Brad Graber and others will lead us in a time of singing, prayer, and reflection as part of our chapel worship service.

Art Gish returned in early March from a term as a Christian Peacemaker Team volunteer in Iraq. He will share stories from his experience in convocation and also visit several classes throughout the day. This convocation begins an Iraq Awareness Week sponsored by the GC Student Senate.

Three students will share their stories of year-long volunteer service in the middle of their college education. Jenna Preheim spent one year in Fresno, CA with Mennonite Voluntary Service. Isaac Hooley spent one year with Mennonite Central Committee in Jamaica. Emily Yoder spent a year in Hutchinson, KS with MVS. Also on hand will be Jeremy Kempf, from Mennonite Mission Network, leading us in worship.

The campus community is invited to gather for a prayer service honoring our sister school Bluffton University, and the recent tragic accident involving their baseball team.

Come and encounter the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel through singing, scripture, and reflections. Students Jeff Hochstetler and Tina Peters, and professor Kyle Schlabach will share personal reflections of the “Jesus of Mark” they experienced based on their read-through of Mark’s sixteen chapters. Student Karen Graber will lead us in several hymns based on passages found in Mark.

Faculty leader Beverly Lapp and students from the summer 2006 Peru SST unit will tell us about that country and their experiences.

Campus Health & Wellness committee presents a convocation on relationships and technology.

Professor of Physics Carl Helrich was not raised in any church, yet at some point he encountered the God who speaks language in ways that he, and all of us, could understand. Come and hear more of Carl’s faith story.

Griffith is a Catholic pacifist who lives in South Bend and teaches writing. His latest book is about the photographs of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison camp in Iraq: what they tell us and what effect they had.

The students involved in the making of ‘Fuerza,’ a documentary about Mexico-Goshen connections, share stories from the production. Some of the narrative refers to video clips unavailable in this podcast. Soluz Films, the producers of the ‘Fuerza,’ have a website at http://www.soluzfilms.com/

Come hear guest artist and speaker Johnathan Miller, a youth pastor from Faith Apostolic Ministries of South Bend, Indiana. Pastor Johnathan will share from his urban youth ministry context in both word and song. In addition, Voices-n-Harmony will open our time of worship together with a few songs.

Goshen resident J.D. Hershberger shares his story of potential and choices with students and the campus community.

President Brenneman leads this opening covocation on the theme “I resolve”

This service will be led by Profesor Deb Brubaker and members of her hymn leading class.

Prof. Malinda Berry & students,Professor Malinda Berry and students from the fall semester class with this title will present a convocation.

Since the European Enlightenment, people in the Western world have understood themselves increasingly as individual minds capable of rationality and reason though hampered by their bodies and emotions. This understanding has been challenged by many different movements such as feminism, civil rights movements, inter-cultural dialogues etc. In my talk, I will contribute two additional refutations of this reduced view of humanity, one from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and one from a Biblical perspective. As strange as it might seem to combine these seemingly unconnected views I will argue that the cutting edge technology developed in Embodied AI is based on anthropological assumptions that are key for the Biblical view of humanity: our deeply embodied self, our fundamental sociability and our need to judge and create differences among ourselves.

The world we live in too often invites hopelessness. Wealth and violence and apathy and isolation, so much of what we see erects barriers between people–and it’s difficult to maintain the fervor necessary to respond faithfully. How can the church live out its mission of witness in this world without failing to receive the word in joy (Luke 8:13)? On November 17, five students will share stories and lessons from living together in intentional community and learning from others with experience. Life in community, we suggest, has the potential to truly bind us together in love. Life in community, even with its difficulties and dangers, teaches us to live ‘with glad and generous hearts’ (Acts 2:46), loving our neighbor and praising God.

Shimomura is the 2006 Eric Yake Kenagy guest art lecturer. His art–sometimes playful and sometimes poignant–often draws on his own experience, depicting Japanese-American cross-cultural interaction.

Students from the Senegal SST unit will tell about their experience in that West African country.

Janeen Bertsche Johnson, campus pastor at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, IN, will preach on “Finding Our Voice” from Mark 7:31-37.