Hesston College has hired Jessica Schrock-Ringenberg, who formerly served on the pastoral team at Zion Mennonite Church in Archbold, as the director for a new ministry program that will begin in development stages this spring.

The new ministry program will provide Anabaptist theology and nurture missional leadership for pastors and other church leaders in a distance-based format. It comes as a replacement to Hesston College’s Pastoral Ministries program, which closed in 2014 with a commitment to the development of a new program.

“It has been about five years since we closed the residential Pas­toral Ministries program, but we have been seeking to re-start a ministry program that can equip disciples in a variety of locations and contexts,” said Brent Yoder, vice president of Academics. “Jessica has a vision for how Hesston College can serve others in the church and the world, and we are excited that she has accept­ed the call to develop and direct this new program.”

Schrock-Ringenberg is a graduate of Hesston College, Goshen (Indiana) College and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart, Indiana). In addition to serving on the pastoral team at Zion Mennonite, she served the Ohio Conference as a missional consultant. She also has taken on a variety of roles for Mennonite Church USA, including convention planning and as a member of the Constituency Leadership Council (CLC). She and her hus­band, Shem, recently relocated to the Kansas City area where they bought a heating and cooling business and also hope to plant a church. In addition, Schrock-Ringenberg serves as a missional discipleship leader and consultant with the Five-fold Leadership Development Assessment and the Exponential Emerging Leaders Cohort.

Schrock-Ringenberg will continue to reside in the Kansas City area, with regular teleconferencing and trips to Hesston. As the program develops and curriculum is established and approved, her role will transition from developer to instructor.