Bishop Stewart Ruch (ACNA)

The Rt. Rev. Stewart E. Ruch, III is the Bishop of the Upper Midwest, Dean of the Greater Chicago Deanery, and Rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois. Ruch is married to Katherine, and they have six children. Their first love and passion is raising their children and developing their family as a “domestic church.” They also consider it one of the great honors of their lives to serve Church of the Resurrection, where they marvel at the move of God they have been swept up in for the last 25 years. Stewart first came to Church of the Resurrection as a Wheaton College junior on Palm Sunday, 1988. Katherine and he learned from and served under Fr. William and Anne Beasley for a decade at Resurrection. During this time Stewart completed his Master’s in Theology at Wheaton College Graduate School (where he was awarded the Kenneth Kantzer prize for theology) and ministered on college campuses in Chicago with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The combination of Resurrection, Wheaton College, and InterVarsity provided a most dynamic training season for the ministry. Here he learned how to lead (especially in regard to vision and liturgy), how to minister in the power of the Holy Spirit, and how to read and preach God’s Word and to study the teachings of the Great Tradition.

Stewart became rector of Resurrection in the winter of 1999. The last fifteen years have been a season of learning the power of Jesus amidst the immense pressures and joys of priestly ministry. With a focus on the presence of God, prayer and fasting, and a collaborative and creative leadership culture, Resurrection has quintupled in average Sunday attendance. In most recent years there has been an increase in conversions. Through a true miracle, Resurrection has transitioned from twenty years of being a mobile church to a new building—a Chicago Modernist factory that has been renovated into a House of God. Another ministry passion of Stewart’s is raising up leaders and church planters. In 2013, Resurrection sent out their fifth and sixth church planters. In September 2013, Stewart was consecrated Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest (ACNA), and has a vision to see a Revival of Word and Sacrament infused by the Holy Spirit in the Upper Midwest. Stewart is currently working on the completion of his Doctor of Ministry. He loves running; reading novels, biographies, and leadership books; and spending as much time as possible in forests and streams with his children.