The Ministry of Women Deacons in Christ Our Hope and—hopefully, soon!—at Church of the Resurrection

On Sunday, I announced some joyous news: a dear long-time parishioner and valued leader, Vicky Gunning, is moving forward in the process with our diocese towards, eventually, LORD-willing, being ordained a deacon.

As promised, this blog post follows up on that announcement with some additional information about the ministry of deacons and how, in our diocese of Christ Our Hope, both men and women may be ordained as vocational deacons.

I anticipate that for some of you, what I am sharing here might be new and unfamiliar. For instance, perhaps you come from a Baptist, non-denominational or Presbyterian background. So the Anglican three-fold order of deacons, priests and bishops may seem very foreign to you.

Some of you might also disagree with what I am sharing. You might not approve of women being ordained or you might object that our diocese only ordains women as vocational deacons, not priests.

Let me assure everyone: We can disagree about these matters graciously in a spirit of Christian charity. That is my commitment to everyone. In fact, Anglicans as a whole are not of one mind about women in ordained ministry!

So, first and foremost, I am glad to speak with you personally and will do so, to the best of my ability, in a spirit of grace and love. Also, you do not have to agree with the diocesan stance in order to be a member in good standing at our church. We do have to agree that this is what our church is committed to uphold in gracious submission to our diocese.

Now, let’s turn to the matters at hand.

What is the Ministry of a Deacon?

There are both biblical and historic roots to the ordained ministry of deacon as we Anglicans understand it.

The word “deacon” itself comes from the Greek word in Scripture diakonos. It simply means: servant.

Sometimes in the Scriptures the term refers simply to a person who is serving others (eg, John 2:5,9 the servants at the wedding of Cana in Galilee; Romans 13:4 referring to the civil authorities; or Romans 15:8 speaking of Christ himself). In that sense, we are all called to be diakonoi—called to follow Christ’s example, who Himself came among us as “one who serves” (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, Luke 22:27 or the foot washing in John 13).

Other times, Scripture seems to connote a special office in the church (eg, the setting a part of Stephen and six others to “serve tables” in Acts 6 or Paul’s numerous references in his epistles to fellow “ministers” or diakonoi).

The specific office of deacon eventually emerged, historically, out of these biblical precedents.

By the late 2^nd century, Irenaeus and other church fathers (like Cyprian, John Chrysostom, Augustine) began routinely referring to Stephen as the first deacon.

Now, Ephesians 4 teaches we are all ministers of the Gospel just like we are all called to be servants. There are, however, those in the church who are gifted and called to equip, train and lead in crucial roles for the good order and health of the church.

So it was that around the 2^nd and the 3^rd centuries it also became widespread, common practice to differentiate three orders of ordained ministers: deacons (diakonoi), priests (presbyteroi) and bishops (episcopoi). These three terms are often used interchangeably in Scripture, but the early church formalized them into three offices to help equip, train and lead in the church.

Deacons are to serve the church primarily through ministries of service and organization; mercy and compassion; prayer; teaching and evangelism; interpreting to the church the needs, concerns and hopes of the world; and assisting priests and bishops in the worship of the church. In weekly worship, a deacon reads the Gospel, leads the confession, assists the priest at the LORD’s table and dismisses the congregation as we leave.

Priest is simply a shortened form of the word ‘presbyter’ (from the Greek presbyteros), which means elder. Every priest is first ordained a deacon, so the priest still has the same call to serve just as deacons. The priest’s specific role, however, is as a local designate of the bishop to preach and teach, administer the sacraments, and provide pastoral care and leadership for the local church (or parish). The primary calling of a priest is as a shepherd of the flock. ‘Rector’ (my title at Resurrection) is simply the term for the senior most priest at a parish.

The bishop is an overseer. That is the basic meaning of the Greek word episcopos. Bishops are not ordained but consecrated, or set apart from among the presbyters. In the Anglican view, the bishop is the ‘first among equals’ among the presbyters (primus inter pares is the fun Latin phrase). He serves, thereby, as ‘a pastor to the pastors,’ or a shepherd to the shepherds (ie, to other priests and deacons). He holds the primary teaching and sacramental authority within a diocese—the family of churches under his oversight. So the bishop ordains deacons and priests for local ministry in his diocese. He also lays hands on lay people at confirmation—what some call the ‘ordination of the laity’—as well as consecrating new worship spaces. (We hope to enjoy both of those episcopal ministries this coming fall!)

To this day, this ancient 3-fold order remains the way that faithful Anglicans around the world structure our churches and our ministries.

But let’s return to the ministry of deacons for a moment—and Vicky’s aspiring to such an office.

As I said on Sunday: if you know Vicky Gunning, you know she clearly possesses the qualities of a deacon! She is a faithful servant of the church, of our staff and of me as rector. She has a wonderful zeal and giftedness in prayer and evangelism. She leads our intercessory prayer and Mesa ministries. She is a valued adviser to me and our leadership. And she has a deep heart of compassion for all of those suffering and in need.

We will be truly blessed when, LORD willing, Vicky joins our clergy team as a deacon!

The Ministry of Women Deacons in Christ Our Hope

Before we get to the ministry of women deacons, let me say that I love how in the Diocese of Christ Our Hope we stress two things very clearly about ministry in general in the church:

First, the ministry of the laity is the primary ministry (or work) of the diocese. Everything about our church life is to support and equip “the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).

You catch that?

You know who are ‘the saints’?

All y’all baptized believers!

We often fall into the trap of thinking that only the ordained folks (deacons, priests and bishops) are the ministers of the church. No, not according to the apostle Paul! We all are ministers! The three-fold offices are simply specific forms of ministering to the ministers—to all the ‘saints,’ male and female—to equip and train, support and encourage them in their ministries!

So lay ministry is real ministry.

Practically, at Resurrection, we deploy gifted lay ministers to lead areas such as children, youth, Mesa groups, Stephen Ministry, men’s and women’s ministries, or intercessory prayer. We also have an elected lay Leadership Council whose primary responsibilities are oversight of budget, finances, property and legal matters. We have lay members of our preaching team. We have dozens more lay volunteers who minister in indispensable ways in our worship. Our lay leaders also serve as valued conversation partners, providing advice and feedback, to our clergy in their work. And everyone is to be strengthened and equipped for ministry in their home, work, school and neighborhood.

Yes, lay ministry is real ministry!

If you want to read more about our diocese’s commitment to the ministry of all the saints, let me encourage you read the pdf “Foundational Vision and Principles concerning the Ministry of the Saints."

Second, our diocese also insists on the ministry of the diaconate as the primary ordained ministry. A lot of times deacon is seen as a lesser role or merely a transitional stepping stone towards the priesthood. (I, for instance, served only 6 months as a so-called ‘transitional deacon.’) Instead, Christ Our Hope wants to rehabilitate the office of the vocational deacon—a deacon who is called, lifelong, to that office, with no further calling or aspiration towards the priesthood (or episcopacy).

The vocational diaconate is indeed the role Vicky is pursuing. Through prayerful conversation with me and the extensive work of our Parish Discernment Committee, we have discerned in her and her gifts a diaconal calling! It is now onto the diocese to confirm her calling and eventually, LORD willing, to the bishop to ordain her.

The diocese also stresses that there are different vocations within the church but all of equal worth and importance. Just because ‘the bishop is my boss,’ does not mean that my priestly ministry, Vicky’s eventual diaconal ministry or the ministry of lay people are inferior to the bishop’s. We Anglicans do have hierarchical authority but all orders of the church are to work together, harmoniously, submitting to one another in love, each in its own role and responsibility, for the building up of the whole church. Each order of the church complements the other. Or ought to—and that is our commitment in the Diocese of Christ Our Hope.

Again, if you would like to read further, the diocese has a strong position paper making this argument.

Finally, we arrive at the diocese’s embrace of women as vocational deacons—a stance I also whole-heartedly embrace.

Let me first say this: I recognize that if you come out of a Baptist or non-denominational background, the title ‘deacon’ might in your mind be more equivalent to an elder in the church. The deacon board at the Baptist church where I was raised indeed functioned that way alongside the senior pastor. We also had ‘deaconesses,’ but they did not enjoy an elder status or authority. They were strictly servants of hospitality and care within the church.

And so the idea that women might be ordained deacons might strike some as confusing and perhaps inappropriate. Indeed, in fairness, not all Anglicans even agree with the diocese and me on this.

I want to address that concern now head on.

Here, again, let me point you to an excellent position paper “The Ministry of Women in the Church and the Ordination of Women as Deacons in the Diocese of Christ our Hope,” which lays out the diocesan stance. It also provides good background on this issue within the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) more generally.

The diocese’s position is precisely my own. It stresses the following:

            • If we read Scripture carefully, we see women exercising more ministries than Christians have often historically practiced or approved. The ministries include public prophesy and prayer; leadership; apostolic ministry (in evangelism and church planting); as well as teaching—and all the other ministries of service, mercy and compassion, which historically have been more embraced by the church.

            • If we read Scripture carefully, we also find it repeatedly stressing male headship within a loving, mutually-submissive complementarity of male and female. On that basis, the ACNA College of Bishops argued that there is “insufficient Scriptural warrant” to prove that the offices of priest or bishop ought to be open to women. Indeed, they appear to be open only to men.

            • Additionally, it is the long-standing tradition of the church—from the earliest patristic era onwards—that the priesthood and episcopacy are open only to men. Without sufficient warrant from Scripture, we should not overturn the vast consensus of church tradition.

            So neither the diocese nor I support women in the priesthood. There are dioceses in ACNA who do ordain women as priests. The ACNA as a whole reserves the ministry of bishop to men.

            • However, we do find sufficient Scriptural warrant for women serving as deacons. Phoebe in Romans 16 is named both as a deacon and as a prostatis—one who stands before the church, clearly in some leadership role. That is the most compelling Scriptural example, which the Diocese names. I would add that the responsibilities various women play in the New Testament (such as Mary and Martha serving in Jesus’s ministry, Tabitha/Dorcas in Acts 9, and Priscilla in Acts 18 and Romans 16) have precisely the character of diaconal ministry. Yet, as we acknowledged, the role of deacon was not formalized until a century or more later, so perhaps it is not surprising that we do not find them precisely named as deacons in the New Testament texts.

            • I personally would add that the New Testament view of women and their ministries is more positive and embracing than was, generally, accorded women in Greco-Roman society, especially in government, law and education. It is true that in the Roman world, wealthy women could serve as patrons and leaders within their own household economy. Indeed, it appears as if several such patron women helped plant churches along Paul’s missionary journeys. However, as the church became more settled within the Roman empire, the more patriarchal Roman system of governance and law may well have seeped into the church and served to diminish and downplay the actual ministry roles Jesus and the apostles accorded to women. Bear in mind: that three-fold order we still embrace can be interpreted and applied in very clericalist ways, so that the ministry of everyone—male and female—gets diminished in subordination to male priests and bishops. So I wholeheartedly agree with Christ Our Hope in celebrating the ministry of the laity and recovering the ordained ministry of women as vocational deacons. I believe it can serve as a fruitful corrective for an historic imbalance in the church.

Follow Up?

Let me conclude by renewing my invitation: Do you have any questions or concerns about this stance on women deacons? If so, I would be glad to speak with you personally and hear your concerns. I understand we might not all agree, just like faithful Anglicans across the world do not agree on women’s ordination. Nevertheless, I want to maintain open, gracious and charitable lines of communication with everyone, regardless of their stance.