It would be an asset to Anglicans if there were more deacons employed by the Church, contributing a diaconal perspective and countering the notion that the only “real” ministers are priests.
Category: Blog
Only Connect: residential weekend for distintive deacons. 4-6 March, Wydale Hall, Scarborough
I am sitting in the hospital chapel in the stillness as the shift change takes place on this New Years Eve. A steady, silent, silhouetted procession of staff come and go. Some ending their shift and coming in to light a candle and say a prayer as they leave the hospital and the old year behind and go home to family, friends and a quiet night in or a drink with colleagues. Others starting their night shift, one that will see out the old year and welcome the new. Patients to care for and families and staff to support in the silent hours of the night.
I frequently sit here, in the semi darkness, in the shadows, in this familiar house of prayer, pondering what I do and why. As one year rolls into another, I do so again.
Reflecting at the end of an old year on where God was present in life opens up to new possibilities to adjusting old ways to work better.A new year reminds us that the Holy Spirit is always moving, working and leading us to the next positive step.
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
But above all we need an addiction to danger. We must yearn for the deep water. We need to be ready to risk everything. Because what actually are we afraid of? The Gospel teaches us that whoever loses their life for Christ’s sake will find it. If we risk everything, we will gain everything, and in any case nothing can take away from us the triumph of the cross or the worship of the Church.
In a recent edition of the Church Times, the Rev Alan Billings (Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire) perceptively commented on the need for the Church of England, like the police service, to reaffirm its commitment to the locality if it wants to be true to its historic calling. In the article, he rightly observed that the ‘the Church (of England) is territorial and institutional… It is not a missionary movement - which is why the Methodists broke away.’
He is committed to progressing the diaconate and already works closely with Joy Gilliver (head of discernment) and Helen Fraser (head of vocations). He wants to future-proof how the NMT works with DDs.
Meanwhile, he offered to keep an open channel with me and Deacon Liz Carrington (York)
To listen to responses from DDs to this discussion (send to me at deacons@tutanota.com)
And if we wish, he would be happy to speak at a DD conference.
So plenty of green shoots and signs of hope for us.
this caring for the poor and defenceless, this reconciliation work with an ethnic minority, so relevant to our own day, turns out to be central to the life of the newly-forming church. Without it, the church can not be fully the church.
This care is central to what the Holy Spirit was doing in the young church. That’s why the seven had to be people full of the Holy Spirit, and wise. Christ was working through his body, through prayer, preaching, and caring for the needy. So diaconal ministry, at ease on the margins of the church and society, caring for those who are unjustly treated, is crucial for an authentically Christian church and is part of its very identity.
Instead of using the disability term as a shorthand for something other than a medical condition, it would be kinder to those with actual disabilities to say what we actually mean.
CofE Network of Distinctive Deacons 