Deacon Chris Sheehan reflects on the difference between Ordained Pioneer Ministry and the Distinctive Diaconate.
Category: Blog
Video of Ann Morisy's webinar: Distinctive Deacons: enacting hope in troubled times
With my diocesan steering group, I put together a four-session course for deacons, called 'Preparing for Mission'. It was done with exactly this scenario in mind: that we, as deacons, stand in the doorway, in the space between church and community. We explore it, we reach out through it, we discern what God is doing in that context.
I'm so pleased to be able to announce that we have a new date for our postponed national deacons' conference, next year.
It will be on Saturday 17 April at the same place as our first conference, the Frances Young centre at Queen's Foundation, Birmingham.
Anyhow, she had to go to hospital. On Sunday morning she announces to the ward that normally she would be in her church, but as she isn't, she'd like to say a prayer for everyone. She's not being funny or anything - but would they mind?
And on the boundary between church and world, I am the person who is sent.
in a world antithetical to people of faith, deacons have deep experience of negotiating the 'majority view' ie those who claim to have no religion.
Distinctive Deacons work in liminal spaces, making connections, building bridges, relationally pioneering initiatives. How can we develop the new opportunities God is giving us in this situation? Ann Morisy will suggest ways forward.
You will find us on the periphery
In the land of the mapless unknown
You will find us at the edges
Where the wild things grow
You will find us in the liminal space
Where no one knows what to expect
Church leaders with a heart for justice can have a powerful impact on the attitudes of their members.
CofE Network of Distinctive Deacons 