Dee Seaquist
dseaquist@tyfi.org
(952) 405-7304

Dee uses her gifts and passion for ministry at The Institute as the Director of Conferences and Training Events. In this capacity she serves The Institute in four ministry areas:

• Provide logistical and promotional support to conference and training event coordinators.
• Support the ministry of congregational Resource Center coordinators.
• Support the ministry of The Youth & Family Institute Associates.
• Support gifts based volunteer ministry in congregations and at The Institute.

Prior to joining the staff at The Youth & Family Institute, Dee has worked with congregations in the Minneapolis area. Her ministry focus has been coordinating intergenerational events, family camps and retreats, and helping congregations in the development and implementation of gifts based volunteer ministry. Dee’s passion is nurturing congregations as they seek to empower and equip their members for ministry.

It was Soren Kierkegarrd who once said that life is understood looking backward but must be lived forward. It is in looking backward while living forward that Dee can see how God has helped her in an ongoing discovery of the many ways one can be gifted by God to serve in God’s earthly kingdom. Dee’s experiences of discovery have been through being the oldest of seven children, serving in the Navy as a Laboratory Technologist, marriage and parenthood, and working through a family tragedy when her husband, Mark, was hit by a car going 50 miles an hour while he was jogging. Through each of these life experiences Dee has discovered the gifts God gave her to serve God’s purposes in the circumstances where she was living.

Dee has been active in congregational life as both a volunteer and staff member. At one congregation she coordinated family ministry events including a Sunday evening intergenerational gathering, a summer family camp and winter family retreat. With each new challenge, Dee has discovered new gifts and skills. But, it was in serving her current congregation that Dee discovered her life passion, which is helping people from children through adults discover that God has uniquely created each of them with wonderful gifts for building up God’s kingdom on earth as they live out their lives of faith. As Director of Volunteer Ministry for her congregation, Dee created and built a gifts based ministry model that encouraged gifts discovery and living out faith using discovered gifts within the home, the congregation, in the community and reaching out into the greater world.

And now Dee’s living forward has brought her to The Youth & Family Institute where she uses her gifts to coordinate conferences and training events, to reach out to build relationships with congregations growing the Child in Our Hands model, and to support the associates and volunteers of The Institute.

Dee also loves teaching gifts based ministry at every opportunity. She teaches two workshops for The Institute which are: What Part of the Body are YOU? Discovering Gifts Based Ministry and From Gifts Discovery into Action – Building Ministry Teams.

At home, Dee celebrates 27 years of marriage to Mark. They have a daughter, Kristen, who is finishing her last year of study to become an R.N. and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy named Dan. Together, the Seaquists enjoy family dinners, trips to museums and live theater, camping and biking in southern Minnesota, and mother/daughter walks. Dee loves to spend her leisure time reading all kinds of books, and enjoying the company friends.