A Community Called to Be the One Body of Christ

New ordained deacons and senior deaconesses are being installed. Yet church office is neither a rank nor an honorary title. It is a charge from God, who loves the church and therefore summons people to serve it.

Those who feel afraid because of their shortcomings are showing a healthy heart. Moses, too, pleaded his inadequacy and declined God’s summons. But God does not wait for finished people. He holds fast to those he has called until the end and brings his work in them to completion. What an officer must put on first is not a title but compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience, and above all these, love.

The church is built up not by office but by character and love. Stephen was great not because he was appointed a deacon but because, even as he was dying, he prayed for his enemies. Philip came to be remembered less as a deacon than as an evangelist. What God seeks is not ability or achievement but faithfulness, and on that day a single word will be enough: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”