GRANT COUNTY — When Deacon Roger Scholbrock is scheduled to preach at churches around St. Joseph the Worker Pastorate, he brings a traveling healing ministry with him.
Under the Diocese of Madison’s Into the Deep strategic plan, deacons and pastorate staff are beginning to reach broader regions with their unique ministries and charisms, sharing them with additional Church communities.
This includes Deacon Scholbrock and Leigh Boorn, the pastorate’s director of evangelization, who about a year ago began staying after Mass to pray for healing with parishioners.
“On the weekends that I preach, after Mass, Leigh and I will pray with people asking for healings and whatever it is that they need,” Deacon Scholbrock said.
“Some weekends we have a whole lot of people to pray for, sometimes we have very [few]. But what we are finding is in preaching the Gospel . . . and then praying with people and granting them the love of Jesus that he can offer, that through those prayers, people’s hearts are being changed, and that’s the purpose of it.”
Deacon Scholbrock, who was ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2020, rotates regularly between the pastorate’s seven churches to preach and serve at Mass.
St. Joseph the Worker Pastorate is in Grant County and is comprised of St. Mary Church in Bloomington, St. Charles Borromeo Church in Cassville, St. Mary Help of Christians Church in Glen Haven, St. Clement Church in Lancaster, St. John Church in Patch Grove, St. Thomas Church in Potosi, and St. Andrew Church in Tennyson.
Ministry’s beginnings
The healing ministry kicked off with encouragement from Parochial Administrator Fr. Steve Brunner after he and Deacon Scholbrock attended the Encounter Ministries conference in Toledo last summer.
The deacon said he witnessed several healing experiences at the conference, including his own.
“When I got back from the conference with Father Steve, we were like, ‘You know what? We need to be doing this,’” Deacon Scholbrock said.
Encounter Ministries is a Catholic apostolate that equips disciples to live more fully in the power of the Holy Spirit through healing, evangelization, and supernatural ministry.
Healing plays a central role in their mission, with prayer offered for physical, emotional, and spiritual needs and testimonies highlighting God’s love and power.
The Encounter School of Ministry recently launched a satellite campus in the Diocese of Madison.
Boorn and Deacon Scholbrock are both registered to take classes with the ministry this fall.
“I realized that the Lord heals people, and so I’ve been praying with people for healing for years,” Boorn said. “After last summer’s Encounter Conference, Father [Brunner] said he wanted to have Deacon [Scholbrock] and I pray with people after the Masses.”
Beyond boundaries
The healing ministry has spanned beyond the boundaries of St. Joseph the Worker Pastorate, too.
In August, the pastorate’s healing team paired up with clergy and staff from neighboring St. Dominic Pastorate to hold a healing service at St. Mary Church in Platteville.
The service featured praise and worship, music, testimonies from Fr. Greg Ihm and Deacon Scholbrock, and teaching by representatives from Encounter Ministries.
About 75 people attended the healing service from around the region, Boorn said.
“We believe that Jesus did the work,” Deacon Scholbrock said.
“We’ve had people’s shoulders freed from being locked or not being able to move. We’ve had people’s hearts changed, just a lot of really nice, beautiful stuff of God working in people’s lives. And that’s ultimately what it’s about.
“When people see the beauty of what Christ can do and what God wants to do in people’s lives, through healing and through the Gospel and through Mass and through our faith, it comes alive for people,” he added.
“It’s just not something in a book that we listen to every week. You know, we always hear that the kingdom of God is here, but how do we witness it? How do we feel it? How do we experience it? And this is one way that really, truly brings it to life and into a reality for people.”