Eight years into her personal journey with Anabaptism, Amy Marshall comes to Bethel College hoping to keep spreading the word.
Marshall began July 1 as Bethel’s new campus pastor, just weeks after graduating with her Master of Divinity degree with a major in Christian faith formation from Anabaptist Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Ind., which followed completion of an undergraduate degree in social work at Bethel’s historic “sister school,” Bluffton (Ohio) University.
Marshall grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and says she never heard of Mennonites (Bethel is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA) before she made a pre-college visit to Bluffton.
“When I got [there], I immediately felt at home,” she says. She was “very plugged into campus ministry” almost as soon as she arrived at Bluffton as a first-year student, a carryover from growing up “super-involved” in her United Methodist congregation in Columbus.
As an undergraduate, Marshall went through a process many students do, of “deconstructing” her childhood faith and starting to build something new. In her senior year, she began to feel a call to Christian ministry.
Janeen Bertsche Johnson, herself a Bluffton graduate now serving as AMBS campus pastor, came to Bluffton as a chapel speaker, and Marshall talked to her about attending AMBS. Then one of Marshall’s favorite Bluffton professors, Jackie Wyse-Rhodes, announced she was leaving to take a faculty position at AMBS. That sealed it.
“I felt like what I had been learning at Bluffton had happened in a Mennonite environment, and I wanted to continue with it,” Marshall says. “So much of my time in college was spent deconstructing, and now I was shifting into building something solid – diverse, global, focused on the whole human being and our relationship with God, all central to Anabaptism – and also reintegrating some of what I had been raised with.”
She continues, “[Some of my most formative classes at AMBS] focused on peace and justice, the sacredness of the ordinary, the importance of communal worship and biblical interpretation – all core parts of Mennonite theology.”
Starting out at AMBS, she was “still calling myself United Methodist. But as I looked to continue my [leadership] role in the United Methodist Church, I could see that it wasn’t the right thing. I wanted something less hierarchical. I was feeling rooted in Anabaptist theology.”
While at AMBS, she began attending Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, and calling herself a Mennonite. “So far, the transition has seemed like it’s the right thing,” she says. “I can see God’s leading. My family is supportive – mostly I’m explaining what Mennonites are about.”
Since 2021, Marshall says, she has had “a consistent desire to work on a college campus. “I like the diverse environment. It’s a crucial time in life to be doing some exploring. I felt called to a kind of ministry that dealt with young adults and their development – working with groups of people with different perspectives on theology and the Bible.”
She admits that at first the Bethel campus pastor opening “was a stretch – Kansas is too far from home! I applied for a different job and it fell through. Then a college friend who lives here in Kansas texted me the link, so I said I would give it a try.
“There was a lot about Bethel College that felt familiar, like Bluffton in some ways, and other Mennonite spaces I’ve been in. There was a lot about the process of applying and moving that felt like God had a hand in it.”
Now, anticipating the start of her first semester at Bethel, Marshall’s first priority is to get to know students. “I want to hear from them. It’s been some time since Bethel has had a campus pastor. What are their passions and goals, and what do they want to see on campus [from Campus Ministries]? Longer term, what do they want from me as campus pastor?
“I want to have a robust system and mission of campus ministries [to create] a place where students can explore, bring their doubts, questions and passions. To help them [examine] individually what they believe and how they worship, unlock new gifts and leadership roles in campus ministry, whether or not they’re planning to do ministry. To grow as people of faith.”
In her final year at AMBS, Marshall developed a podcast for young adults called “Seminary Reacts” that grew from an independent study she did in the fall 2025 semester. Marshall completed 16 episodes, produced at AMBS, through June 15, 2026.
“The goal is to bridge the gap between the Mennonite academic world and the broader Christian world,” Marshall told an AMBS interviewer.
“During my time in seminary, I noticed that in the online conversations about Christianity that I was seeing, there were no Mennonite voices. Many of the topics online were related to conversations we were having in seminary classes – such as current events, the interpretation of Scripture, and theological topics like worship, justice and discipleship.
“I realized that the Mennonite theology we were learning as students would be highly valuable for these conversations, especially because it offers an alternative perspective to mainstream Christianity.”
Marshall says her goal for the podcast “is not super different from what I want to be doing in campus ministry, though this is something of a different audience. My goal is to give more visibility to specifically Mennonite beliefs.”
She says she’s especially excited about chapel planning, in which she was deeply involved at both Bluffton and AMBS. “I’m excited to work with students in worship planning, and in looking at the identity of chapel in the past and what it will look like moving forward.”
She also hopes to “set up discussion sessions, spaces for students to articulate what they believe about God, the Bible and what it means to live as a Christian. You might start out thinking all Christians think or believe the same, but talking about it shows the diversity and helps clarify your own thinking.
“I want to see an intentional space to have these kinds of conversations. I love it when ministry is as hands-on and interactive as possible, not just talking but also learning from each other.”
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel is ranked #25 in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Regional College Midwest for 2026. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu
Photo of Amy Marshall by Jason Bryant/AMBS
