How a Deacon Shapes Worship

Dear Friends,

At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.

This is the conclusion of the charge that Bishop Sumner will read to Erica Andersen, our Curate, in just over 36 hours. A few minutes after that he will lay hands on her head and consecrate her a Deacon in Christ’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

As Christians, every one of us is called to a serve. We follow Christ, who came not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). And so we try to do the same. But it is the particular call of a Deacon to model that service by their life and work in the Church.

The most visible symbol of this will be one of Erica’s new roles in worship. Beginning Sunday she will prepare the altar table for Holy Communion at every service she’s in. Then, when communion is over, she will clean everything up. This service at Communion is a symbol of her diaconal ministry as servant.

Every Priest in the Church is ordained a Deacon first, usually for at least six months. But when we are ordained to the priesthood, we remain Deacons. Getting ordained a Priest does not undo one’s diaconal ordination. However, there are new roles and responsibilities to be lived into, and this added complexity can make our lived-example less obvious.

And so my prayer for St. Andrew’s in this next season, while we have a Deacon Erica but do not yet have a Mother Erica, is that we are inspired by her ministry, her presence, and her life among us to serve our Lord Jesus Christ, particularly among the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely.

She’ll have another duty at worship, beginning Sunday. She’ll be the one to dismiss us into the world to go do that work, saying “Go in peace to love and SERVE the Lord!”

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew