Oriented to Love: A Contemporary Vision for Faith Formation at Goshen College
This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2025 issue of The Bulletin.
In January 2025, President Stoltzfus wrote a white paper offering a contemporary vision for faith formation at Goshen College. Rooted in our commitment to Christ-centeredness and our Anabaptist-Mennonite faith tradition, the paper explores how we can faithfully navigate a changing cultural and institutional landscape while deepening our practices of faith. This is a short summary of the longer piece with reflections and recommendations. Read the full white paper here.
By Rebecca J. Stoltzfus ’83, President of Goshen College
As a faith-based learning community, Goshen College has an unwavering commitment to our core values, including Christ-centeredness, and to our Mennonite tradition. At the present time, we are also challenged by a number of factors, both internal and external:
- Demographic changes associated with immigration and birth rates.
- Shifting generational values, shaped in part by technology and the pandemic.
- Eroding trust in churches and higher education.
- Streamlined structures in our denomination and college.
- The rise of Christian nationalism.
- Persistent social inequalities.
We stand in the crossroads of context and calling.
Drawing upon research, scripture, the voices of Goshen College constituents and Mennonite understandings of the way of Jesus, this white paper attempts to provide a contemporary vision and framework for faith formation at Goshen College. After reviewing our current expressions of Christ-centeredness, the paper speaks to a number of questions about why and how Christ- centeredness remains essential to Goshen College, and how faith formation can become more lively as we have become more multicultural. Our beloved rituals and expressions also point us to several focal scripture passages that we can look to for particular light and guidance.
As educators and companions in the diverse and unfamiliar terrains that life presents, we provide metaphorical maps that help us orient toward life in Christ, which is love. A framework is proposed to clarify the meaning of Christ-centeredness as our animating core value and to focus our intentions about faith formation in all aspects of life at Goshen College. In summary, the framework claims that in Christ we are:
- Beloved: Experiencing in our bodies and souls what it feels like to be loved uniquely and treated with dignity.
- Empowered: Called and liberated to participate in the ongoing abundant life of the Body of Christ.
- Learning: Seeking with passion and humility, trusting that God reveals and embraces all that is true.
- Practicing love in action: Following the way of Jesus.
The paper concludes with aspirations and recommendations for how we might embody authentic Christ-centeredness in the Goshen College context today. Read it and join us in this ongoing community conversation.