gratitude for God's initiative toward us in Jesus Christ? How do we make known the goodness of God's salvation in a world burdened by economic, social, environmental and personal degradation?  Amidst cultures flooded by fear, what does it mean to call people to devote their primary allegiance to the reign of God that transcends national boundaries, as revealed to us in Jesus Christ?

As a seminary embedded within a small Christian liberal arts university we also ask,  "Who are we?"  What is our identity as a learning community within this network of learning communities?  What is our particular vocation in the broader university, within the Mennonite work out responses to these questions as we build up our more integrated relationship with the undergraduate Bible, religion and theology department, within the School of Theology, the Humanities and the Performing Arts. We claim our particular role at EMU as graduate-level scholars and practitioners in the theological disciplines.  We seek to make our study and our practice accessible as we converse with the Anabaptist-related communities of the eastern United States, and among the various other denominations seeking to serve . We also welcome the gifts and challenges brought to the seminary by other Christian denominations and faith communities, as together we live into our vocation as part of God's mission in our region?the region and around the world.

As students and minister within communities of worship and mission beyond as well as within EMU, we cultivate perspectives that are life-giving and thought-provoking as we study and serve.  We seek to model a way of being in the world that show forth God's shalom.  We desire that our life and work will be noteworthy because we are Christians who covenant together to proclaim that God is love, to live justly, to love our enemies, to tell the truth, and to care for creation.

...