Anabaptist Mennonite Bible Seminary (AMBS) will hold “Pastors & Leaders 2025 | Anabaptism at 500: Looking Back, Living Forward” Monday to Thursday, February 17 – 20, 2025 on the AMBS campus. Although in-person registration has reached capacity, registration for the livestream of the event is open.
Mennonite Mission Network staff will hold workshops on Wednesday, February 19 throughout the day. See the full schedule.
Wednesday, February 19
8:30 – 9:30 a.m.
Afrocentric Anabaptists
Wil LaVeist, Senior Executive of Advancement
Learn the value of culturally competent encounters from the perspectives of Anabaptists of Africa and of African descent in the Americas as part of a documentary project on how they joined the Mennonite church as a result of mission outreach.
Looking back, living forward: An African woman’s recollections of 40 years of a Pietist, Evangelical, Wesleyan, Pentecostal and Anabaptist faith (1985–2025)
Sibonokuhle Ncube, Regional Director for Africa and Europe
Anabaptism has never been a monolithic faith tradition but one that is richly influenced by other traditions and cultural factors that impact how Christian discipleship is embodied in context. From her early Christian formation as a young Zimbabwean in the Brethren in Christ Church to her current role as a minister in Mennonite Church USA, the facilitator will share about various influences on her identity as an ecowomanist who is following the way of Jesus as an obedient pacifist Christian. This reflective session will open space for participants to name, honor, revise or simply think about the influences on their faith as they continue living into faithful discipleship within God’s kingdom reign.
Pilgrimage: Embarking on a journey toward a Just Peace
Joani Miller, Director of Training and Resources, and Andrew Suderman, Director of Global Partnerships
Over the past three years, Mennonite Mission Network (MMN) has walked with congregations and communities in the U.S. in exploring what it means to work towards a just peace from across the street to around the world. MMN has created “Just Peace Pilgrimages” as experiential learning opportunities through which participants can see, unpack and be challenged by what it means to be a community dedicated to the ways of peace and justice in the world. This workshop will highlight three MMN Just Peace Pilgrimages — United States Civil Rights; Christ at the Borders; and Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples — reflecting on what we have learned through the process.
1:30 – 2:30 p.m.
From Antioch to Addis: Strategies for church growth
Henok T. Mekonin and Joe Sawatzky
This workshop will explore two case studies of church growth: the biblical account of the church in Antioch and the example of the Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia — the largest member church in Mennonite World Conference. By presenting and highlighting connections between these two models of the church in mission, this workshop aims to provoke conversation about and uncover some potential strategies for the growth of Anabaptist-Mennonite communities today.
