This week Freddie Arnold and I are ordaining men as ministers and deacons, it appears. Sunday morning, we helped the Vietnamese Baptist Church ordain a missions pastor and two deacons, then that afternoon participated in a deacon ordination council at Christ Baptist Church in Harvey for three men. Wednesday night of this week, Edgewater Baptist Church on Paris Avenue will be ordaining deacons and we’ll be there.

Of course, we’ll be part of a team of ministers and deacons performing this function. I’m not the bishop and we don’t confer sacerdotal powers upon the candidates. (Look up the word.) We gather as sincere Christian men seeking to ascertain the Lord’s will and to bless His church. We try to encourage these men, guide them, and even teach them to the extent we can.

I enjoy participating in these events for several reasons, but mostly because the time to make a good deacon is at the beginning. Get him started off right. Pastors can tell you how important their ordination council was to their subsequent ministry, that they recall many of the questions asked and the counsel given during that rather difficult hour or two. I am not silent at these things. After 45 years in the ministry, you’d have a hard time coming up with a church situation I haven’t seen.

I have the scars to prove it.

I often quote some of my favorite deacons to these mostly young men coming on in this service to the Lord and His church. I served with these men years ago, and most are in Heaven now. Since they are no longer able to pass along these nuggets of wisdom, I consider it my duty to stand in for them.

I tell them what Rudy Hough, a horticulturist, always said to incoming deacons. “From now on, people will be coming to you from time to time with criticism for the ministers. I’d like to tell you how to handle that. Tell the person to come with you right then and you’ll go see the minister in question and deal with it. If they go with you, fine.”

“However,” Rudy continued, “if they refuse to go with you, tell them you’ll go but you will be using their name. If they agree, fine. But if they refuse to let you use their name, that’s the end of it. Tell them you will not take anonymous criticism to the ministers.”

I tell them what J. E. Gooch said every time we ordained deacons. “My wife and I pray together every morning. We use the Open Windows devotional. We read the Scripture listed there and pray for the missionaries by name.” Then, Dr. Gooch (my optometrist) would look at the candidates for ordination and say, “Tell me how you and your wife pray together each day.”

That was usually followed by some men squirming, accompanied by a lot of embarrassed words and poor answers. But he had made his point.

Atwell Andrews was every pastor’s best friend on the board of deacons. Except he would never call it a “board.” “It’s a fellowship of deacons,” he would insist. “We’re not a board of directors.”

Atwell ran a shoe store in downtown Columbus, Mississippi, and never met a stranger. He would tell the young deacons, “Don’t ever get to thinking that the deacons are running this church. We are servants. We look for ways to make a difference in the church, to make it a stronger fellowship.”

Then he would add, “From time to time, I will hear deacons say the church cannot do thus-and-so because the deacons haven’t considered the matter. I’m always quick to shoot that concept down. This is a Baptist church and the congregation can do anything it good and well pleases.”

Delma Tucker managed a used car lot for the local Ford dealer in Greenville, Mississippi, and believed in supporting his pastor. When I hesitated about asking the church to come up with extra money for the salary of a new worship minister we needed to bring on staff, he gave me great counsel. “Preacher,” he said, “my experience is that a good minister will pay for himself in the people he brings in.”

He let that soak in, then said, “And anything you pay a poor minister is too much.”

Attorney David Bains said something in a deacons meeting one day I’ve quoted ever since. We’d just gone over the financial report and a couple of men were griping because the offerings had been low that month. David said, “Gentlemen, our church does not have a financial problem. We have a spiritual problem. When people get their hearts right with the Lord, the offerings will take care of themselves.”

I don’t know who first said this next bit, but several deacons come to mind. It’s one of the most valuable pieces of information I get to pass along.

“When you take a vote in a deacons meeting to bring a matter to the floor of the church, once it passes, you ought to support it. If you don’t, if you stand on the floor of the business meeting and oppose the deacons recommendation, you are bringing dissension to the congregation. After all, that’s why you took these things up in a deacons meeting in the first place, to iron out the difficulties ahead of time and get the leadership together. But if you walk out there and bring your minority report, you are working against the unity of the church and nothing good will come from it.”

I’ve never yet heard that expressed without a few deacons disagreeing with it. “I will vote my conscience,” one says. And another says, “How can I support a matter I’m opposed to?”

The answer to these questions is simply, “You do it for the health of the church, our witness to the community, and the honor of the Lord.”

I hasten to add two points. One: if you lose a vote in the deacons meeting, then stand up on the floor of the church business meeting and oppose the recommendation, you have pretty well shot any future influence you have with the other deacons. They know you cannot be depended on. So, give this a lot of thought.

And secondly, if the time comes when an issue is so important that you are willing to spend all your credits and use up all your influence in order to oppose a matter which the deacons are recommending, then go for it. It may cost you in relationships and influence, but if it’s that major an issue with you, lay your body across the tracks and either stop that train or get run over.

The last bit of counsel is my own and is a quick analysis of Romans chapter 12, which I call God’s blueprint for a healthy church.

Verse 1 and 2 call for God’s people to daily commit themselves to Him by “presenting yourselves a living sacrifice.” Nothing is more crucial or essential than that.

Verses 3 through 8 deal with the operation of our spiritual gifts in doing the ministry to which the Lord has called us. For some, it’s preaching and teaching. For others, it’s leadership or giving or a hundred other things.

Finally, verses 9 through 21 concern the relationship of believers with one another. Several times in this passage, believers are told to humble themselves, restrain their egos, and to act in love to one another.

“Let a congregation do these three things–daily commit yourself to God, do your job well, and love one another–and 90 percent of a church’s problems will disappear.”

Over the years, I’ve been blessed by an occasional visit from church members asking how they can help me as the pastor. “What could I do for you that would make your work easier?” they’ll ask.

My answer is always the same. “Do your work well, and nothing will bless my ministry more.”

Let the teacher lead her class well, teach a great lesson, and take care of the class members. Let the outreach leader follow up on visitors and mobilize church members in witnessing. If you are the director of a children’s choir or cut the lawns or prepare Wednesday night meals or run the clothes closet, give the Lord your best and do a great job. That will bless and encourage your minister and flood his heart with the knowledge that he’s a member of a well-functioning part of the Body of Christ. I guarantee you he will work harder, pray more fervently, and preach better knowing he has solid Christians like you supporting him.

I mentioned a few scars I’m carrying. Some of those came out of deacons meetings. Some who read this blog will recall the times some were afflicted. I’ve mentioned previously the four hour deacons meeting in 1989 in which some tried unsuccessfully to lynch me. The faithful and steadfast work of other deacons saved my hide, in a manner of speaking.

“Scripture instructs the deacons to run the business of the church,” Bob said to me across the room in a deacons meeting. I could not believe my ears. I said, “Would you show me that in the Bible?” He did.

“Right there in Acts chapter 6,” he said, “it says the church was to ‘choose 7 men whom the disciples could put in charge of this business.’ There it is.”

I almost laughed. I said, “My friend, the word translated ‘business’ there in the Greek means a ‘lack’ or a ‘need.’Some translations say ‘duty.’ But it most certainly does not mean you are in charge of the church’s business. Sorry.”

He would not back down, but insisted, “The pastor is supposed to preach and the deacons are to run the church.” He actually said that.

I turned to Hebrews 13:17 and read the first part to him. “Bob,” I said, “here is the scariest verse in the Bible to preachers. ‘Obey those who have the rule over you in the Lord and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give account.'”

I said, “I didn’t volunteer for this, but when God called me into the ministry, this was my charge. Every pastor is going to have to stand before Him one of these days and give account for the members of the church. I’m going to have to account to God for you.”

David Bains, mentioned above, turned to his fellow deacon and said, “And, Bob, you might want to read the rest of this verse. ‘Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for that would not be profitable for you.'”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as the gravity of that settled in.

I’m indebted to a lot of good deacons who had great hearts and sound minds and were not bashful in speaking up to keep the church and their colleagues on the right path.