Yesterday’s Lessons for Today’s People
. I am always with you Matthew 28 16 Jesus’ eleven disciples went to a mountain in Galilee, where Jesus had told them to meet him. 17 They saw him and worshiped him, but some of them doubted. 18 Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! 19 Go to the people of…
Read Matthew 28:16-20 with your family. Sometimes people think Jesus only wanted grown-ups, pastors, or really important people to help share love in the world. But in this story, Jesus gathers his friends on a mountain and tells them something huge: “Go everywhere. Teach people how to love the way I taught you. Baptize them.…
There is a kind of holiness that only reveals itself in ordinary time. Not the mountaintop moments. Not the grand revelations. Not the stories that end up printed in books or preached from pulpits years later once we have polished them into testimonies with tidy endings. I mean the quiet stuff. The reheated cup of…
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Pastor… Storyteller… Presider… Teacher… Professional Question-Asker…
Deborah Suddard has spent more than three decades walking with people through faith, doubt, joy, grief, love, loss, and all the messy, beautiful in-between. She’s a pastor, teacher, preacher, writer, and officiant – but if you ask her, she’s really just someone who keeps asking better questions about God and inviting others to do the same.
Deborah believes the Gospel is far too alive to be locked inside tidy theology or church walls. As The Barefoot Evangelist, she digs into Scripture the way it was meant to be read – rooted in history, culture, and lived experience – so we can hear what Jesus was actually saying, not just what we’ve been told He said. Sometimes that’s comforting. Sometimes it’s disruptive. And honestly, it’s usually both.
Her ministry is built on one simple, stubborn conviction: love is bigger than fear, and grace is bigger than rules. Deborah teaches a Christianity that is thoughtful, grounded, and deeply human – a faith that makes room for questions, laughter, protest, and hope all at once.
Alongside her theological work, Deborah also serves in Eastern Ontario as an officiant creating and leading weddings, funerals, and rites of passage that feel honest, meaningful, and deeply respectful. Whether the setting is a church, a forest, a living room, or a windswept shoreline, her ceremonies are crafted to honour the sacredness of love, memory, and transition – without pretending that life is ever neat or predictable.
What ties it all together is this:
Deborah shows up where people are.
Not where they “should” be.
Not where religion says they belong.
Where they actually are.
She walks with couples into commitment, families through grief, seekers through doubt, and communities through change – with compassion, wit, and a faith that isn’t afraid to get its feet dirty.
If you’re looking for someone who will take God seriously but not use God as a weapon…
If you believe church should feel more like a table than a courtroom…
If you’re hungry for something truer than easy answers…
You’re in the right place.
Welcome!
The Barefoot Evangelist 