Ian Lasch is an autistic Episcopal priest who serves as rector of St. Francis of the Islands Episcopal Church in Savannah, Georgia. He is also a PhD student at the University of Aberdeen’s Centre for Autism and Theology. His dissertation seeks to challenge our conceptions of what it means to bear the imago Dei, the image of God, and how we might see the imago in autistic people and autistic experiences, not only to value and appreciate them more fully but to come to a fuller understanding of God. Ian takes great joy in living out the priestly vocation to serve as “pastor, priest, and teacher.” He is married to Loren (also an Episcopal priest serving as the Canon to the Ordinary for the Diocese of Georgia), and together, they have two young neurodivergent sons.
The Reverend Beckett Leclaire is a vocational deacon in the soon-to-be Episcopal Diocese of the Great Lakes, where he serves as the Ministry Developer for the AuSable Inclusion Center, a New Episcopal Community serving folks marginalized based on their gender, sexuality, and/or socioeconomic status in rural northern Michigan. He also serves as the coordinator for Holy Hikes Great Lakes, an eco-spirituality-focused hiking ministry. Recently, he concluded his service as a regional youth missioner for the Dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan and as a member of the bi-diocesan Building Bridges Steering Committee, which shepherded collective discernment leading to the Dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan voting in March 2024 to create one, new diocese.
Like many LGBTQ+ youth in rural areas, Deacon Beck encountered almost exclusively anti-LGBTQ+ and xenophobic sentiment in his local faith communities as a young person, leading him to explore other religious perspectives outside the church. In 2007, he experienced a profound moment of conversion guided by the Holy Spirit when he felt compelled to enter an Episcopal church and heard a lay preacher express an LGBTQ+ inclusive vision of the Kingdom of God and a distillation of the social gospel. Sixteen years later, he was ordained a deacon to take that very same message outside the walls of the church.
As an ECF Fellow, Deacon Beck dreams of encouraging rural faith communities to see themselves as the vital centers of evangelism and outreach they are, particularly to those who suffer from isolation and marginalization. Through his work at the AuSable Inclusion Center, he will develop tools and resources that can be implemented in other communities. For more information about the AuSable Inclusion Center, visit www.ausableinclusioncenter.org
Diana Moreland is the Director of Christian Formation at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach. She became an Episcopalian at 11 and has had numerous jobs in the Episcopal church. Along with her connection with the Episcopal church, she has been associated with many rural congregations across North America. Her experience with these congregations and her time on the Standing Commission on Small Congregations for the Episcopal Church led to her passion for rural congregational vitality. In the midst of the Christian call to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth and our call as Christians to fight against injustice and to lift up the marginalized, Diana has seen a need for the Church to reach out to these rural congregations that have been forgotten as an essential step in the Churches work. She has also seen the need inside the Episcopal church for an alternative way of measuring health that does not leave vital congregations behind. Diana hopes her work as a PhD student and beyond will help address these critical problems.