I've mentioned that I'm taking diakonia, formal training for the ELCA's diaconate. The course I'm taking now is "Practical Ministry, III," and a homework assignment is to interview people in congregation's neighborhood, asking the following three questions:
- What do you like most about this community?
- What do you think the biggest needs are in this community?
- What could a church do to be helpful to the people in this community?
I'm doing this in the community defined by physical proximity to the church I attend, but these seem like reasonable questions for this community too, and I would be interesting to have your answers as well.
Peace
8 comments:
Does this mean you're becoming a deacon?
I think what every community needs is clear laws.
What I think the church should do is explicate and enforce them.
The laws should be very strict.
That makes people feel safe.
What I would like to see in every community is far tighter laws that protect the people inside of the community.
Laws! Without them, everything turns to blackened gruel.
Kirby,
Does this mean you're becoming a deacon?
I believe that at the end of this, I become a synodical deacon, which as far as I can tell, means that this is not an office recognized by the ELCA nationally, but only within my synod (Metro Chicago).
Both the Catholic and Lutheran church seem to take the diaconate very seriously. I like that.
In my little Presbyterian church we elect elders and deacons for 2-3 year terms, and there is little or no training for the office. Sometimes the pastor tries to schedule a retreat/training day for the deacons and elders, but most of us are so busy that we find it hard to attend something like that. I suppose part of the problem is that our church is so small that it is hard to find enough people who are willing to serve at all that we pretty much just take whomever we can get.
I served as an elder for one 3-year term a while back, but since then I have declined the nomination twice. My job takes so much out of me, that I hardly have time for anything else. I wish it were different. But even as I strive to find better ways to keep my life in balance, I sense that if I do find a way to make my work take up less of my life, there are a lot of other things that I would pursue first, either in my home life, or in other groups, before I would choose to serve as an elder or deacon at my church. Maybe that's just not my calling. Even at my church, I think I would feel more called to return to teaching Sunday school than to serving as an elder or deacon. At least, that's how it seems to me now.
Maybe if our church had a more rigorous path to the diaconate, then I would find myself aspiring to it.
But none of this answers your questions.
When I think of the geographical territory around my church, I am hard pressed to even call it a community. I hardly even know any of my neighbors. I spend more time with people I work with than with people that I live near.
Still I have a desire to be a part of a community, and I don't find that at work or in my neighborhood. It seems like that is a need that a church could fill.
Going to church on Sundays at the same place for 12 years does make me feel like there is a place I can go where I belong, but I don't really have any close friends at my church.
I have a little more sense of community with a small group of believers from different churches with whom we meet once every 2-4 weeks. In that group we share a meal, sing worship songs, and spend some time sharing what is going on in our lives. I find that I need that sort of structured "connection time" (as we call it), where I have 5 minutes to talk about anything I want to, and everyone else will listen. If we skip the formal connection time, as we sometimes do, and just have casual conversation, then I am unlikely to talk about anything that is truly important to me. And I feel that as a loss.
Maybe that's why I don't feel a real sense of community at my church. We never get deeper than casual conversation, and so no one there really knows me.
Getting back to your third question, it seems to me that a church's primary responsibility is to provide a setting where people can meet God and can learn together and support each other in continuing to seek and to follow God in the context of their daily lives.
Sally,
Many thanks for your post. There's a lot here to chew on.
One issue is that while the various Christian communities use many of the same words (saint, deacon, elder, presbyter, priest, bishop), there isn't a huge amount of consistency in what the words mean.
In particular, my impression (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that being an elder in the Presbyterian Church is homologous to being a member of the Church Council in the Lutheran Church. This is to say, there is a deliberative body of fixed size that is elected by the congregation from its membership on a periodic basis (interleaving three year terms is pretty common) to oversee the business of the congregation. It is less clear to me what a presbyterian deacon does.
The diaconate, although a historical title, has been rapidly increasing in importance in the Catholic Church (as near as I can tell, in response to the priest shortage), and are ordained. Catholic Deacons are always men, and usually married men. In the later case, their wives are considered as partners in their ministry, and take a surprisingly active (if unsurprisingly subordinate) role. My wife's sister's husband is a Catholic Deacon, and we attended his diaconal ordination.
In the ELCA right now, there are several distinct kinds of deacons. One kind (Associates in Ministry) are very much like the Catholic's permanent diaconate, and they typically end up in calls, as paid professionals. Another kind, (what I'm training to be) seems to consist of formally recognized over-committed laity :-). Both types are consecrated, not ordained.
To put a further twist on this, I'm expecting to be nominated to serve on my Church Council, but this is entirely independent of my diaconal training, and if I am elected, I'll be the only lay member to have had this experience. I guess the moral is that Lutherans under-train our lay leadership as well. I don't want you reading more into my experience than there is.
I am very interested in your small group ministry, and its "formal connection time." This is a very interesting idea.
Many thanks for your contribution.
Yes, Presbyterian elders function basically as a church council. However, we are ordained, and ordained for life, actually, though we only serve on the council for specific periods of time.
Theoretically, an elder is allowed to preach in cases where the pastor is absent, though I've only once seen that happen in our church, and the elder who preached made it very clear that she was delivering a "message" rather than a "sermon". Elders also are eligible to help serve communion, and an elder normally accompanies the pastor when (s)he delivers communion to someone at home.
Presbyterian deacons are responsible for caring for the congregation. Each deacon is responsible for a specific subset of the church members and is supposed to call on them if they are sick or if they haven't been seen in church for awhile. In our church the deacons are mostly women and mostly plan fellowship lunches after church once every month or two.
Thanks for filling me in on the lutheran and catholic side of things.
there are two ways to be a deacon in the R catholic order of things
- there are permanent deacons
and these men are generally married but not always - religious orders often have permamnent deacons -- we have 1 here
transitional deacons are men on their way to being ordained to the priesthood -- this could be a year -- more or less
permanent deacons make a promise should they become widowed to open their lives to the ministry of ordained priesthood
what i like most about this community of EIRENE is that people like sally express themselves so eloquently and honestly...and kirby's ego isn't the main point of contention
i think the biggest need in this community is that we have to sit down and have a meal together and realize that we all have bad breath once in awhile
a church should go through a formal recognition of blog communities and pray for us during the intercessions - or community petitions - i'm going to suggest this in my monastery
that bloggers of the world learn to speak with one another humbly and humorously and that they all strive to find god together...let us pray to the Lord
(lord hear our prayer) - in case you didn't know
peacibilitywillity wah wah whooppppeeeh
jh
i wonder if communities will have to make room for robots who decide they have a vocation to seek god
o and stu
good luck
the spirit of god attend you on your pilgrim trail
may the weight of the cross
bruise your shoulder
jh
jh,
Thanks as always!
a church should go through a formal recognition of blog communities and pray for us during the intercessions - or community petitions - i'm going to suggest this in my monastery
Indeed, I view the internet as a mission field, and us as missionaries.
that bloggers of the world learn to speak with one another humbly and humorously and that they all strive to find god together...let us pray to the Lord
(lord hear our prayer) - in case you didn't know
I did :-). We do the responsive thing too.
may the weight of the cross
bruise your shoulder
And your's.
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