Deacon Charles Farrell
Charles was born in Lake Forest, IL where he was baptized at the Church of the Holy Spirit but moved as a child to the western prairie of Minnesota where he grew up in Morris, MN. Charles attended Shattuck School, an Episcopal boarding school founded by James Lloyd Breck who also help to found Nashotah House in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Minnesota, Morris and majored in History & English and then completed a Master of Education degree from North Dakota State University. Charles lived in Chicago during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, working at the University of Chicago and then the Illinois Institute of Technology before moving to Eau Claire, WI.
In Eau Claire Charles attended Christ Church Cathedral. After running from the call to ordained ministry which he began to hear at Shattuck, it was at the Cathedral in Eau Claire that Charles heard the call again and stopped running. He began the Master of Ministry program at Nashotah House in 2008 (he finished with his Master of Ministry degree from The House in the spring of 2018) and was ordained to the Diaconate on the Feast of St. Thomas (December 21st) 2013. He functioned as a deacon the next day which was also the 50th anniversary of his baptism and served as one of three deacons at the Cathedral until 2017. Throughout much of his adult life he has felt drawn to serve the homeless and hungry. While in Eau Claire he regularly volunteered at the Community Table feeding people and leading a team from Christ Church and worked three nights a week as a volunteer at Sojourner House a homeless shelter for men & women.
In May 2017 Charles returned to Chicago to work at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) as the Executive Director for Business Development & UIC Student Centers where he oversees the Student Centers, UIC Dining Services and the University Bookstores. In Chicago he volunteers regularly at Care For Real in Edgewater and at St. Anthony’s Food Pantry at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension. In 2018 the Bishop of Chicago formally assigned Charles as a deacon at the Church of the Atonement and the Church of the Ascension, Chicago.