So, what’s a deacon?

Letter to the Congregation by Harvey Bale on his journey to become a deacon

In my journey as a “discerner” to be a deacon, I gratefully received letters of support from then Vicar, the Rev. Jan Cope, my Local Discernment Committee, and the Cathedral Congregation Committee (CCC). Then last fall, following interviews with Bishop Budde and a number of deacons and priests, the Bishop notified me that she had accepted my application to be a postulant. I am now in yearlong formation in “Deacon School.” I meet monthly with my four fellow postulants and leaders of the diocese, and complete readings and papers each month on topics ranging from the biblical and ecclesiastical foundations of the order of deacons to ethics and racism. (Eleven other postulants from across the diocese are taking additional training before attending the Deacon School.) After concluding a number of these monthly sessions, I will begin “field education” as an understudy to a deacon in another parish, as well as some type of “field service” in a social agency or other institution. After finishing these steps I hope to become a “candidate” to the Diaconate, and then, God willing, I will be ordained into the Diaconate. There is still quite a way to go in this process of what really is one of continual discernment.

The move by our bishop to augment the Diaconate in our diocese is very important. Unlike many dioceses in the Episcopal Church (TEC), our diocese has very few deacons. (Have you seen one in action? If so, it was likely in another diocese!) Yet deacons play a vital role in the life of the Church, congregation, and community.

I am often asked, “OK, so what exactly do deacons do?”

The Book of Common Prayer states that deacons serve in “a special ministry of servanthood” directly under the directions of the bishop. This servanthood aims “to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely.” It is a service that seeks to imitate Christ, who “came not to be served but to serve.” Deacons are to “share in Christ’s service” and recognize Christ’s dictum that “whoever would be great must be servant of all.” Thus, deacons serve a function of “interpreting to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.” They engage the major concerns of the poor and marginalized and bring those concerns to the Church, seeking to facilitate a response of the Church to these concerns. At the Cathedral this would involve work with the Outreach and Social Justice (OSJ) ministries. Deacons address issues in many ways: social work and activism, chaplaincy, administration. Very often deacons are located in a parish, report to a priest and have significant liturgical duties that, in the absence of a deacon, have to be carried out by the priests (e.g., reading the Gospel, setting and clearing the communion table, dismissing the congregation). Deacons are called on occasionally to preach, but the focus of that preaching relates to the role of the deacon on the needs and concerns of the world. As noted above, the deacon must be responsive to the vision of and assignments given by the bishop—still reporting to the bishop while supporting the priests of that parish. In sum, the deacon is the servant of servants.

This article was produced for the Congregation Newsletter through the Washington National Cathedral’s Office of the Vicar. May 2016