Deacons are leaders in service

The diaconate is given to the church for service leadership. … When we talk about the diaconate not being a teaching office or a ruling office, it doesn't mean that there are not aspects of the diaconate where they teach and rule – because there are! The deacons lead the congregation in discerning how to use funds. They train members of the congregation on things such as how to maintain a budget and how to use finance. They oversee the work of the treasurer. They appoint. They teach principles of giving. They do administrative work. So when we talk about teaching and ruling elders as being something distinctive from the diaconate, don't hear in that that the deacons don't have great responsibility in leadership in the church – because they do. They lead in organizing so much of the ministry that flows from the work that the church of Jesus Christ is called to do. And I think that when you read that, you sense the tension there. It is not a teaching office, it is not a ruling office, but there are areas where they lead and there are areas where they teach. And that is okay. It is okay to have that that tension there as you consider the work of the diaconate.

The work of the deacon is the work of a servant in the church – really the lead servants. But it is not merely one who serves. It is the one who organizes all the service of the church that flows from the church in an official way. So as you consider who may be called to this office and you look around and you ask yourself, Who is serving? you must also ask yourself, Who fits into these categories? Who is able to do these things of leading in service and teaching in service and overseeing in service, as the diaconate are called to do?

So as we call deacons and as we elect deacons and as we ordain deacons, it is because God has set some apart to be leaders in the church in this area of deed ministry. We need those who will lead in hospitality. Not just ones who will do all the work, but ones who will lead in hospitality. And we need leaders in mercy. Not ones that just look out and say, There is all this mercy that needs to be done; I will just do it myself. No, it is leading, it is organizing people to do the mercy.

We need leaders of finances – people that help make decisions as to how funds are to be used and what is to be cared for first and what are good investments for the church and not good investments. We need leaders to care for our property. We need leaders that are the people that look around and they say, Okay, this needs to be done and this needs to be done, and then prioritize what needs to be done. What is the most important area in the property that needs to be taken care of? What is something that is just on the wish list of property to be taken care of? We need some people to organize it and to be leaders in that.

And we need leaders in outreach in the church. It is very clear to me in the New Testament that the deacons play a role in the way that the community around the people of God, the church, are reached. Deacons are not only pencil pushers in offices; they are people that look around and say, How can we reach this community? We see that in Acts 6:1–15 as well. They are not only administrators in that sense, but they are people that put mercy first and outreach first, as those that would organize that work in the life of the church.

That is what we see in Acts 6:1–15. We see in the Acts 6:1–15 the apostles calling on the church to look and to choose those who would serve in the diaconate to do those things. Not those that would only do the work, but those that would organize the work unto the glory of Christ.¹

Nathan Eshelman