Chapter 9 Being a Deacon

St. Gregory's offers their parishioners an opportunity usually unheard of in an Episcopal church: members can serve in the roles of Deacons without being ordained as Deacons. Sara Miles decides to try out this role in her church and shares her experience in this chapter of learning what to do and how it felt to serve during the church service. 

"Besides, I liked the idea of deaconing as a verb rather than deacon as a title or an identity." (94) 

What is the role of the deacon? Who serves the church and the people of the church? We at St. John's have just recently received a new deacon into our community, how have you experienced his role and service to the church? How have you experienced deacons other places? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nutritional Wellness

Image
I love food.  The tastes, the smells, the experience of eating.  I even like gardening and the creation of food. The cooking and baking processes of making individual items into marvelous meals.  My digestive system has a much more complicated relationship with food. There are many things my digestive system overreacts to or feels the need to attack.  Over the years of trying to figure out what my digestive system will tolerate I've had to change my focus on eating for wellness  and learn to create the things I like with the ingredients my body also likes. Its not an immediate change in mindset. It takes time and energy and reminders. Because eating is such a communal experience, it has also taken community adjustment. Finding family and friends who will support my journey and focus on wellness.  I have found that my focus on wellness has been a little bit contagious.  As others have supported me in focusing on digestive wellness, others have been inspired to focus on their own nut
Read more

Book Review: Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy, And Raise A Little Hell, by Karen Walrond

Image
This isn't a scientific book about aging. It isn't a book about how to age well or what you should do as you are aging. It is a book about aging into who you want to be.  It is a book about looking into the mirror and seeing the smile on your face and light in your eyes. Karen Walrond guides us on the journey she took leading up to her year of aging anniversaries and milestones. She explains how she took the time and space in her life to reflect on what it means to age, to acknowledge and combat internalized ageism, and to figure out who she wanted to be as she grew older. She shares some research, tips, tricks, and lessons learned from professionals and elders in her life. As in her previous books, her conversational writing style, easy prose, and gift of storytelling makes this an interesting and engaging read. She offers thoughtful challenges to the 'normal' ways we think about age and what it means to grow older.  Karen Walrond doesn't take the reader on this jo
Read more

The Question of Faith

  What do you have faith in? Now I know the parables are good today, And I'm not going to talk about them Because one of the most basic things about religion is faith. You can blame St. Paul for today's sermon. All religions require faith. Faith is the belief in things not seen. In some ways, all the ideals we aspire to love, justice, charity, hope they are the bedrock on which any religion is created, including some things we don't think of as religion, but could be construed that way, are things we cannot see. We can't see justice, certainly these days we don't see a lot of evidence for it. We can't see equality or freedom or peace because they are ways of talking about systems in which everyone belongs and feels comfortable being themselves and we know we have not achieved that kind of world. Anyway, without faith, there is no religion no Christianity, no Judaism, no Islam, no Jainism, no pantheism. In the passage from Paul to the Romans, he writes, "Now
Read more