How can we make our churches deeper in pastoral care, the sacraments and Scripture while also being more effective in evangelism and social outreach? The answer from the New Testament is to appoint and empower Deacons.
Church leadership has classically been made up of teams that comprise a range of gifting but which represent two different orders, and which have different focuses. The one that draws the most attention and controversy is that of Elder or Priest, a role that focuses on mediating Christ’s presence to his people through teaching, pastoral care, and the sacraments.
Equally important, though, are non-Elder leaders, traditionally called Deacons. Acts 6 and 13 illustrate why. In Acts 6, the text in which the office of Deacon as a non-Elder leader is first explained, we find Deacons leading in two areas. First, they lead in social action – demonstrating the love of Christ in action by ensuring the people are fed. Second, they lead in evangelism, pioneering an early evangelistic and apologetics programme that leads ultimately to the martyrdom of one of their number, Stephen.
Later, in Acts 13 we find other non-Elder leaders developing the mission strategy of the Antiochian church alongside Paul and Barnabus.
As Joseph Ratzinger put it:
[B]ecause one cannot learn to do by speaking but only by doing, the diaconate originated precisely and in a special way as a ministry of “showing how to do”. When the apostles called the seven men from whose efforts the Church’s diaconal ministry developed, they did so in order to entrust to them the ministry of charity in the Church, so as to be free again as apostles for the ministry of the word. Since then charitable work, showing how to believe and to love, has always remained a defining feature of the diaconal ministry…A Church that neglected this demonstration of charity, of social and human concern, and the actualization of Jesus Christ’s goodness in practical matters would neglect an essential part of her mission…
Here a second aspect of diaconal ministry becomes visible: showing-how-to-do remains mute unless it is interpreted in an explanatory proclamation, in the message that commands the deeds in the first place.1
In all of this the Deacons enable the pastoral and sacramental ministry of the Elders precisely because they (the Deacons) lead the mission of the Church in both its evangelistic and practical forms so that the Elders don’t get distracted from their actual calling. In other words, Deacons are appointed to lead in mission because that is not what Elders should be focused on Acts 6:3-4. That doesn’t mean the Elders are irrelevant to mission. Texts such as Acts 13 and Philippians 1: 1 show blended teams of Elders and non-Elders working together. But it does mean that as Elders they aren’t responsible for directing on implementing the church’s social and evangelistic mission and when they try to be so they will inevitably end up being compromised in the execution of their actual calling.
I’m really blessed in this regard. My church’s leadership includes some wonderful and effective leaders executing non-sacramental ministries that keep the church on mission while enabling me to focus on representing and ministering Christ to those for whom I am responsible. Nevertheless, at a time when many in church life desire greater depth and care from Elders, the mission demands of a post-Christendom world seem overwhelming, and many evangelical pastors burn out, maybe Elders should not be occupied with being vision-casting, organisation-building, missional leaders. And ask the church to appoint and empower some Deacons instead!
- Benedict XVI, Teaching and Learning the Love of God: Being a Priest Today, p.152, 154. ↩︎
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