Deacons building bridges

Deacons in the Michigan Area are among those serving in appointments outside the local church.

SUSAN KEATON
United Methodist News Service

God “tugged” the Rev. Sarah Alexander into ministry in the Motor City. The Rev. Kimberly Lewis-Davis wears a police uniform more often than a pastor’s robes. The Rev. Barry Sharp was ordained by the church, but he works for the state. The Rev. Cara Weiler calls herself “an interpreter for the church” as she ministers with families of traumatized children. The Rev. Delana Taylor McNac serves those both two-legged and four-legged.

Alexander, Sharp, Lewis-Davis, Weiler, and McNac are among the church’s 1,927 deacons, about 6 percent of its ordained U.S. clergy. While elders are called to lead congregations in ministry and mission, deacons are called to connect baptized Christians with their ministries in the world.

Twenty years after the 1996 General Conference established the Order of Deacons, 44 percent of deacons report that their primary appointment is beyond the local church: They serve as teachers, lawyers, writers, church-growth consultants, nonprofit agency staff or any number of other professions. That’s a big change from 2000, when research showed 70 percent had their primary appointment to a church.

“It’s an endless list,” said Rev. Victoria Rebeck, a deacon who serves as director of deacon ministry development and certification programs for the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry. “I am sure there are things I haven’t even thought of.”

That diversity of service illustrates the deacon’s call to bring the church to the world — and the world to the church.

A non-traditional call

Cara Weiler served as a Global Justice Volunteer in Brazil and upon return to Michigan felt, “called to be a translator between communities, people, the church and the world.” At the same time she was sure, “I would never be a pastor (nor marry a pastor) as I'm a PK.” She entered seminary for the purpose of “building a broader foundation upon which I would further advance my call as a translator in/for the church.”

It was at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary that she learned about ordination as a deacon. “I realized I had found the language and the role that fit the vision that I had experienced.” She was ordained a deacon in the West Michigan Conference in 2011.

Especially drawn to ministry working with children and families on the margins, Weiler went on to earn a Masters’ in Social Work. She served her internship at the Southwest Michigan Children’s Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC). She works there today as part of a trans-disciplinary team of professionals who engage children to help them be better understood by those around them within the context of their stories.”

Weiler says, “This work allows me to be a representation of Christ's loving presence for our kids (and their families) honoring them each as made in love, by love and for love - as beloved children of God.” At the same time she acts as “an ‘interpreter’ for the church, shifting the way we understand, respond to and engage the hurt and harmed in our communities who have been traumatized by the threats of this world.” She calls her work “a ministry of presence - both the opportunity to be the presence of the church in the world for the children I serve and to bring the presence of the hurt and the broken into our congregations, our worship and into our lives.”

People once were ordained as deacons as a stepping-stone to ordination as elder, but that ended in 1996 with the establishment of the two orders of clergy with distinct, but complementary, responsibilities.

The new order actually reclaimed the order of deacon described in the New Testament, one of a caring minister who trains new Christians in ministry and helps the poor and downtrodden, Rebeck said.

“You hear a lot of deacons talk about how they’re called to be a bridge,” she said.

Combining ministry with other work

The Rev. Barry Sharp, manager of the Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch of the Texas Department of State Health Services, wanted to combine ministry with his work promoting physical and mental health when he was ordained deacon in the Rio Texas Conference in 2016.

Sharp, who worked in health education for 23 years, was involved in health ministry at his local church, Bethany United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas.

His ministry includes offering health programs to faith communities, arranging smoking cessation programs in churches and speaking to youth groups. He has started regular devotions at the office for anyone who wants to participate, and “my coworkers know that if they need to talk to somebody there’s somebody down the hall.”

At Bethany, he helps with music and liturgy and occasionally preaches. He and his wife lead a marriage ministry.

“We’ve got a good church staff that understands deacons and supports us,” he said.

The flow of empowerment

As a young person, Sarah Alexander experienced a series of life-changing experiences. Now she is helping to change the lives of others as Director of Motown Ministries in Detroit. “My call into ordained ministry happened during my work with youth and young adults in my local church,” she said. Then that call was further discerned through “beyond the local church involvement” such as Choir Camp and three summers of service as a Mission Intern.

“These ministry experiences helped me understand the connectional system and how powerful it can be to serve Jesus Christ with others all around the world,” Alexander reflected. She soon discovered, “God tugging me to connect the local church with the world.” And that’s when she went to the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Sarah Alexander was commissioned a provisional deacon in the Detroit Conference in 2016.

Her first day of work at Motown Mission began two days after graduating from seminary. “It has been a whirlwind!” she said. Motown Mission is an urban work mission destination in Detroit for youth, college, and adult groups interested in economic disaster recovery work in the name of Jesus Christ. Alexander hosts groups by providing accommodations, programming, worship, meals, materials, and collaborations with other agencies in the city.

“I find my work as a deacon helps local churches nurture relationships, which in turn build a bridge to our brothers and sisters beyond the local church. These bridges allow youth to use their imaginations to explore how God is calling them!”

She concludes, “This flow of bringing the world to the church and the church to the world is a privilege I experience as a deacon.”

Deacons not itinerant

While elders are guaranteed appointments but must serve wherever the bishop appoints them, deacons are not itinerant. The bishop appoints them to their position, but they often seek out a job on their own that helps them fulfill their ordination vows.

Those appointed outside the walls of a church usually receive a secondary appointment to a local congregation where they take missionary responsibility for leading Christians into service.

For the Rev. Kimberly Lewis-Davis, that secondary appointment is in Maple Park United Methodist Church in Chicago, where her mother, father and grandmother all were in leadership roles.  She grew up visiting church members with her grandmother, and as a young adult taught Sunday school.

“Church and ministry was such a big part of my life,” she said.

Her primary appointment as a Chicago Police Department chaplain took a more winding road. After working in public relations, she joined the police department as a beat officer and plainclothes officer before getting into administration.

She began seminary classes part time while working full time at the police department, being married to another officer and caring for a 2-year-old daughter and newborn son.

“It was one of the most challenging periods of my life, but God was in the middle,” Davis said.

During a seminary internship at a hospital chaplain, she decided chaplaincy was her calling and found her niche in the police department chaplaincy office.

Now she counsels officers and their families, prays with them, visits then in hospitals, performs weddings, leads worship services and a marriage ministry — much of what “a pastor would do to minister to a flock.”

Ministry to pet owners

The Rev. Delana Taylor McNac took a winding road, starting out as a veterinarian in private practice, then becoming a board-certified veterinary pathologist. She decided to go to seminary so she could provide Christian-based grief counseling for pet owners; later she decided to work in chaplaincy and sought ordination as deacon.

Appointed chaplain of a Tulsa, Oklahoma, hospice, she found many people concerned about what would happen to their beloved pets when they died. She started a “Pet Peace of Mind” program to help hospice patients make plans for their animals’ continuing care. In 2010, she began working with the Banfield Charitable Trust to set up Pet Peace of Mind programs in hospices across the country.

Now she runs a pet daycare and boarding facility named Dogville, where she emphasizes getting to know the dogs and the people who love them. Dogville holds memorial services for pets, police dogs, or even zoo animals and is involved with rescue work, particularly helping senior or disabled pets.

At Haikey Chapel Indian United Methodist Church, McNac and the pastor have held pet blessing ceremonies. McNac visits with church members concerned about their animals. At both appointments, she counsels people considering their pet’s end-of-life options and finds many have questions about the afterlife or intense grief over the loss.

“Being a deacon really fit my idea of how to minister to people and their pets, which for many are the reflection of God’s unconditional love,” she said.

The most recent data shows the denomination now has 29,098 ordained elders in the U.S. and 1,927 deacons (including provisional and retired clergy), said Mark McCormack, director of research and evaluation for the Board of Higher Education and Ministry. The vast majority (1,422) of deacons are female.

Rebeck of Higher Education and Ministry is excited that a growing number of deacons serve beyond the local church.

“I honestly think it’s great because it means the church is getting outside its walls,” she said.  “Deacons are really a crucial part of church vitality.”

~Rev. Kay DeMoss, Deacon and Senior Editor-Writer for Michigan Area Communications, contributed to this report.