Wise allocation of resources

The diaconate is essential for this, because emotionally the church is on opposite ends at times. You can have people that are bleeding hearts – people that are overly emotional and don't necessarily have the discernment that is required. If we made every decision as a congregation instead of making decisions in the diaconate, maybe the bleeding hearts would say, Let's just give everything! Here is my shirt. Here is my car. Here is the title to my home. Give everything! Then there are others who are on the other end of the spectrum – those that are tight fisted and say, We shouldn't give anything, because people need to be responsible, and people need to be accountable and people need to do what is right. Which of those two are right? The merciful give my shirt guy or the tight fisted you need to learn accountability? It is both. Discernment says that you take both of these things into consideration. And that is why the cost of mercy must be discerned with wisdom through the office called to mercy.

The poor are to be cared for in a special way in the life of the church. Jesus Christ loves the poor, and He loves the widow and He loves the orphans. And Jesus calls on us to love them as well. In the book When Helping Hurts, the authors say: “The claim here is not that the poor are inherently more righteous or sanctified than the rich. There is no place in the Bible that indicates that poverty is a desirable state or that material things are evil. In fact, wealth is viewed as a gift from God. The point is simply that, for His own glory, God has chosen to reveal His kingdom in the place where the world, in all of its pride, would least expect it, among the foolish, the weak, the lowly, and the despised. “

Through mercy – and through the diaconate being those that facilitate mercy – we have the opportunity to show forth the kingdom in a way that only Jesus Christ can bless. When the world thinks kingdom, they think of gold-leafed chairs. That is not the kingdom. The kingdom is among the lowly and the poor and the children and the orphans and the widows. God says that in a special way the kingdom is revealed through those things. And we have the opportunity to show forth the kingdom, to magnify it, to make it look fuller and to look big as it is through a mercy ministry.

As the diaconate extends mercy in the name of Jesus, it must be noted that the church needs to embrace the fact that each one of us is broken. It is not those that are whole serving those that are broken. That is not the kingdom. The kingdom is that those that are broken are serving those who are broken.¹

Nathan Eshelman