Board Bios – DOTAC

DOTAC President

Ted Dodd, Diakonia of The United Church of Canada

After teaching at the Centre for Christian Studies (CCS) for seventeen years, Ted retired in 2015. Prior to joining the staff of CCS, Ted served in various congregational and regional ministries. In 2003, after a special program of study, Ted became the first person in the United Church to switch order of ministry designation from ordained to diaconal. His doctoral work focused on Tranformational Learning and Theological Education. http://ducc.ca/tag/ted-dodd/

In 2012, Ted was named co-recipient of the Davidson Trust Award for excellence in theological education. His 2003 Master’s thesis is entitled Diaconal Ministry in the United Church of Canada: Function, Style and Perspective. To view some of his writing on diakonia see:

Also in 2003, he completed a certificate in Conflict Mediation. In 1998, Ted co‑edited Roll Away the Stone: Lenten Reflections at the Close of the Ecumenical Decade in Solidarity with Women. He also and chaired the national task group preparing the UCCanada service book, Celebrate God’s Presence.

Ted has served on the board since 2017 and he became president of DOTAC in 2018.

Vice-President

Amie Stewart, United Methodist Deacons and Diaconal Ministers

Amie is an ordained deacon in full connection in the North Carolina Conference. Amie is serving as the Director of Conference Relations for GBHEM. She was born in Friendswood, Texas, and grew up in Herndon, Virginia – just outside of Washington DC. She attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, and received her B.B.A. in Finance and International Business. After living in Arlington, VA and working as a consultant for a few years, Amie attended Duke Divinity School and received her Master of Divinity degree. During seminary, she served various churches through the field education program in Wilmington, Apex and Cary, NC. Previous appointments include serving as the Director of Christian Formation at Jonesboro UMC and Youth and Children’s Minister at Sunrise UMC.

Prior to serving in this role, Amie served within the Office of Ministerial Relations as the Associate Director for five years.

Amie and her husband Michael live in Apex and are blessed with two sweet kiddos. She enjoys cooking, running outside, and being with friends and family.

Treasurer

Lisa Scherzer Polito, Lutheran Diaconal Association/Lutheran Deaconess Conference/Community of Lutheran Deacons

Deaconess Lisa Scherzer Polito serves as the Executive Director of the Lutheran Diaconal Association in Valparaiso, Indiana, USA.

A graduate of Valparaiso University, she was consecrated as a deaconess in 1990. Following her consecration, Lisa served Good Shepherd Lutheran Home of the West as the Spiritual Life Coordinator in Southern California from 1990 – 2000. Lisa returned to the Midwest to serve the LDA as Director of Development and Public Relations in 2001. She was named Executive Director in 2008.

Lisa loves the opportunity to be a part of DIAKONIA and DOTAC. She served as the DOTAC president for two terms and has attended every DOTAC gathering since Winnipeg in 2002 and every DIAKONIA Assembly since 1996.

Lisa enjoys reading, baseball, traveling and looking at snow outside her office window.

She is married to Carmine Polito, a professor of civil engineering at Valparaiso University. Lisa grew up in northwestern Minnesota and thinks it is the best place EVER!

Secretary

Sister Noreen Stevens, The Deaconess Community of the ELCA

Sr. Noreen Stevens’ calls moved her from institutions to congregations before beginning to serve with the Saint Paul Area Synod as the candidacy coordinator in 2001 and then concluding after eight years as an Assistant to the Bishop, when she was called to serve as the Directing Deaconess for the Deaconess Community of the ELCA in November 2016. Rostered as a Minister of Word and Service (Deacon) in the ELCA, her ministries have focused on education, spiritual and vocational discernment, systems, leadership, intensive boundary training, as well as partnership development, advocacy and self-care. Her 32 years of ministry experience have provided opportunities to integrate the practical and academic learning, which has created a toolbox of resources. However, some of the greatest learnings have come from her family’s dinner table where Law (her husband is in law enforcement) and Gospel were woven into their conversation. With one son living in Michigan’s UP and the other in New York City, Noreen and her husband, Doug, have wonderful places to visit and explore museums and art, while their three Old English Bulldogs take care of things at their home. Sister Noreen and Doug have recently moved to a log cabin located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after many years in the Twin Cities areas of Minnesota.

Mindy Holland, Minister of Word and Service, ELCA

Mindy Holland is a Minister of Word and Service, rostered with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA.) Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, her academic work has included a Bachelor of Arts (English and French) and a Master of Arts in Teaching (secondary education), both earned at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. After discerning a call to diaconal ministry, Mindy continued her studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary (now ULS) at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, earned a Master of Arts in Ministerial Studies, and was consecrated in July 2001. She also obtained a Certificate in Spiritual Formation and Discipleship from George Fox Evangelical Seminary in Portland, Oregon (now known as Portland Seminary.)

Mindy loves to serve at the intersection of faith and education, as well as to encourage and empower others on their Christian journeys. Previous ministry roles have included her first call as the Lutheran/Episcopal Campus Minister at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; serving as the coordinator of candidacy and office manager for the Oregon Synod of the ELCA; and working with the online learning program for George Fox Evangelical Seminary. In a voluntary capacity, Mindy was a small group leader for four Diaconal Ministry Formation Events in Gettysburg, and was grateful to be elected to the Diaconal Ministry Leadership Team for three years. She has also served informally as a spiritual director. Since 2015, Mindy has been under call as chaplain for Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Delaware. She loves working with and among gifted, servant-hearted young people, who are seeking to grow in leadership and in faith in Jesus, together in vibrant and laughter-laced community.

Mindy’s novel, Wind-Borne Sister, was published in 2015. She enjoys reading, writing, sharing long walks and talks with friends, ballroom and Latin dancing, foreign languages, and travel. Favorite trips have included Victoria, BC, Mont-Saint-Michel, Edinburgh, the San Juan Islands, Greece, Montréal, and regular summer trips to Cannon Beach and other beautiful spots along the Oregon Coast. Mindy loves to pray in all times and places, including through dance and song! She was blessed to attend the DOTAC Gathering in Winnipeg in 2002 and World Diakonia in Chicago in 2017. Mindy lives in Newark, Delaware, with her beloved tabby, MacGyver.

She feels excited and honored to serve on the DOTAC Board, beginning in November 2022, and wishes God’s blessings, grace, and peace to all!

Rev. Ann Blane, Presbyterian Church in Canada – Order of Diaconal Ministries, Second Representative to DIAKONIA World Federation

Ann Blane spent her formative years in India where her parents were missionaries with The Presbyteiran Church in Canada. She is a member of the Order of Diaconal Ministries and an Ordained Minister within The Presbyterian Church in Canada. For the past 38 years Ann has served the church in a variety of ministries: Director of Christian Education, in Youth Ministries, Children and Family Ministries, Inner City Mission with Metis and inner city children and youth, Camp Director and Leadership in Training Director, Regional Staff for a Synod and has served with several pastoral charges. Presently she and her husband Robert live in the cottage community of Bobcaygeon, Ontario where she is the minister at Knox Presbyterian Church.

Jacquie Bouthéon, Association of Anglican Deacons of Canada/Association Anglicane des Diacres au
Canada

Jacquie Bouthéon was born and grew up in England. Upon graduation from high school, she obtained a job with Lloyds Bank Europe in London; when she turned 21 she was posted to the Geneva office, partly due to her fluency in both French and German. While there she met her husband Adrien; they married in 1970 and emigrated to Canada; they have lived in Toronto ever since. After a few years in banking and insurance, Jacquie has worked as a French-language translator since 1977.

Jacquie has a designation of Fellow of the Life Management Institute. Also, she holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in General History and in Religious Studies from the University of Waterloo (Ontario), a Certificate in Gerontology from Huntington University/Laurentian and a Bachelor of Theology from Thorneloe University.

Jacquie has been an active member of her parish, since 1984, serving in numerous roles. In 1999, when the Vocational Diaconate was definitively established in the Diocese of Toronto, she was ordained to the diaconate. She has been an Associate of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine for over 30 years. From 2003-2018, she served as Clerical Domestic Chaplain to the diocesan bishop. In recognition of this service Jacquie was made an Honorary Canon of St. James Cathedral in 2017.

Jacquie is Convenor of the local chapter of the International Order of St. Luke the Physician and has been membership secretary of the Association of Anglican Deacons in Canada since its inception in 2000.

When she is not involved in the above activities, Jacquie enjoys reading, doing needlepoint, listening to classical music and solving crossword puzzles.

Tracie Middleton, Association for Episcopal Deacons

The Rev. Tracie Middleton is Past President of the Association for Episcopal Deacons (AED), serving as deacon at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Beaumont, a town in southeast Texas on the Gulf Coast. She currently works in crisis intervention for the Rape & Suicide Crisis Center of Southeast Texas.

Tracie has a BA and MA in English Literature and previously worked for several years in various communications roles, disaster relief, chaplaincy, and as a teacher of English as a foreign language. She was baptized in the Methodist church, grew up in a non-denominational congregation, and became an Episcopalian in 2000. She was ordained a deacon in 2009 and has served churches in southeast and north Texas. Tracie became involved with AED in helping to form a Young Deacons Task Force, and later was elected to the Board and then as an officer.

Tracie greatly values ecumenical connections and feels that diakonia is one area in which such collaboration can flourish and offer an enormous value to our various faith communities and to the world.

She has attended various online DOTAC events in the past few years, including DOVE, Mondays in May, anti-racism conversations, and participated in writing a prayer for 16 days against Gender-based violence. She is looking forward to becoming more closely involved with the community and work of DOTAC

Deacon Dionata Rodrigues de Oliveira, Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil

Deacon Dionata Rodrigues de Oliveira, now living in Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, graduated in Theology as a specialist in Diakonia from Escola Superior de Teologia – EST (Higher School of Theology), São Leopoldo. He completed his Master in Theology/Diakonia from EST in 2019. He is now a doctoral candidate from the same institution and employed as the Diaconal Advisor of Nordeste Gaúcho Synod. Since 2018, he has been the Community of Deacons (COD) Coordinator IECLB – Igreja Evangélica de Confissão Luterana no Brasil.

Janice Soyer-Delaney, Wesley Diaconal Community – Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas

Representative of the Wesley Diaconal Community – Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas(WDC – MCCA) to DOTAC Board.

Janice worked in the Private sector before entering the United Theological College of the West Indies(UTCWI) and the University of the West Indies(UWI), Mona, Jamaica in 1992 for training as a Minister in the MCCA.

She was ordained as a Deacon in 1997 and has served in congregations and schools in the Caribbean Islands of Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia and Tobago, in various Diaconal and Pastoral roles. She has also served as a school chaplain.

Ministry to Children and Youth in congregations and schools has resulted in her completing a certificate in Guidance and Counseling, and her interest in developing Spirituality has led to her completing a two-year program in Spiritual Formation with the Upper Room Ministries of the UMC.

Janice has been serving on the DOTAC board since 2018.

Scott James-Vickery, The Office of Deaconess, Home Missioners and Home Missionaries-The United Methodist Church

Scott is employed by United Methodist Women of the United Methodist Church where he is an Executive for the Office of Deaconess, Home Missioner and Home Missionary which administers mission personnel throughout the United States whose focus is on service and advocacy. Prior to that he was an educator for over 15 years. His experience in the classroom includes: Fifth grade general education teacher, reading specialist, special education inclusion teacher and severe/profound self-contained classroom teacher.

Scott has five beautiful children, Abby, John Presley, Nikolas, Hudson and Keiara. Scott’s wife, Mollie is a United Methodist Deaconess and is the Director of Mobilization at United Methodist Women who does advocacy work for women, children and youth.

Scott has a Bachelor of Science in Business from William Carey University and a Masters Degree in Education with Concentrations in Special Education and Educational Law. Scott completed his seminary work at New York Theological Seminary and received his credentials for chaplaincy through The Jewish Theological Seminary.

Deacon Brigitte McKenzie, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Deacon Brigitte McKenzie was ordained as a rostered minister of the BC Synod within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada in 2018. Her call to specialized ministry by the BC Synod is focused on community engagement. She currently is involved in the work of an alliance of 32 community organizations in the Greater Victoria area working together for the common good of all living in the region. Since 2012 Deacon Brigitte has served as a member of a leadership team guiding the BC Synod in a process of learning to be a missional church. She currently represents the deacons of the ELCIC on the social justice committee of DOTAC as well on the board of DOTAC.