After returning last year from a forced hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Men’s Conference moves forward this year with a focus on daily discipleship.
Hosted by the Catholic Watchmen, the conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 23 at St. Joseph in Rosemount. It’s part of an effort to get men together on a regular basis to share fellowship and strengthen each other as disciples of Christ.
What is a disciple? One who loves God and loves his neighbor, said Deacon Gordon Bird, a conference organizer and Catholic Watchmen leader. Christ teaches that we can’t separate the two, he said, pointing out that men promoting discipleship in their families and communities is in lockstep with an Archdiocesan Synod goal of small group evangelization. Men are encouraged to read Scripture, be spiritual leaders and engage with their families in prayer and ministering to others, he said.
“Men are isolated in our culture,” said Dean Patterson, regional director of Texas-based Catholic Men’s Leadership Alliance and a member of St. Paul in Ham Lake. Patterson said he plans to attend the conference, and he hopes the event will inspire men to encounter Christ and form authentic friendships that will strengthen them as disciples and leaders.
Dennis Brummel of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Hastings said he looks forward to attending the conference.
“The Holy Spirit always seems to have some way to work through the speakers and touch our lives,” he said.
The event will bring men together from throughout the archdiocese. Archbishop Bernard Hebda will celebrate Mass, Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers and Jeff Cavins will be featured speakers, Luke Spehar (accompanied by Teresa Petersen and Bill Bradley) will provide music, and Auxiliary Bishops Michael Izen and Joseph Williams, as well as Deacon Joe Michalak, director of the Office of Synod Evangelization, will lead prayer and deliver addresses.
There will be opportunities for confession, lunch and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Throughout the day, various ministry leaders in the archdiocese will give three- to five-minute “Watchmen witness” accounts, promoting their parish men’s ministry movements and the impact they have on discipleship and spiritual fatherhood.
Recalling Jesus’ charge to his disciples to find and feed the lost sheep, Deacon Burke-Sivers has called on men to be father figures and to live out their purpose to serve, protect and defend their families, their faith and their communities.
Known as the “dynamic deacon,” Deacon Burke-Sivers was born in Barbados to a Methodist mother. His mother became the first Catholic in the family after a friend invited her to Mass. Deacon Burke-Sivers was baptized into the Catholic Church and attended Catholic grade school and high school growing up in Hillside, New Jersey. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics and business administration and a master’s degree in theological studies.
He worked 23 years in law enforcement, during which he rose to a leadership role in charge of regional university and college campus police. He developed a straight-talking, no-nonsense approach to living his faith. As an ordained deacon, he has challenged men to put their time and effort into building their relationship with God, rather than pursuing worldly distractions.
“We are the laborers sent into the field,” Deacon Burke-Sivers said in a recent talk, “We are called to reap an abundant harvest of souls using the navigational tools of the Catholic faith to lead men to conversion.”
Cavins returned to the Catholic Church after 12 years as a Protestant minister. He is recognized as a dynamic Bible teacher who can make complex theological concepts understandable and give them practical application for everyone. Cavins has a master’s degree in theology, and he is director emeritus and a teacher at the Catechetical Institute at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul.
“Discipleship is not a theological exercise, it’s a relationship with Jesus,” Cavins said about the conference and its theme, Men of Christ — Rising Daily in Discipleship. “How can we follow him today as his disciples followed him then?”
