Emily Graber
emilyrg@goshen.edu

Last summer I was part of the !Explore program with Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and worked at Methacton Mennonite Church as a pastoral intern. This summer, with one year of college completed, I have returned to Methacton through Goshen College’s Ministry Inquiry Program (MIP). I was excited to be invited back to Methacton this summer and I am grateful for the opportunity to continue my “exploration” or “inquiry” into pastoral ministry. I have never enjoyed my work as much as I do when working with the church.

Nearly everyone I meet asks me what I do and the answer is a bit complex. The short version is this: I do a lot of the things a pastor does. In other words, I preach, teach children’s Sunday school some, go to a number of meetings, read a lot of literature, write articles for the local church magazine, and do some other smaller, though equally important tasks.

In the first three weeks of my internship this summer, I have rediscovered my love for preaching. Even more than the actual delivery of my sermons, I love the researching and writing that a good sermon requires. Writing sermons gives me the perfect opportunity to learn about things I want to without the extremely full and busy schedule of school, which takes up most of my year. So far I’ve written and preached two sermons. This summer, Methacton is following the series “Things that Make for Peace” from the Leader magazine. Last summer, I chose what I wanted to learn and preach about, but this summer, with the sermon series, it has been much more stretching for me. For me, it’s harder to write a sermon on a pre-chosen text and tie it into a larger theme. It’s been a different experience, but it has certainly been fun and valuable and has made me see a number of Old Testament texts from a new perspective.

The importance of prayer and silence have also been reinforced this summer. Dawn Ruth Nelson, lead pastor and my supervisor at Methacton, has a heart for spiritual formation, silence and prayer. During the last few days of the group portion of the !Explore program, the group had a few hours of silence. To my surprise, I really enjoyed being silent and surrounded by nature, with no technology (not even my watch or ipod). Because of that positive experience and Dawn’s encouragement, I went on a silent retreat near the end last summer’s internship. This summer, just a few weeks after beginning my work with Methacton, several people from the church, including Dawn went to Mariawald Retreat Center for a silent retreat. The retreat was 24 hours long, and included several group sessions to help people focus on a specific theme. There was also the opportunity to have spiritual direction which was something that I knew about but had never participated in. The retreat helped me get out of “school mode,” or the mindset of due dates, papers, and grades, and helped me connect more closely with God and others in the congregation. It was the perfect way to truly begin my summer work. It was an incredibly positive experience and reinforced the importance of silence which gives rest and renewal. This retreat has been the highlight of my summer thus far.

As a second year pastoral intern, I get a lot of questions similar to, “So, you’re going to be a pastor then, right?” I usually smile and answer with an evasive, “I don’t know,” because I honestly don’t know. I love the work I’m doing this summer—the fact that I have returned for a second summer of pastoral work speaks to that, and as I continue this work, I have learned to truly enjoy my job much more than I thought I could enjoy a job. So is this a calling? Perhaps. Is this my only calling? I don’t think so. For now, I’ll just enjoy working closely with God, the pastoral team, and my wonderful congregation, appreciating the learning that happens on all sides, and leave the future up to God.

Emily Graber of Red Hill, Pa. completed her Ministry Inquiry Program experience this month after serving with Methacton Mennonite Church and Franconia Conference. She returns to Goshen College this fall and calls Methacton her home congregation.

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Emily Graber, Methacton
emilygraber@yahoo.com

This summer I participated in the !Explore program with sixteen other youth from across the United States and Canada. !Explore, initiated by Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS), is a program for high school juniors and seniors who are interested in how they could fit into the church. The program includes a 100 hour internship with a church and an 18 day group experience. There are two group experiences during the summer, and mine was in July. Both the internship and the July group were fun learning experiences and I am grateful for the opportunity I had to be involved.

My internship at Methacton Mennonite Church officially began on June 17. That first week I taught Bible school and planned worship for Sunday. It was an incredibly positive experience and it was a good way to begin. I have helped with Bible schools in the past, but this year I was in charge of the teaching part, which ended up being a lot of fun. I taught nine girls, grades 3 and 4. Each day was exciting and I was sad when the week was over.

The second Sunday I led worship, which was much harder than I thought. I enjoyed the planning aspect, but leading was hard because I didn’t feel as though I could worship while I was leading. That week taught me just how hard it is to be up front all the time and how much we should really appreciate our worship leaders and encourage them as they lead.

Then I was off to the Mennonite Youth Convention in San Jose for a week, and the day after I got home from that, I drove with two other !Explorers, Larissa Landis and Lauren Derstine, to AMBS in Elkhart, Indiana, for the group part of the program. Larissa, Lauren, and I spent, July 9-26, with a fun group from all over.

The first few days we spent at Mirror Valley and Amigo Centre retreats in Michigan, getting to know each other. Then we went back to AMBS and studied. We had lectures from professors about various ministry skills, like pastoral care, preaching, and worship leading.

While at AMBS, we were put into theological exploration groups, nicknamed “theolex,” where a group of five or six of us would meet with a professor almost daily and talk about our theological question, which we had to decide on during the application process. My theological question began with where the Bible came from and how we know that the right books were chosen for it. The leaders split us into groups depending on our questions. Other people in my group had questions regarding how wealth in the Mennonite church affects our ability to live simply, how we know the Bible is true, why God lets people suffer, how to talk with people about pacifism, and a study of the book of Revelation. At first, I didn’t see how all of our topics fit together, but by the end, I think we all realized that all the topics had a lot of overlap and were all important. While I began with only a few questions, the more I learned, the more questions I had, and each new question was equally important. It has been through this time of intense questioning that I have grown much closer to God. Theolex was a highlight for me.

After several days at AMBS, we went to Chicago and worked with the Mennonite Mission Network’s DOOR (Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection) program. I worked with kids at a preschool for two days, spent one day boxing up food for elderly and young children, and one day weeding and helping in a community garden. One night Brenda Matthews came and spoke to everyone who was participating that week. She talked about trust and accountability. Her message was challenging. After our week at DOOR, we went back to AMBS and continued our learning, then spent the last few days back at Mirror Valley.

After a wonderful experience with other !Explorers, it was exciting to come back and share what I learned. The last three weeks of my internship with Methacton Mennonite I preached twice, went on a 24 hour silent retreat, and attended an Alpha Conference about sharing faith in contemporary contexts.

!Explore was an amazingly positive experience. I learned a lot about the church, myself, and how I can fit into the church. In the internship I learned the incredible importance of encouraging the leaders. In the group experience I learned that it’s really okay to question, and it’s through questioning that sometimes the greatest growth can occur. I had an absolutely fabulous experience and I hope !Explore continues in the future.

Emily Graber graduated from Chrisptopher Dock High School in 2007. She is currently a student at Goshen (Ind.) College.

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