Seminary bids farewell to Brubacher Kaethler

Published: November 9, 2023

By Annette Brill Bergstresser

ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) — Andy Brubacher Kaethler, PhD, concluded 20 years of service at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Indiana, on Aug. 31, 2023. He began in September as lead pastor of Ottawa (Ontario) Mennonite Church in Canada.

Kaethler came to AMBS from St. Catharines, Ontario, in 2003 to launch !Explore: A Theological Program for High School Youth and to teach courses in faith formation and culture. He was appointed to the Teaching Faculty as Assistant Professor of Christian Formation and Culture in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017. Additionally, he served as Associate Director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies (IMS), the seminary’s research agency, and as Co-editor of Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology.

“Andy has been a treasured teacher, scholar, pastor and colleague,” reflected Beverly Lapp, EdD, Vice President and Academic Dean. “He’s been a leader in nurturing AMBS’s knowing-doing-being framework. He also has been known for his open door, his presence at community events and his care for the full community.”

Lapp affirmed Kaethler’s collaborative leadership style and pastoral skills, noting his attentiveness to the needs of others and to creating space for everyone’s voice to be heard. In addition to tending to his own growth in intercultural competence, he has consistently promoted the gifts and needs of the global church and has strived to be accessible to people of diverse learning and relational styles, she said.

Under Kaethler’s leadership, more than 200 high school youth participated in !Explore between 2003 and 2022, engaging theological questions and various forms of Christian ministry in the summer program. Many of them later attended seminary, and many continue to be involved in the life of the church, he said. In 2012, the Center for Faith Formation and Culture (CFFC) was established at AMBS to house the !Explore program, and Kaethler became the center’s director. The CFFC became the Faith Formation Collaborative in 2022.

While at AMBS, Kaethler taught courses in youth ministry, theology, philosophy, Christian formation and Christian spirituality. A highlight for him was teaching Cultural Hermeneutics, a course he designed to help students understand how their cultural contexts shape how they understand and live out the gospel. 

Kaethler frequently invited others to join him in exploring the intersection of faith and technology — whether through conversations, presentations, scholarship or coursework. He’s drawn to understand whether technology enhances or diminishes people’s ability to be bodily present to one another and to become “the gospel incarnate” in the world. Inspired by a conference that focused on philosopher Albert Borgmann’s concept of “focal practices”, Kaethler developed a course in which students built a canoe together as a focal practice. One of the students in the spring 2014 course — titled Christian Practices in a Technological Culture — still has the canoe, he said.

Kaethler also led ministry formation courses for AMBS, serving as director of the Master of Divinity and MA in Christian Formation programs (2019–23). In 2019, he took on the role of Director of Campus Care as part of AMBS’s Campus Ministries Team.

As Co-editor of Vision, Kaethler enjoyed collaborating with scholars from Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to produce the biannual journal on pressing topics for the church. A significant experience from his work with IMS and the Faith Formation Collaborative was overseeing a five-year planning process that resulted in a three-day Jewish-Mennonite symposium held at AMBS in May 2023, “Jews and Mennonites: Reading the Bible after the Holocaust.”

“Andy brings deliberate and careful thinking to his teaching, advising, committee work, scholarship and public presentations in ways that benefit students, colleagues and the church alike,” said Rachel Miller Jacobs, DMin, Associate Professor of Congregational Formation and Church and Ministry Department Chair. “He’s particularly challenged both his students and colleagues to pay close attention to the often hidden ways we’re shaped by culture and especially by technology, calling us to greater awareness, deeper discernment and more skillful decision-making so that our actions and practices align with our commitments.”

“We miss him at AMBS; we also recognize that the church will be richer because of his return to ministry after many years of teaching and administrative work,” she added.

Kaethler earned a Bachelor of Theology from CMU (1990); a BA in Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo (Ontario) (1993); an MA in Theology from the University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto (Ontario) (1999); and a PhD in Theology and Ethics from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois (2013). Before coming to AMBS, he served as Conference Youth Minister for Mennonite Church Eastern Canada (2000–03) and also worked in educational, congregational and camp settings. 

Kaethler co-edited Youth Ministry at a Crossroads: Tending to the Faith Formation of Mennonite Youth (IMS and Herald, 2011) and has written essays, articles and book reviews for various church publications in addition to serving as a frequent presenter. While at AMBS, he and his family attended Belmont Mennonite Church in Elkhart. 

Kaethler will continue to serve AMBS as a Core Adjunct Faculty member and Faculty Mentor for the Doctor of Ministry in Leadership. A search process for a new faculty member will begin in 2024.

Located in Elkhart, Indiana, on ancestral land of the Potawatomi and Miami peoples, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary is a learning community with an Anabaptist vision, offering theological education for learners both on campus and at a distance as well as a wide array of lifelong learning programs — all with the goal of educating followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God’s reconciling mission in the world. ambs.edu

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