The Deep and Wide Questions

Beloved in Christ, 

In my role as Canon for Operations, I have the privilege of interacting with many of the elected bodies that provide leadership, governance, and oversight of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota. After serving in this role now for a full year, it has become one my favorite parts of this work. I know that serving on a committee doesn’t sound like the most thrilling and action-packed thing to do, but I have come to see it as a foundational place where we can transform at scale—where we can come together to ask the deep and wide questions of who God is calling us to be in this moment and make decisions together that, slowly but surely, help us to live more fully into that new and emerging identity.

It’s been a gift for me to watch these committees of talented, dedicated volunteers, representing the four corners and multitude of contexts of ECMN, do the deep, gritty, exhilarating work of holding big questions, together, and not being satisfied by simple answers or quick solutions. To watch these committees as they hold the tension between what we’re responsible for preserving and what we’re stewarding into being. To seek, as the church, to follow a God who calls us further up and further in, opens doors, and, in the Holy Spirit’s good time, reveals the next faithful step.

If this reads like one long pitch to join an elected body, don’t blame me. I really do think that this work matters. I really believe that this world needs us to profess a faith that we would stake our lives on, as we follow Jesus with all we are and all we have, building and serving the church that God needs in this place and at this time.

Faithfully,

Kelsey Schuster
Canon for Operations & Chief of Staff
Episcopal Church in Minnesota