Before I get into the specifics, I want to acknowledge that the majority of the Deacon’s job description was just parsed out to the entire congregation: 

1. If we were to actually embrace “Priesthood of all believers”, the deacons cannot be identified as “the spiritual leaders of the church”. 

2. If we assume Jesus’ mandate in John 13 is an expectation for all Disciples, thus creating a deeper culture of care, the deacons are no longer the primary caregivers of the church family. 

3. In the systemic identity crisis – the job description for the deacons has become less focused on active walking/leading and more akin to structural maintenance workers. For example, in our current structure the Deacons are entrusted with supervision of the pastoral staff while the personnel committee is charged with the supervision of the support staff.  The last handful of Deacon Boards, Personnel Committees, former and current staff members, will all agree that the model hasn’t served us well. The other administrative duties assigned to the Deacons have created a culture of high burnout. The last handful of nominating committees haven’t been able to identify folks that feel called to serve on the Deacon Board.

Ok, that’s the bad news. Here’s the good news…

it’s a new day and God is doing a new thing. Whereas, I have no specific recommendation to bring forward about long term structure, I do have a specific recommendation to carry us through the remainder of this year. As we practice intentional walking and listening, I am confident God will give us what we need.  Here it is again, “We make the road by walking”. 

Recommendation for the remainder of 2022. 

1. Gather “official” leadership and staff together to create nominating team, share the names with the congregation for feedback, and then trust the “official” leadership of the church to vote to approve. Taking the vote to the entire congregation is best practice when the church is deeply connected and in the right head space. The last several business meetings have not been very healthy and it’s going to take some time for us to practice walking differently. Trusting the folks the congregation voted into “official” leadership last fall seems healthy to me but only after the congregation has had an opportunity to share responses. 

2. We all appear to believe that Deacon Ministry is really important. Thus, anyone we elect to serve as a Deacon cannot and should not have a current Leadership role that carries heavy responsibility for coordination or implementation of another area of ministry in 2022.  It is possible the nominating committee will ask someone if they would consider stepping down form a current position if they feel called to serve. Should that happen, we’d need to determine if it’s critical the position is filled officially or if there is another option that makes more sense in this year of practicing together. 

3. Ask the nominating team to identify six individuals to serve as Deacons specifically called to care for members of our immediate community that are experiencing isolation and/or loneliness.  

The early Christian Church relied upon a small handful of folks, all with unique backgrounds and giftedness, to care for the “widows and orphans”. A deeper form of care was needed for those without traditional support structures. I believe we need 6 folks, all with unique backgrounds and giftedness, to care for those most isolated among us. (e.g. folks living with deep depression, those privately struggling with substance addiction, couples that might have experienced a recent miscarriage, etc.) Privacy would be paramount and it would be presumed the six would work closely with the pastoral staff and likely help to creatively coordinate the meeting of physical needs along with spiritual and emotional needs. 

4. Ask the nominating team to identify 2 individuals to serve as Deacons, specifically installed to work closely with our teachers, small group leaders, and staff in equipping the church to establish a deeper culture of care. If Jesus expects us to love one another, he probably intends for us to offer deeper care to both those in our immediate circles AND those in the church outside of those circles.  Having a couple of trained and called deacons to focus on changing culture feels faithful and wise. 

5. Ask the nominating team to identify 1 person to serve as the Deacon Chair. This individual would work closely alongside the personnel committee in supervision, support, and encouragement of the staff.  The Deacon Chair would also stay in close contact with the other two groups of deacons and, should the need arise, call the entire group together should a major issue or opportunity need to be addressed. 

6. Lastly, I would like to suggest the nominating committee identify 2 members to join Eleanor Brown in researching Stephen Ministry, an innovative model for caregiving that could be invaluable in shifting culture and helping us explore potential for caregiving and relationship building in Abundant Community. 

Please join me in praying for guidance as we embrace the moment God is giving us, recommit to purpose, and bury practices that feed our addictions. I’m not certain that the recommendation I’ve shared is the right next step but I give you my word that I’m thinking about it a lot, I’m continuing to pray about it, and I genuinely want to hear what God is prompting in your own hearts in your listening.  

Yours in Christ, 

Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor

1. We help each other overcome our addiction to control and contempt, through deeper forms of relationship building. Work to develop a culture that invites vulnerable sharing in appropriate spaces and foster a deeper culture of care through awareness of those outside of our familiar circles.   

2. We practice what we preach and then we practice some more. Let’s create programs in this next season that are more about culture than strategizing. This is how we’ll build trust.

3. As we continually remind and invite one another into “a more excellent way” of walking together, there is life to be found our testifying to what Christ is revealing along the way. Lets practice testimony more actively in every aspect of church life.

4. We identify those among us experiencing spiritual renewal and listen for what God might be revealing.

5. We identify those with unique giftedness in creating space for deeper listening and invite them to help us practice. 

6. We assume that every gathering is a form of active discipleship…even though most of it won’t likely resemble anything we traditionally associate with discipleship.

7. We identify the giftedness and potential in one another and get busy leaning into a relational form of leadership.

8. We prepare to welcome an influx of new energy and new people. We open our hearts to them in sharing fuller versions of our stories.  

9. We constantly clarify who makes what decision and then communicate clearly before and after the decisions are made. 

10. We continue to trust the Spirit to help us make the road by walking.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor

Tomorrow, we get really specific. Part Four features the promised recommendation for Deacon Ministry.

Still walking!  Well done.  In part two, I’m going to make a case that our leadership conundrum isn’t as simple as it seems….Let’s get to it. 

Baptists are freedom people:

• Soul freedom
• Bible Freedom
• Church Freedom
• and Religious Freedom. 

I want to focus specifically on Soul Freedom here (aka Priesthood of ALL Believers).  As Baptist, we believe that followers of Jesus are a priesthood of ALL believers. It means we don’t need an intermediary between ourselves and God and it means that we’re all on equal footing with one another. “Priesthood of All Believers” is a beautiful principle in it’s purest form and pretty awful when it goes amuck. As I’ve pondered how to best identify the opportunity and challenge here, I’ve come to see our dysfunctional deacon structure not so much of an identify crisis for a specific group of leaders and much more of a systemic crisis of identity. I believe that we’ve joined the majority of western christians in confusing disciple identity with democracy identity. 

DEMOCRACY:

Theoretically, a democracy puts all of us on equal ground: every person matters and every life is full of potential. Democracy supports the idea that we all work together to build a society that helps people live into their potential. Theoretically, in a democracy, every vote counts the same. We vote to give certain folks authority and those folks help enforce and/or create boundaries that respect the dignity of all citizens.  Here’s the thing, democracy is beautiful in it’s purest form and pretty awful when it goes amuck. 

Once somebody has been given authority, it’s pretty hard for that someone, or a group of someones, to resist onset addiction to control. If you’ve every seen someone in the world (or mirror) struggling with an addiction, you know the struggle is real. It’s doesn’t take much time for things to get out of control. 

In a democracy gone amuck, here’s what the addiction looks like. Those in the controlling party find themselves growing more and more fearful they’re going to lose control. In turn, those in authority justify their disfunction.  Dehumanization is the strange fruit born of addiction to control.  When we feed that addiction, we cease to believe that all people matter because we don’t really see “those people” as human and those in authority become less human every time they feed the addiction. Addiction to control creates a culture addicted to contempt. 

Keep walking. Stay with me, here

PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS? 

As Baptists, we are a Priesthood of ALL believers. It means we don’t believe anyone in a position of authority gives us access to God. It means that we don’t believe that any one person is more important than another. It means that every person, every voice, counts the same. It’s extraordinary when practiced faithfully and incredibly destructive when it isn’t. 

Here’s the thing, Church isn’t a democracy. “Church” is what happens when a group of beautifully diverse individuals, find themselves actively walking with the One that each of them calls “Lord”. A Priesthood of ALL Believers, by name and definition, fall under the authority of Jesus Christ.  In principle, we don’t have to worry about addiction to control because we understand that we aren’t in charge. On our best days, we understand that God is actively at work in the world to transform, something better than any of us could possibly offer.

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done…..

I believe the problem we’ve experienced with Deacon Ministry points to a systemic problem, an addiction to control. The signs of addiction are everywhere.

• When is the last time you felt as if you were standing on holy ground during a committee meeting or business meeting? If recently, did that feel like an exception or the norm? 

• How often have you heard, or repeated, “Yes….BUT…..let’s be practical” in the middle of a conversation about taking a communal leap of faith?

• In our heyday of our 140 year old story, the two major Boards of our congregation were full of successful white businessmen. We justified our decision to leave women and minorities out of the mix, based on an addiction to a literal interrelation of scripture. (aka Bible Freedom gone amuck). 

• How often do we find ourselves delighted by God’s creative resourcing of the church only to sit around a table to discuss how me might best protect it for a rainy day. 

• How much longer are we going to pretend that priesthood of all believers is actually just democracy dressed up in his/her/their “Sunday best”?

Yes, the church is a business.  Yes, we are citizens of two kingdoms.

AND

It’s not your business. It’s not my business. It’s God’s business.

It’s not “God bless America”. It’s God has called the church to be a blessing to ALL of the world.

The Kingdom of Heaven on earth cannot be confused with the Kingdoms of this world and the le church cannot be run as if it were a local government, bank, or a moose lodge. 

WE ARE CALLED TO BE A PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS…

Which means everything we do begins and ends with spiritual discernment and faithful action, especially in the moments when the priesthood of all believers feels like God is calling us into reckless abandonment. If we don’t believe this to be true, we should stop telling the stories of all those first disciples and apostles that followed with wild abandonment. 

YOU ARE A PRIEST. I AM A PRIEST. WE ARE ALL PRIESTS.

• We are ALL everyday saints and sinners. 

• We are ALL priests on equal footing……under the Lordship of Christ and guidance of the mysterious Spirit of the living God.

A CHURCH LEADER IS A SPIRITUAL LEADER.

• There is no such thing as a “non-spiritual” priest” and no such thing as a priest that others don’t look to as a leader. In turn, there is no such thing as a non-spiritual leader in the life of the church. 

LEADERSHIP IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS IMPORTANT.

• There is no such thing as a Christian that isn’t called to be a leader.

• Leadership is mentorship. The Jesus school of Leadership is 100% mentorship.

• Discipleship is a process that helps people continually discover their unique giftedness and equips those people to use their gifts to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. 

• If the church is full of leaders, the leaders must discern how decisions are to be made. Some of those decisions are so big, the entire church should make them together. Most of the other decisions need to made in smaller circles of leadership. Walking more intentionally brings awareness of the Spirit’s presence. In turn, the Spirit helps us build trust in one another. When trust is present, we will discover a tremendous amount of freedom in identifying which circle of leaders should feel emboldened to make specific decisions.

THANK GOD WE’RE NOT IN CHARGE.

All of this may not seem very practical because it isn’t. It may not be efficient because it isn’t supposed to be.  It may not be the way you or I would choose to run a business or a government. . Fortunately, the Church isn’t a bank, moose lodge or a democracy.

THEN WHOSE IN CHARGE?

God is.

Siblings in Christ, the first step in recovery is admitting we’re powerless over our addictions. We mustn’t continue to pretend as if we’re capable of managing the unmanageable. In these tender days of rebuilding, I pray we will all come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore our hearts so that we might be healthy enough to participate in the restoration of the world.

We Make the Road by Walking,

Rev. Sterling Severns, Pastor

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

– John 13:34-35, The Message Paraphrase

Ok, we want to talk about Deacon Ministry, right? Here’s the thing, our Deacon Board has struggled with a perpetual identity crisis for well over 40 years. Realistically, the Board has been struggling much longer but we probably didn’t become aware of the identity crisis until our membership numbers began to plummet in the 1960s.

Good news! 

We don’t have to talk about all of the various iterations of the Deacon job descriptions over the decades, at least not right now. Why? Because, ultimately, I don’t think they’re the problem. Rather, they’re symptoms of the problem.  

Bad news?

The actual problem is kind of a big deal and it’s going to take some time for us to learn to walk again. 

Great news!  

The God we serve is an expert in all things rehabilitation. 

Identifying the actual problem. 

Let’s start with a few basics. While the list below isn’t even close to a comprehensive understanding to core beliefs, this particular list is relevant to the topic at hand….rebooting Deacon Ministry: 

If we continue to believe…

• Disciples of Jesus are those that have committed to follow Jesus in every aspect of their lives. 

• Discipleship =  “Wherever, Christ leads, we’ll go….”

• We are a Priesthood of ALL believers. 

• The “new” commandment Jesus presents in John 13 is a legitimate expectation for us.  

• The heart of God is most clearly revealed in active care of those living in social, physical, and/or emotional isolation.

…then, NOW is the time for each of us to: 

• Recommit our full lives to Christ.

• Remember that the Holy Spirit brings the walking party together and that same mysterious Spirit provides the “marching orders”. 

• Trust the Holy Spirit will help us make the road by walking. 

• Assume The Holy Spirit of the Gospels, Book of Acts, and letters that follow, is The same Spirit that consistently brings diversity into the midst of the walking party. The Spirit is the unifier but also the holy shaker-upper. The working of The Spirit is always purposeful and often perceived by the faithful as reckless. We should assume the Spirit is intentionally shaking things up, bringing us back to purpose, and working to expand our hearts and minds to the vastness of God AND relentless love of God. 

• Open our eyes so that we might see the unique giftedness of each member of the walking party. 

• Re-affirm the Priesthood of all believers.

• Shift our thinking about leadership out of hierarchy and into mutual mentorship.  

Tomorrow, in Part #2, we’ll deep dive, The priesthood of all believers isn’t the same thing as democracy.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Sterling W. Severns, Pastor