Alumni
From learning disability to directing Discipleship Ministries Program
If, as a young student with a learning disability, Ryan Showalter had been told he’d someday become the youngest ever director of Discipleship Ministries at Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM), he likely would have said, “No way.” But today Showalter oversees a department of seven, including those who direct Discipleship Ministries’ four short-term programs.
It’s been a journey, Showalter says, describing his struggle with reading during his first years of school. He credits Kraybill Campus tutor Sandra Garman for patiently teaching him how to read by grade two. Later he discovered that, to qualify for the high school sports he loved, he had to do well academically.
“I learned early that I had to have discipline and work hard,” he said. As Showalter grew academically, he also grew spiritually. The summer of 1997 he attended Mennonite Youth Convention in Orlando, Florida, where speaker Tony Campolo delivered a “fireball message” on tithing one’s time. That experience, coupled with Friday morning Bible studies and prayer meetings with friends during his senior year at LMS, resulted in Showalter becoming more serious about his walk with God.
After high school, he went immediately into EMM’s Youth Evangelism Service (YES) program during which he spent eight months in youth ministry in Wales.
“It was a life changing experience for me,” he said. “I realized God wanted all of my life, not just Sunday mornings.”
After YES, Showalter accepted a full-time ministry position with Harrisburg Youth for Christ, soon adding fulltime classes at Harrisburg Area Community College. In 2001 he left both to begin classes at Eastern University, St. David’s, Pa., and graduated from there in 2003 with a degree in youth ministry.
“I felt like God was saying, ‘This is payday for all that hard work,’” he said, recalling how his mom proudly reported back to Mrs. Garman that her son not only completed college but did it cum laude.
Two years later, after another YES assignment (church planting in Waterbury, Connecticut) and during a master’s of divinity program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Showalter said “Yes” to the director position at Discipleship Ministries.
Showalter is married to Jennifer Waldron- Showalter, an MRI technologist for the MRI Group. They live in Lancaster and attend Mount Joy Mennonite Church where Showalter was credentialed as a pastor. Showalter also serves on the board of Mennonite Central Committee. Today he continues his seminary studies at Eastern Mennonite Seminary (EMS), Lancaster campus.
What does your work involve?
Making sure short-term efforts run
smoothly with EMM’s long-term
efforts. We want to be strategic so that
the assignments impact the world and
fit into our long-term vision. We hope
many short-termers will become longtermers
and the experiences will prepare
many for church leadership.
What is the best part of your job?
I love working with young people. I
love their passion to follow God ... and
how they allow that passion to affect
how they love their neighbor and their
world.
The most challenging
Finding ways to take the timeless realities of the gospel and communicate
them in a way that youth understand.
What did you value most at LMS?
(1) the spiritual environment that
allowed for diversity in beliefs, (2) the
fact that the high school was a bigger
Christian school with more opportunities,
and (3) having more racial/ethnic
diversity than most local public
schools—something that I think helped
me develop a cultural view of the
world.
Who or what at LMS helped you the
most in who you are today?
Mrs. Garman, the coaches, and key
chapels. I vividly remember when high
school student Jason Forshey (1995) was
in a serious car accident. We took time to
pray in chapel and later in the classroom.
The message here was: “Academics are
important but right now we need to be
the body of Christ in caring for others.”
Favorite teachers
At Kraybill, Jim Baer, and at the high
school, Myron Dietz. Baer had a lot of
knowledge and wisdom but knew how
to apply it in a practical way. At LMH I
remember the debate chapels between
Dietz and young Bible teacher Pete
Dula—representing two different world
views but the same Christian faith. I
liked that.
Your passions
I’m passionate about helping young
adults learn to know God and experience
God in other cultures, and about
providing opportunities to serve the
church and “the least of these.”
Future plans
To finish graduate school and serve in
overseas missions with Jennifer.
Discipleship Ministries includes four shortterm programs: Kingdom Teams, providing three to five-day inner city assignments for youth groups; GO! which trains intergenerational mission teams for assignments of one week to a year; Summer Training Action Teams (STAT), eight-week cross-cultural assignment for ages 15-18; and Youth Evangelism Service (YES), six to 11-month cross cultural opportunity for ages 18-30. For more information go to emm.org/short-term.
