In June of 2023, I was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church. And the thing that everyone seems to want to know is why—why not remain a layperson or why not become a priest? The short answer is that this is the vocation to which I believe I am called, but there’s much more to it than that. I am passionate about being a deacon because I believe that a return to the roots of diakonia is critical for the future of the church.
Before I continue, I will offer two caveats. Number one: I believe there is a future for the church, and I recognize that for many this is not a foregone conclusion. However, my faith in the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, my vocation as a minister of that gospel, and my experience of faithful Christians everywhere compels me to believe in the church and live each day as a member of Christ’s body—the church—in the hope of the resurrection. And so, even if you are skeptical, hang in there with me. Let’s imagine the church of the future.
Number two: I recognize I am writing from the perspective of an ordained person who is perhaps more invested in the future of the church than a layperson. However, I do not believe the future of the church rests with the clergy—quite the opposite. I believe that the future of the church depends on Christians in myriad vocations taking up the mantle of ministry in new and renewed ways.
As we begin, I want to offer some context for the terminology I will employ and the locus from which I am writing. In the Episcopal Church, “Deacons are members of one of three distinct orders of ordained ministry (with bishops and priests),” such that deacons exercise “‘a special ministry of servanthood’ directly under the bishop, serving all people and especially those in need.”[1] A similar diaconal role also exists in the Roman Catholic Church, some Lutheran denominations, the United Methodist Church, and several other Protestant denominations.
Deacons are first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles when the church calls and sets aside individuals to help address a problem of inequity in the community of believers (see chapter 6). These servant leaders help to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable are met so that the apostles can focus on their roles as pastor, priest, and teacher. The Greek word for what these original seven are set apart to do is διακονία or diakonia, which I will translate at its simplest as ministry.
In the ordination liturgy for deacons in the Episcopal Church, there are a few key phrases from the bishop’s charge to the ordinand that help clarify what it is that deacons are called to do and how this call extends to the whole church. The first phrase is this: “You are to make Christ and his redemptive love known, by your word and example, to those among whom you live, and work, and worship.”[2] This is a tall order, but it sets a framework and offers a lens through which deacons are to view the world. This commitment must guide their choices, words, and actions if they are to truly live into this call and vocation.
The next phrase from the ordination liturgy is that “you are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.”[3] A deacon’s work takes place on the threshold between the church and the world. Deacons must listen deeply and attentively to hear what those inside and outside the church need from the church in their unique individual and community contexts. Then deacons must be ready to serve as messengers, relaying those needs, concerns, and hopes back to the church in a call to action and service. In his seminal work on the diaconate, Many Servants, Ormond Plater describes this process by quoting from Montie Slusher:
The deacon’s journey is not an upward movement, but rather one of lateral movement into the world of people. The deacon must lead others from worship back into the day-by-day realities all must face in the world. . . . The role of the deacon is to see that the draw-bridge is always open . . . and that two-way traffic is possible.[4]
As bridges between the church and the world, deacons must therefore embody and guide Christians to walk alongside others in the liminal spaces where the challenges of everyday life intersect with Divine Love.
The third relevant phrase from the diaconal ordinal indicates that a deacon is “to assist the bishop and priests in public worship and in the ministration of God’s Word and Sacraments.” Some deacons will deemphasize the liturgical aspect of their vocation, focusing instead on the practical, hands-on ministry with and for those in need, but I feel strongly that this is an integral part of being an ordained deacon. Something very important happens when deacons, priests, and bishops serve together in the Christian assembly. After all, the liturgy isn’t just something we do on Sunday mornings. It is a gathering of the faithful to be fed, nurtured, and returned to the world ready to serve. It is rehearsal for the work of building the commonwealth of God. It is a retelling and a telling anew of the story of salvation; and it is a collapsing of time and space where eternity kisses the here and now.
Indeed, the roles a deacon fulfills in the liturgy point to the ministry of diakonia in the church and in the world. As heralds, deacons proclaim the gospel. As messengers, they lead the intercessions, bringing into the gathering of the faithful the needs, concerns, and hopes of the larger community and the world, and they call the people to confession and announce other key moments and movements in the celebration. As stewards, deacons prepare the altar for the holy meal of holy things for holy people, and their watchful eye ensures the guests of honor—the widows, orphans, and “the least of these” (Matt. 25:45 NRSV)—find a welcome at the feast. Finally, deacons dismiss the congregation, sending the body of Christ back into the world to “love and serve.”[5] Writing about the diaconate from a Roman Catholic perspective, W. Shawn McKnight beautifully describes how the deacon’s liturgical roles mirror their place in the life of the community:
Deacons unite the service of the table of the Word to the tables of eucharist and charity in their ritual ministry. They are the ministers of the threshold, the ones who assist the assembly to enter the profundity of the mystery being celebrated and thereafter to go back to the world to which the assembly is sent.[6]
Finally, after the community is fed and blessed, the deacon gives “the command to the people to live out the mysteries they have received.” McKnight continues,
The deacon, in distinction to the priest, is the personal symbolic figure who manifests the bridge between worship at the altar and the worship of moral life. Having a foot in the sanctuary and in the public square, deacons are unique in their ability to manifest the comprehensive character of true Christian worship.[7]
When all the orders of ministry come together in worship, the church is presented with a multifaceted icon of Christ—at once we have before us Christ our great high priest and Christ the humble servant. As these two roles act in tandem, we cannot escape the fact that ours is a God who is, at once, creator of the universe and also our human friend.
Each time the church celebrates the sacraments, the deacon’s liturgical actions invite the community to a kind of anthropological anamnesis, a recalling of sacred act and story from the distant and many subsequent pasts into the present moment and even forward into the immediate future. Anamnesis is a sacred remembering or putting together again whereby the spiritual grace of the sacraments calls the community to walk alongside the other in the liminal spaces where they are always to be found.
The fourth and final phrase is this: “At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.” Later the new deacon is also asked, “Will you look for Christ in all others, being ready to help and serve those in need?”[8] Three iterations of this connection of diakonia to ministry with and for the most vulnerable among us point to the desire of the crafters of the prayer book to emphasize this fundamental aspect of service to the vocation of the deacon but also, and perhaps more importantly, to the ministry and likeness of Jesus Christ himself, who is, of course, the “the image of the invisible God” and the model for all who believe in and call him Lord (Col. 1:15).
These phrases from the diaconal ordination rite are part of why some churches that retain the threefold orders of ordained ministry also use a sequential approach to ordination whereby those called to the priesthood first spend a transitional period of time as deacons. They do this because these are fundamental qualities of ordained leaders in the church but also because these are fundamental qualities of every baptized Christian. As Walter Kasper suggests, the church exists “for a world in need of unity, reconciliation and peace. The church is a servant church. In its broadest sense, then, diakonia is not just one dimension of the church: it is its essential dimension.”[9] The promises and vows that deacons make at their ordination do not, then, reflect a brand-new way of living but rather a continuation of how they have been living—how we are all called to live—with a new commitment to lead, inspire, and equip others as they too live out these qualities in their own personal vocations.
And so, if diakonia is the “essential dimension” of the church, then the invitation for every Christian is to join in the diakonia of all believers. This understanding of diakonia as ministry recalls Jesus’s own self-sacrificial, freedom-proclaiming ministry—his feeding and clothing and healing and resurrecting compels us to recognize that this work cannot be reserved for a small special class of clergy. Jesus shows us that this must be the work of all believers. It is how we practice being the church and how we live into the calling of the prayer “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, a layperson who has served as the representative of the World Council of Churches Representative to the United Nations and as the general secretary of the ACT Alliance, a global faith-based coalition to promote locally led advocacy and humanitarian efforts, shows what a church made up of believers practicing diakonia in the world could really mean. Recognizing the innumerable individuals and organizations operating within, alongside, and apart from organized religious structures, de Faria articulates a vision of pervasive diakonia service that emulates Jesus’s own ministry of changing the world, one in which churches and diaconal organizations play “a prophetic role” in “shaping national and global political agendas and highlighting values of inclusion and human dignity in the public square.” In this challenging moment where paradigms and values are shifting and changing with alarming speed, he proclaims that the diakonia must serve “as a public service and a public witness to respond to the challenges and threats that are undermining life and putting God’s creation at risk.” Churches must “rethink their ecclesiology” or “way of being church today,” for “prophetic (or political) diakonia, understood as actions that denounce injustices (advocacy) and announce the Good News (actions), is more relevant and urgent than ever.”[10]
Living into the diakonia of all believers is to engage the work of reconciliation and peacemaking. As we enter what promises to be a difficult yet paramount election year in the United States, I am struck by de Faria’s insistence that diakonia must be brought to those contexts “where the ‘politicization’ of religion and the ‘religionization’ of politics nurture mistrust among people and cause open conflicts.”[11] We live into our diakonia when we vote with our faith, engage in civil discourse while respecting the dignity of those whose ideas differ from ours, and take action to increase justice and peace in our communities, throughout our states and across the nation. We cannot interpret the concerns of the world to the church unless we are engaged citizens, aware of the needs of our neighbors. De Faria issues a clarion call to each of us seeking a better world for ourselves and those who will come after us:
Prophetic, inclusive and value-based actions will determine the future of humanity. Prophetic diakonia compels churches to be at the side of those excluded and marginalized in society, those who do not have access to basic services and human rights. . . . They must partner with other sectors and actors that seek to include everyone, in a great solidarity project based on human rights and ethical values inherent to the prophetic religious doctrines: all created in the image and likeness of God.[12]
There are days when I see the powers that oppress and marginalize—even the powers inside the church—and I struggle to see a way forward, yet my faith and hope are bolstered by others who hold fast to this vision of a church of and for the future. In her book Unexpected Consequences, Susanne Watson Epting, a deacon herself, writes about how deacons are “asked to be a bridge between a church that is stuck, and a church that is moving forward; a church that is anxious about her survival, and a church into which the Spirit’s breath is blowing vibrant new life.”[13]
So how shall we be that bridge? If the future of the church is diaconal, and we, the members of Christ’s body, are the church, how will we engage our diakonia?
To begin, we need not look further than Jesus’s own teaching in Matthew. There, he calls his disciples to action, a call that remains the work of Jesus’s followers today. As John Booty puts it, “The fundamental reason for the being of the church is service. . . . Without service the church ceases to be that which it was created to be.”[14] Jesus teaches us how to go about this work of service by creating a community of support with a shared mission and goal, by joining him in a radical way of being a new hope-filled world within the old world that is filled with hurt. Although Jesus’s instructions are certainly not easy to follow, they are simple: “Proclaim the good news” (Mark 16:15).
Every day I see people who are engaged in proclaiming good news. They are teachers and health-care workers. They operate nonprofits that feed, clothe, and shelter those in need. They are artists of all kinds committed to creating beauty in broken places. My joy as a deacon is looking and listening for these gospel messengers and affirming them and sharing their ministry with others. We all have some divine gift through which we can proclaim the good news. It is our vocation, and our call is to discover and nurture this spirit-spark within us. God’s reign of love, peace, and justice is already here because it’s inside of us. There’s no more waiting. We have to start living like it even, or perhaps especially, when it feels farther away than ever.
As we live out our diakonia, we must practice standing on the threshold with one ear listening to the hurts and fears of the world in which we all live and the other ear listening to new hope of the good news. Once our ears are attuned to both songs, there is so much restorative work to be done. But we do not have to do it alone—every Christian shares in Christ’s call to serve. Yes, some are called to be ordained leaders committing their lives to the church and helping guide others as they live out their own vocations. But make no mistake: every person is called in their own unique way to imitate Jesus who tells his newly formed community that it’s all about hospitality—looking for, being willing to see, and then welcoming the face of God in ourselves and in others. How would our lives be different if we really believed that we encounter the Divine in each person we meet? To receive, as Saint Benedict requires in his rule, every guest as though they were Christ himself is to make love and service the lens through which we view the world.[15]
But so many of the people around us are hurting, afraid, angry, or confused. How do we learn to see and love Jesus in these people? I believe this way of hospitality requires that we first look in the mirror, loving ourselves until the face of Christ becomes apparent to us. Then we turn to our neighbor, loving them until we see Christ there also. This work will not be easy. We will make mistakes, and sometimes it will feel like we’re on the losing team; but we are reminded that “suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character” (Rom. 5:3–5). When we can show up as our whole, messy, human selves, we realize just how beautiful and resilient God made us. Our baptism sets us apart as people committed to the work of hope, and our worship refreshes us through word and sacrament to persevere in actions small and great, and this shall bring us closer to God’s dream for the world.
In one of the prayers from the Episcopal Church’s service of Holy Eucharist, we pray: “And now, Father, send us out to do the work you have given us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.”[16] This is the work of diakonia that we have been given. At times, this work will be both daunting and rewarding. It is work that requires our whole lives; and our faith in the transforming power of God’s love is the hope that keeps us going. From that place of hope, we join hands with one another and with Jesus, the human Holy One, and we go back out as laborers into a plentiful harvest, together.
[1] Episcopal Church, “An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church,” https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/deacon/.
[2] Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church: Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David according to the Use of the Episcopal Church (New York, NY: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1979), 543.
[3] BCP, 543.
[4] Slusher quoted in Plater, Many Servants: An Introduction to Deacons (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2004), 57–58.
[5] BCP, 366.
[6] McKnight, “The Deacon in the Liturgy: An Epiphany of Service,” in Understanding the Diaconate: Historical, Theological, and Sociological Foundations (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 192.
[7] McKnight, “The Deacon,” 200.
[8] BCP, 544.
[9] Kasper quoted in Owen Cummings, “The State of the Question,” in Cummings, William T. Ditewig, and Richard R. Gaillardetz, Theology of the Diaconate: The State of the Question (New York, NY: Paulist, 2005), 18.
[10] De Faria, “Diakonia as Public Service and Public Witness,” in The Diaconal Church, ed. Stephanie Dietrich, Knud Jørgensen, Kari Karsrud Korslien, and Kjell Nordstokke (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2019), 251 and 257.
[11] De Faria, “Diakonia as Public,” 258.
[12] De Faria, “Diakonia as Public,” 263.
[13] Watson Epting, Unexpected Consequences: The Diaconate Renewed (New York, NY: Morehouse, 2015), 80.
[14] Booty, The Servant Church: Diaconal Ministry and The Episcopal Church (Wilton, CT: Morehouse-Barlow, 1982), 13.
[15] See The Rule of St. Benedict in English, trans. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1981).
[16] BCP, 366.