I’m pro-deacon.  I am one-hundred percent for these godly men* who will stand with their pastor, will minister to people, who love the Lord, are always on guard for threats to the unity and work of the church, and care not one whit who gets the credit so long as the Kingdom of God is advanced.

The pastor who has such men surrounding him or in back of him is one blessed dude, I’ll tell you that.

On the other hand.

Continue reading →

Last Sunday, I had an off day from preaching, so was able to worship with our home church, where I pastored 1990-2004.  As I took my seat and opened the worship bulletin, I noticed we were nominating deacons. Inside was an insert with the names of 18 or so men, and blanks enough to nominate another dozen.  I think we have an active group of 24 plus a few lifers.

Over the next twenty minutes of hymns and announcements and prayers, I scribbled in the names of several good men.

My son Neil, currently chairman of deacons, was singing in the choir. Just before the sermon, they all came down, and he and wife Julie sat behind me. He slipped me a note, “Dad, several people have written your name in as a possible deacon. Are you ready to go over to the dark side?” That was a joke.

I smiled and shook my head. That’s not even anything to pray about. My calling as pastor/preacher is still in force and, I expect, will be the rest of the way home.

After church, I told Margaret about this. She said, “That’s all Pastor Mike needs–the former pastor to be a deacon.” We both laughed at that. She remembers as well as I do the conflicts I’ve had with a few deacons over nearly a half-century of pastoring.  But according to all reports, our deacons here are servants and only that.

Some have asked where we’re going with this “reforming the deacons” series, and how many more articles.  Since I did not start out to write an entire series, but simply took each subject as it occurred, I have no answer.  But, I’m thinking this one should be the final word, perhaps a summation of what has gone before.

Continue reading →

A safe course here would be to spend all our energies pursuing the multi-faceted question “Can a divorced person be a deacon?” and at the end, choose the safest and most reasonable exit without coming down on a firm position.  But where’s the fun in that?

“Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well” (I Timothy 3:11).

There it is. One simple sentence that has divided and perplexed and frustrated the Lord’s faithful people for eons.

Let’s state our position up front so there can be no doubt. As a general rule, divorce disqualifies a man from service as either a pastor or deacon. However, there are exceptions.

And by “exceptions,” I most definitely do not mean we must convene an investigating committee to search out the reasons for the man’s divorce and establish a) that he was sinned against or b) that he was unsaved at the time and has since come to the Lord. This kind of scrutiny over a person’s ancient history is outside the capability of any preacher on the planet.  All we have to do is look at the Roman Catholic Church’s annulment processes to see a) how complex this can get and b) how hypocritical it all appears to the outside world.  We will grant that their intent is good, but the product is a disaster.

The exception–that is, the divorced men who can be considered as deacons–applies when the divorce occurred decades ago and the man has lived an exemplary and godly life since.

That’s where I am at the moment. Good people will agree and disagree, and I’m fine by that. We each have to come to our own conclusion as to the Lord’s will.

This is an emotional, volatile subject.

Yesterday, I posted this question on Facebook: “Can a divorced person be a deacon?” An hour later, we had over 40 responses. This morning, the number is approaching 150. And, as one might expect, the answers were all over the map.

Continue reading →

Writings about deacons tend to fall into two groups: the mind-numbingly boring and the scripture-exceeding authoritative.

The dull writings are well-intentioned, we will grant. The writers tended to be denominational servants assigned to this strata of church leadership. I imagine that someone above them felt that a book on this subject would be in order, would do some good, and would sell.  They proceeded to write the book which hundreds and thousands of churches bought and then taught to their people for generations. What such books refused to do, however, was to deal with practical questions, issues which bug us to this day. (For some of those questions, keep reading.)

The overly authoritative writings regarding deacons may be reactions against the boring publications, but more likely are responses of the writers to misguided deacon groups they have come up against.  In trying to correct the errors, the imbalance, or the tangents these deacons have veered upon, the writers cancel out all interpretations but their own.

Let’s try to avoid both those ditches and stay in the road here.

Continue reading →

My friend, Pastor Rob, resigned. He called to inform me and to say I would not be leading the revival we had scheduled in his church.

“What happened?” I asked.

The story Rob related was the back end of what he had told me some months earlier when he became the pastor of that church. A couple active in leadership roles had been living together as man and wife for several years, but without having ever married.

Scripture calls this fornication.

When my friend Rob had agreed to become their pastor, he did so on the condition that the deacons would deal with this issue and not foist it off on him as the new shepherd. They agreed to do so. Less than a year into his ministry, nothing had been done and the pastor was being attacked by the man and woman as a trouble-maker. They and their supporters in the church griped that all was well until this new preacher came, and he’s stirring it up.(Understand that I’m abbreviating the story and omitting a great deal.)

When the pastor asked the deacons if they intended to act, the chairman said, “Preacher, I guess we’re just cowards.”

So, my friend resigned and moved away with no new church in sight.

He did a courageous thing.

Those who allowed this situation to fester did the cowardly thing. (One could make a case for the previous pastor being a coward too, since he left that situation intact for the next preacher to deal with.)

The ultimate test of a deacon is whether he has the courage to take a stand against a hypocrite who is doing great damage in the Lord’s church; whether he is willing to stand up for his church, for his Lord, for the calling of God. (Granted, this is true also of pastors. But we are addressing deacons here.)

Continue reading →

I’ve seen this happen.

The deacons studied a proposal, discussed it at length, found they were divided, and took a vote, resulting in a split decision. The majority decided to go forward and brought the recommendation to the congregation in the monthly business meeting.

After the chairman of the deacons had his say, another deacon stood to oppose it. This opened the door for a floor fight between the two factions within the deacon body, while the congregation sat and watched in stunned silence.

As the new pastor of that church, I had been caught off guard by this. At the next deacons meeting, I brought up what they had done and tried to analyze it with them. And succeeded in making almost all of them angry at me.

Continue reading →