Pastors Week Workshops

This workshop will identify ways the practice of testimony have helped shape Christian identity in the Black church. Testimony, also known as testifying, is a vital practice in many churches, allowing worshippers to be witnesses of the power of God in the lives of their fellow congregants, while also inviting them to be co-strugglers with each other and with God during difficult times.

You Are Witnesses
Goshen Interplayers

To witness an event and to tell others about it changes us: our perspectives, maybe our values or commitments. With the Goshen Interplayers explore the power of telling our stories and watching other witnesses respond with movement, story and sound.

Postmodernism: New Opportunities and Limits for Testimony
Andy Brubacher Kaethler

This workshop will, first, explore what people mean by “postmodernism,” emphasizing changing attitudes towards knowledge and narrative, and second, consider what this means for ways the church can reclaim testimony with integrity in postmodern contexts.

Personal Testimony in Proclamation
June Alliman Yoder

Preachers have a wonderful opportunity to tell what they see God doing in their own lives and in the lives of others in the congregation. But the preacher needs to give care to what is appropriate and what will promote God’s purposes. Together let us look at where our stories unite with God’s stories. Indeed an illustration is not necessarily a testimony.

Embracing My Story: Autobiography in Biblical Interpretation
Steven Schweitzer

A recent trend in biblical interpretation uses autobiography as an effective means of reading Scripture. When we allow our own stories to be voiced (whether written or oral) we are better able to engage the biblical story and to see God’s involvement in our present. Together we will explore ways of connecting our first-person reflections with the Bible, and consider new insights from this innovative method.

Talking About Faith
Dale Shenk

As Bible instructor at Bethany Christian High School in Goshen, Indiana, each year Dale Shenk requires senior students to describe the basic contours of their faith in a formal setting just prior to graduation. These authentic testimonials have proven powerful to students, teachers and families alike. This workshop will explore what adults can learn about testimony-giving from several years of student stories.

Pilgrimage and Testimony
Arthur Paul Boers

“Pilgrimage” is a metaphor both for our Christian journey and for what we say in testimonies. Yet actual Christian pilgrimages are being renewed (e.g. Iona, Taize, labyrinths). We will explore pilgrimage: discovering and reclaiming it both as metaphor and practice, how it can deepen our sense of Christian life and enrich our testimony, and its opportunities for engaging spiritual seekers.

The Best of Testimony in Contemporary Literature
Ann Hostetler and David Wright

In recent years writers like Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris and Wendell Berry have caught the attention of thousands of readers both inside and outside the church through their reflections on faith. This workshop will introduce participants to several authors whose faith memoirs have sparked faith conversations in unexpected places and will familiarize participants with the “best of” in current testimony literature.

Stories that Transform Congregations
Linford King and Marlene Kropf, Denominational Ministers (Mennonite Church USA Executive Leadership)

This workshop explores the transforming role of stories in congregational life in two settings: spiritual formation of leaders (such as elders, deacons, and church councils) and group spiritual direction. Guest presenters Kevin Farmwald and Brenda Sawatzky Paetkau, pastors of Eighth Street Mennonite Church in Goshen, Indiana, will reflect on the critical role of stories in spiritual direction groups they lead.

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Contact the Church Leadership Center
(574) 296-6269
ChurchLeadership@ambs.edu