Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota IX Bishop search
ministry Highlights
The Diaconate
The Diocese of Minnesota is blessed with a flourishing and energetic Diaconate that seeks to grow. Minnesota has 35 currently deployed deacons, 4 active but not currently deployed deacons, and 25 retired deacons. There are 28 men and 36 women, with approximately an equal number serving in the Metro and out-of-state areas. Diaconal ministry in the diocese is vital and active in many congregations. Numerous Total Ministry teams in the diocese already include one or more deacons. Other congregations are eager to add deacons as they become available.
The Diocese of Minnesota developed a special diaconal formation/training program that strives to be comprehensive, diversely instructed and actively supervised to reinforce the mission to grow and support the diaconate.
Speaking before the North American Association for the Diaconate in 2007, the Presiding Bishop, The Most Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori, encapsulated the mind-set of the Diocese of Minnesota:
“The ministry of deacons is one of urgency about the starving and homeless and also about the full humanity and dignity of those in all sorts of prisons, whether legal ones, nursing homes or hospices, as well as prisons we build through prejudice about race, gender, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, national origin, and age.”
“Deacons should not only be middle-aged, silver-haired, retired or independently wealthy. We need to see the gifts [of deacons] in teen-agers.”
“The Church is re-building the ancient ministry of deacons focused on service connected to the ministry of a bishop. Despite that success, some dioceses have not yet fully embraced the ministry of deacons. I want to push us to see those ministries as far more interconnected that we have tended to see them in the past.”
We are looking for a Bishop who can build on Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s passion and lead the way for the Diocese of Minnesota to encompass and appreciate the wide spectrum of gifts offered by the diaconate. Read "A brief and recent history of the diaconate in Minnesota – or how we got to where we are" from Irma Wyman.
