by Ken Burkholder, Conference Moderator (Deep Run East)
“Shalom in the Streets: Recapturing God’s Vision in Ordinary Places” was the theme for the annual School for Leadership Training (SLT) at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, January 13-15, 2020. I attend SLT every year (I think this is my 17th year), primarily to connect with former seminary colleagues, faculty, and other church leaders across the denomination. For me, these connections are so attractive that if the theme and speakers are good, it’s a bonus!
This year’s theme was meaningful, inspirational, and relevant to church ministry. As the planning committee noted, “The key to thriving in ministry resides not in new answers to large-scale challenges but by truly embracing the very people found in the places where we live and work.” The theme verse was Jeremiah 29:7 – Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
These final words challenged me to think in a new way. I reflected on how, when the people and community where I minister flourish, I also usually flourish personally, and our congregational life flourishes too. While this could potentially feel overwhelming, one of the keynote speakers reminded us, “Making the world better for one person… makes the world better.”
One particular highlight for me at SLT was hearing Shannan Martin’s key-note presentation. Shannan shared her personal journey about her family (including husband and four children) sensing God’s call to move from the comfortable suburbs into downtown Goshen, Indiana. I was inspired by her stories of how they have intentionally embraced their community by building authentic relationships with many of their neighbors. In fact, one of Shannan’s family’s rules is that they’re not allowed to invite anyone to their church until they’ve first hosted that person/family in their home.
Another significant highlight for me was the 20th anniversary celebration dinner and program for Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) at EMS. CPE was one of the most valuable and formative experiences for me during seminary. Several areas of focus in CPE, such as insights toward greater self-awareness in how I function as a person and leader, family-of-origin work, family systems theory, and field experience of serving in hospital and retirement community ministry (including several crisis situations) provided me with invaluable preparation for pastoral ministry and ongoing personal growth. It was a joy being part of the celebration to honor Kenton Derstine, as he is now retiring. Kenton is originally from Franconia Conference, having attended Souderton Mennonite as a child and youth, and has served as the CPE supervisor at EMS for the past twenty years.
“The extent to which we are surprised by the results of the election demonstrates the poverty of our relationships. The extent to which we don’t understand the need for immigration reform demonstrates the poverty of our relationships.” As I listened to 
One of the things I love about SLT is that it turns people of authority into students for a few days. The ones I’m used to seeing up front at conference and denominational events are sitting and listening, taking notes and asking questions. At SLT, we participants — the majority of us white church leaders with a significant amount of agency in our daily lives — learned from keynote speakers Dr. Cleveland and 
Using illustrations from scripture and their lives, the speakers explored the depth of race’s impact on our society. They explored how our racialized society maintains itself and why it’s so hard for white people to see and confront racism — why we need people with a “view from the underside,” in Hart’s words, to recognize it. They called the largely white audience to recognize how we’ve been socialized into racial bias, and that Jesus never called us to shame but to repentance and new life together. Dr. Cleveland showed us by example how to notice privilege in our own lives. We were being tutored in how to reach beyond ourselves as a demonstration of respect and also of our need.
But it’s not just that we need each other’s perspective, or that we need to learn from one another to understand Jesus’ message. No, we each have a role to play in dismantling racism, wherever we are. When we’re uncomfortable we can benefit by staying at the table and continuing the conversation. In fact, that’s what we were doing at the conference: listening, learning, checking our assumptions and discerning our next steps. One conference attendee asked Drew Hart, “What can I do about racism in my predominantly white community?” and Hart responded, “You’re right at the center of the action!” Throughout the conference I heard calls to learn and act right where we are, building relationships with our literal neighbors. I attended a workshop where we practiced listening to people we disagreed with. In another workshop we discussed what it means to “seek the peace of the city” where you are (Jer. 29:7) and spent some time brainstorming for our own contexts.