Are you called to be a Deacon?

What is a Deacon?

There are two orders of ministry with different emphases in the Methodist Church - Presbyters and Deacons. The core emphasis of a Deacon’s ministry is ‘witness through service’. These two strands are highlighted in the ordination service and are embodied through acts of pastoral care, a passion for mercy and justice, being a prophetic voice and a messenger of the Gospel. This includes acts of evangelism, apologetics, teaching, leading of worship and the encouraging and equipping of the whole Church’s diaconal ministry.   Methodist Deacons are ordained to the diaconate in the universal Church of which the Methodist church is a part and become full members of the Methodist Diaconal Order at the point of ordination

As a Deacon, you would be a ‘focus’ for the servant ministry of Christ. Through their ministry, Deacons reveal the incarnate servant Jesus. Taking as their model Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, they help people to understand the nature of God's love and healing through acts of loving kindness. They encourage people to realise that by serving others in God’s name they also encounter, and are served by, God.

Deacons are called to:

• assist God’s people in worship and prayer;
• hold before them the needs and concerns of the world;
• minister Christ’s love and compassion;
• visit and support the sick and the suffering;
• seek out the lost and the lonely;
• help those they serve to offer their lives to God

(Ordination Service for Deacons)

Deacons make visible God’s calling to the Church to be a servant in the world. Deacons challenge the Church to respond to this calling through their own servant ministry acting as a link between the world and the church, interpreting to the Church the needs and aspirations of the world. Deacons seek to connect faith with life in today's world in such a way that people are encouraged to articulate their experience, deal with the challenges they encounter and are helped to make sense of their faith in everyday life. Deacons are able to work at grassroots, alongside people within and beyond the Church community and to offer a prophetic voice. They draw attention to and help interpret God's activity in the world and daily life.

Deacons offer Methodism and the wider Church the discipline, spirituality and commitment to community that is part of working out their personal vocation in the context of belonging to a Religious Order.

Some Deacons have a specific focus at various points in their ministry. For example, they may be involved in various forms of chaplaincy or may become pioneer ministers. This will depend on their gifts and graces and the Church’s missional needs.

Deacon Lorraine Brown - Rural Development Enabler

Read these words and look at the image below as you ponder the questions

Deacons are called by God to a ministry of witness and service, proclamation and prayer. Through this ministry, you enable the Church to join with the work of God in the world.

The Methodist Diaconal Order is a religious order, with a shared rule of life to which all Deacons are called.

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”  Isaiah 61:1-2 (NRSV)

• What comes to mind when you reflect on God’s heart for the community?
• What does it mean to you to share the good news?

Being a Methodist Deacon is a vocation.  It is a calling to a lifetime commitment to an order of ministry, serving God in the church and in the world, and to a Religious Order, sharing a Rule of Life and committing to support one another through the discipline of religious life. It is both demanding and challenging, and also hugely exciting and rewarding. Could this be the path that God wants you to take?