A deacon is a servant, and a good deacon is a treasure.
The church with a healthy body of godly servants called deacons is a blessed congregation indeed.
Your church (and your pastor) needs deacons if….
1) Your church needs a standing team of godly men always ready to respond to needs in the church.
What is everyone’s responsibility turns out to be no one’s job. So, you organize a group of servant-minded Christians and put them in charge of any gap in the church’s ministries, anywhere the hardworking teachers and others are showing signs of fatigue, fear, or shorthandedness.
In Nehemiah’s day, when Israel was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the enemies were on the job. Night and day they taunted the Lord’s people who were laboring to complete the work and secure the city. “And it came about when the Jews who lived near (the enemies) came and told us ten times, ‘They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,’ then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows….” (Neh. 4:12-13).
The men “stationed in the lowest parts” are the most vulnerable, the fill-in-the-gap warriors. They are exposed, the risk-takers, the defenders. Think of them as deacons. “Whatever it takes” and “wherever you need us”–that’s a deacon.