The SEM class of 2026 has graduated! For three years SEM has been forming and equipping these 11 students from London, Mexico City, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. As they move on, they look forward to building up communities of Jesus-looking people around the world.
At their graduation ceremony, Matt and Eliezer shared what brought them to SEM and the hopes they have for what comes next. We hope you’ll be as encouraged by their reflections as we are!
Matt:
For me, SEM is a community of subversives who are revolting against the powers who are “over” by following powers who are “under.” It’s a community of people I want to follow as they show the world that God looks like Jesus willingly hanging on a cross out of self-sacrificial, other-oriented love to rescue us from the Kingdom of darkness.
2 Kings 7 tells a beautiful story about four lepers. There’s a famine in the land of Israel. The four lepers are so desperate they decide to go to the enemies’ camp and beg for food. When they get there they find that the whole camp has fled because of supernatural intervention by God and the people have left everything behind.
While the four lepers are feasting on all the food, verse 9 says: “Then they said to each other, ‘What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves.’”
Now that those of us who have been in SEM have spent three years feasting on the good news of Jesus, I hope we don’t keep it to ourselves. We need to tell a world that is desperate and in a spiritual famine, that there’s a feast to be had at the table of King Jesus.
Eliezer:
At first, I thought SEM would be an amazing place to challenge Greg about open theism and bring all the many theological questions I had for him! But God quickly surprised me.
It was during the moments when each of my classmates shared their life stories that I realized I was being shaped and learning even more than I expected. Those moments broke down several taboos in me that might never have changed otherwise. Martin Luther King Jr. was right: “True understanding and brotherhood can only happen when people actually live, learn and grow together.”
Shortly before finishing my first year at SEM, I moved back to Mexico City (until then, I had been living and working in the Washington DC metro area). At the church where I grew up, I soon had the opportunity to teach a small group of young adults. Although the group has never been more than five young people, what God has allowed me to build and teach there has been a real blessing.
And what I’ve taught has simply been what I learned at SEM as I have taken Kevin’s, Greg’s, and Paul’s classes, translated them, and adapted them. It brings me joy to share that, as a result of this, a couple of those young adults recently decided to be baptized.
In addition, inspired by one of our class readings, I proposed that the church leadership should adopt a house church model. We have now finished laying a teaching foundation and are currently training the church to implement these small groups in homes. If all goes well, I hope that at least five house churches will be launched in the second half of the year.
I’m leaving SEM with many wonderful memories and great friendships. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that SEM has given me clarity and renewed my passion for working toward a world that looks more like God’s Kingdom.
We are excited for you, class of 2026, and whatever Kingdom work comes next as you invite others to the feast!
You can learn more about SEM here.
