Meet the DLTs: Rev. Susan Ranous

September 18, 2019 / By Rev. Susan Ranous

My name is the Rev. Susan M. Ranous. I am a Deacon in Full Connection and I have been a member of the Crossroads District Leadership Team since its formation. There have been times when I have wondered why. As I considered that question recently, and also have been working on an intentional discipleship plan for a local church, it struck me that there has been a pathway that I (probably like many others) have been on that has led me to this place and time.

My earliest memory was reading Bible stories in a storybook at home and attending Sunday School each week. While that sounds like the beginning of a nice straight easily-followed path, it started to meander as I got older. I didn’t join any church until I was in my late 20s, when I felt that worship was an important part of my relationship with God that had been neglected.

That “simple” beginning grew and grew as my experience with the love of Jesus Christ and the anointing by the Holy Spirit changed and grew. Today, I find that my experience as a disciple is bigger than being a Sunday School student, bigger than being the member of a church, bigger than Bible studies, bigger than receiving a call to ordained ministry, and bigger than attending seminary. This year, I was ordained as a Deacon in Full Connection at Annual Conference to the ministries of compassion and justice.

Those ministries, motivated by the stewardship interpretation and teaching that is part of my specialized ministry has greatly enhanced my understanding of stewardship as evidence of discipleship. The work that the Crossroads DLT is doing in facilitating training using Discipleship Ministries’ See All the People materials has opened my eyes to the fact that if we are disciples, then we can’t help but to be about doing God’s work as we make disciples to make disciples.

We must be in relationship and in community with those that are like us and those that are unlike those, with those that are already in our churches and those that are not, with those that know the love of God and those that do not, with those that have experienced love and those that have experienced pain.