“This Escuela de Ministerio was more than a conference; it was a prophetic response.” From March 28 – 30, Garrett welcomed more than 60 Latine pastors and lay leaders drawn from six conferences across the North Central Jurisdiction, whose Mission Council grant made this weekend event possible. Celebrating the gathering she helped convene, Rev. Fabiola Grandon-Mayer is emphatic. “In the face of challenges and uncertainty, there is still hope in the Hispanic/Latinx community, which is alive, faithful, resilient, and rising,”

The Escuela de Ministerio is part of a broader institutional commitment to strengthen Latiné pastoral leadership and congregational life, using our resources to create opportunities and connections. “The Escuela emerged from the urgent need for our Latiné pueblo to see the United Methodist Church as a faith community where they can respond to God’s calling and engage in justice work,” says Dr. Emma Escobar, Director of Garrett’s Hispanic-Latinx Center and Assistant Professor of Faith-Based Organizing. “The idea for this program came from the vision of Rev. Fabiola Grandon-Mayer, a Garrett board member and Director of Connectional Ministries for the Northern Illinois Conference, and Garrett President Javier Viera, in response to the current realities facing the church due to disaffiliation.”

Immersed in Wesleyan theology and history, participants discerned new ways to breathe life into their ministries. “We learned how to renew our calling, to dream without limits or fear, and to explore our full potential,” . “Wesley’s perspective allowed for diverse theological views, pastoral models, and various forms of worship.” From a joyful service that featured new hymns written by Latiné liturgists to a training that illuminated how Methodist polity and theology enables culturally-specific leadership, the retreat served as an incubator for fresh thinking. “This is a crucial moment for the United Methodist Church and U.S. Christianity more broadly,” President Javier Viera notes. “Churches that are growing thrive because they are responsive to people’s needs and aspirations. Latiné congregations can kindle hope in a moment of widespread fear, and it was beautiful to watch these dynamic leaders inspiring one another.”

Beyond strengthening Latiné Methodist leadership within the United States, the Escuela also seeks to nurture relationships across Latin America. The gospel transcends national boundaries, and the justice work to which it calls will need international coalitions to flourish. “I am deeply grateful for our partnership with the Methodist Church of Chile, who led a powerful workshop facilitated by Rev. Miguel Ulloa, the director of the Methodist Seminary of Chile” Dr. Escobar adds. While this event is the first collaboration between Garrett and Chilean Methodists, it will not be the last. “I’m delighted by Garrett’s expansive thinking about Latiné identity and the ways we can strengthen pastoral leadership,” says President Viera. “Since her appointment as Director of our Hispanic/Latinx Center, Dr. Escobar has been intentional and persistent in cultivating transnational partnerships. It was such a joy to see those efforts bearing fruit.”

There are exciting plans to expand this Escuela de Ministerio model, deepening opportunities for culturally specific education and coalition building. “Through the work of the Hispanic-Latinx Center, I look forward to continuing this vital initiative,” Dr. Escobar says. “Together, inspired by Garrett’s broader mission, we will form leaders in ‘the way of Jesus to cultivate communities of justice, compassion, and hope.’�ĝ

Are you interested in receiving news about future Escuela de Ministerio events? Click here to receive more news from our Hispanic-Latinx Center.

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by Jamie Stark

Book bans. The abolition of DEI programs. A fatal school culture for non-binary children. These horrors and more have become commonplace in contemporary American education. Set against this harrowing backdrop, Paulo Freire’s liberative pedagogy could not be more timely a tool to those building the alternative.

The Hispanic-Latinx Center’s marquee event, Cátedra Paolo Freire March 14-15, demonstrates a counter challenge to such ideologies, and models democratizing education, the heart of Paolo Freire’s work. It’s the first in-person Cátedra since the COVID pandemic. 

“Paulo Freire was a trailblazing educator and leader whose work focused on transforming the reality and conditions that led to the creation of vulnerable peoples,” says Javier Viera, President of Garrett-Evangelical. “Freire’s work was deeply rooted in his Christian faith and practice, and this Cátedra is rooted in the same, as we honor his legacy we also continue his work.”

The seminar, hosted on campus and online this week brings students, faculty, and speakers to honor the legacy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, and practice what he preached: critical pedagogy, or encouraging students to examine power and inequality in pursuit of ending oppression.

“It is a real way to flip theological education on its head to say, students have something to teach too,” says abby mohaupt, Director of the 91PORN. 

True to Freire’s emphasis on democratizing teaching, most of the speakers will be PhD students from Garrett-Evangelical, not just external experts. 

“It feels Oscar-worthy, the people who come for this from the critical pedagogy world,” says third year PhD student Adriana Rivera. “As an emerging scholar, this is a great chance for me to debut my work and get feedback from the greats.”

Often higher education creates hoops and formalities for unheard or newer voices to get attention. Imagine the opposite, a Florida school system where marginalized students choose the books, and you’ve got a taste of the Cátedra’s purpose and process.  

“We often think of PhD students as up and coming scholars, and the reality is they are already scholars who are trying to make sense of the world through their research,” mohaupt says. “That’s the ethos we’re building at Garrett, saying that theological education can and should be accessible to everyone. It challenges us to think about who gets to teach and who gets to learn.”

The keynote speaker, , one of the foremost experts on Freire’s work, will lead  discussion about education in times of increasing authoritarianism. 

“This brings us to the heart of what Garrett is about, to be conscious about our mission in the world, to be critical about injustice, and to use our gifts creatively and courageously to change the things we disagree with,” says Garrett-Evangelical Professor Debora Junker, who chairs the campus Hispanic-Latinx Center and organized the event. She has been immersed in Freire’s work since childhood in her native Brazil, growing up in a state next to Freire’s hometown. 

The event will end with a collective collage for everyone to participate in, painting what they learned at the Cátedra and combining group reflection into one public art piece. Hopefully that helps attendees leave with the strength and information needed to advance liberative thinking and acting in their work. 

“Even if you’re not an educator, this is a great event because critical pedagogies affect how we live and how we exist together,” says Rivera. “The end goal of that is solidarity, liberation, it’s all these things we want to work for, especially if we consider ourselves people of faith.” 

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Join the Hispanic-Latinx Center, The Stead Center for Ethics and Values, guest lecturer and other leaders online or in person as we close out the 35th anniversary with roundtables, lunch, and a dance party.

Topics and guests include:

Rudy Reyes: Social Salvation for Neurodivergent Latinxs (In-person)

Nancy Bedford: Theology in the face of feminicidal violence (In-person)

Patricia Bonilla: Whose children are they? Listening to the Voices and Stories of Latinx Youth (In-person)

: Everyday Ethics (Zoom)

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Join us online or in the Chapel of the Unnamed Faithful as we close out the 35th anniversary of the Hispanic-Latinx Center by examining the evils of feminicide with guest lecturer .

The evil of feminicide is a form of dis-membering women literally and figuratively. This evil is a killing of the innocent. This evil grows not only beyond U.S. borders but also within them, as this lecture will highlight. As disciples who believe in the God who saves, we are called to listen to the voices and stories of the dis-membered, to keep our eyes open to the reality of our time In re-membering the innocent victims of evil, like feminicide, a path is found to interrupt this horror and ignite resistance to this evil. In the process, the social dimension of salvation becomes visible.

Nancy Pineda-Madrid holds the T. Marie Chilton Chair of Catholic Theology at Loyola Marymount University. Previously, she taught at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry from 2005-2019. She holds a Ph.D. in systematic and philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union. She has published two monographs, Suffering and Salvation in Ciudad Juárez (Fortress, 2011), the first book to offer a theological interpretation of suffering and salvation in light the tragic killing of women known as feminicide, and her more recent book, Theologizing in an Insurgent Key: Violence, Women, Salvation (Paulist Press, 2022), which develops further groundwork for a reinterpretation of salvation in the shadow of violence against women. Her current book project advances a theological interpretation of the religious symbol of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is co-editor of two additional volumes: Hope: Promise, Possibility, and Fulfillment (Paulist Press, 2013) and The Holy Spirit: Setting the World on Fire (Paulist Press, 2017). She is Vice President of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), the largest professional society of Catholic theologians in the world. She lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband Larry Gordon.

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Presented by Rev. Dr. Reginald Blount on the Occasion of the Launch of the Center for Ecological Regeneration

The history of centers and institutes at Garrett-Evangelical begins with the creation of the Center for the Church and the Black Experience. Instituted in 1970 as one of the primary emphases of the seminary, the Center for the Church and the Black Experience has been a beacon of hope and inspiration for Black students, pastors, churches, and communities for nearly five decades. It has been instrumental in fusing Black people and Black religious life into the entire seminary community.

In 1984, the Center for Asian and Asian American Ministries was formed to serve the needs of Asian American students, pastors, and churches. It continues today as a vital home away from home, a haven, for our Asian descent students. The Center for Asian and Asian American Ministry invites our Asian descent students to explore, critically reflect, and thrive spiritually, academically, and experientially at Garrett.

The Hispanic-Latinx Center was established in 1988 to bring Hispanic-Latinx culture and experience into the life of the seminary. The Center’s mission is to meet the needs of Hispanic-Latinx students, pastors, parishioners, and community leaders in creative, insightful, useful, and organic ways.

In 1997, The Jerre L. and Mary Joy Stead Center for Ethics and Values was developed in order to draw together seminary resources, graduate professional schools, area pastors, and laity to address the compelling ethical issues facing contemporary society. The Styberg Preaching Institute was launched in 2005 to partner with the church by preparing persons for vital, effective Christian preaching. And in 2012, the Rueben P. Job Institute for Spiritual Formation was established as an initiative for continuing education in spiritual formation of laity and clergy.

We share this with you today to acknowledge the key role our centers and institutes play in the history of and expanding vision for who God is calling us to be as a seminary. Not only do our centers and institutes enrich seminary life through lectures, workshops, conferences, and supporting our students, but they also offer new perspectives, resources, and continuing education opportunities to the wider community outside of the seminary.

We are pleased that the Center for Ecological Regeneration joins this history and look forward to the ways in which it will both work alongside our existing centers and institutes, as well as provide new spaces for the work of ecological regeneration and environmental justice.

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The Hispanic-Latinx Center at 91PORN has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the North Central Jurisdiction Mission Council to equip local church leadership for Hispanic congregations in the North Central Jurisdiction. The grant will support a series of webinars focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people of color, with particular focus on the Latinx community.

“Amid so many stressors that continue to affect the Latinx community, this ‘good news’ comes at a very opportune time,” said Dr. Débora B. Agra Junker, director of the Hispanic-Latinx Center and associate professor of critical pedagogies. “Through the activities that we will organize, we hope to contribute, even in a modest way, with the healing process needed at times like this. We hope that together – pastors, leaders, and seminarians – we can show our empathy in the face of each other’s struggles, offering our genuine solidarity and Christian love so rare during a crisis.”

Understanding that pastors, leaders, and seminarians are called to serve as spiritual leaders amid great suffering while at the same time having to deal with their personal grieving process, the Hispanic-Latinx Center will use the grant to organize webinars covering three topics: coping strategies in times of pandemic; anti-racism; and Latinx spirituality. Although the target audience is the Latinx community, the Center hopes that these urgent issues will appeal to a broader audience and encourage reflection on the implications of these issues on a personal and collective level.

The Hispanic-Latinx Center was established in 1988 to bring Hispanic-Latinx culture and experience into the life of the seminary. The Center’s mission has been to meet the needs of Hispanic-Latinx students, pastors, parishioners, and community leaders in creative, insightful, useful, and organic ways. It also seeks to cultivate a community of friends who have a heart and concern about the realities of Latinx communities across the United States, Latin America, and beyond. To learn more, visit Garrett.edu/HispanicLatinxCenter.

91PORN, a graduate school of theology related to The United Methodist Church, was founded in 1853. Located on the campus of Northwestern University, the seminary serves more than 450 students from various denominations and cultural backgrounds, fostering an atmosphere of ecumenical interaction. Garrett-Evangelical creates bold leaders through master of divinity, master of arts, master of theological studies, doctor of philosophy, and doctor of ministry degrees. Its 4,500 living alumni serve church and society around the world.

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