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Overview
A critical look at the diaconate in the Episcopal Church
Times change, and the Order of Deacons in the Episcopal Church has not remained static. While the book seeks to update contemporary knowledge about deacons, it also shows how the diaconate may be well positioned to lead the church into change that cuts across governance, formation, and ministry. While the institutional church struggles with its structure and purpose, working to change its reality and perception, the book suggests that there are diaconal leaders who have been working all along for this kind of change.
The book chronicles ways in which one church order has grown, matured, adapted, adjusted, and is as effective as it is because of its dynamic nature. It is hoped that other orders might learn from the importance of being adaptable, contextual, and baptismal, while highlighting the primary lens deacons look through as they seek to fulfill what the church has called them to do.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780819229809 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Morehouse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 342 KB |
About the Author
"Ordained as a deacon for 24 years, Susanne Watson Epting has served in multiple professional church roles, including director of the Institute for Christian Studies and as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Iowa. She also has served as a ministry development consultant, edited a resource for the former Office for Women’s Ministries on the Beijing Platform for Action, published in Women’s Uncommon Prayers, the Anglican Theological Review, and other places, and also wrote the foreword for Ormond Plater’s book, Deacons in the Liturgy, also from Morehouse. She served as a board member ofthe Association for Episcopal Deacons for eight years and as its director for ten. She lives in Davenport, Iowa."
Read an Excerpt
Unexpected Consequences
The Diaconate Renewed
By Susanne Watson Epting
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2015 Susanne Watson EptingAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8192-2980-9
CHAPTER 1
Creating a New Vision; Setting the Stage for a Renewed Order
It's been said that history doesn't look like history when you're living through it; it just "looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable." Perhaps that's one reason why, unless our personality is somewhat analytical, we don't often think about how we are living history. In The Episcopal Church our attention to history is thwarted, from time to time, by the fact that we focus so much on what we call the "triennial," a three-year cycle of General Conventions at which we set new priorities, recommit to old ones, forget the ones we already set, or wonder why we set any at all.
Perhaps we don't attend to history because no one ever made it relevant or exciting. That's somewhat ironic given that, as church folk, we tell and retell the stories of people of faith, throughout the ages, as part of our rhythm of communal life. In the midst of them, we don't realize that the stories we're living now, the patterns we are establishing, the changes we are making, the generation-to-generation legacies we are leaving, are not so unlike the history that Moses and the Israelites were making during their generation of exile. A lot happened in that forty years in the wilderness. In fact, a lot has happened in the last forty years in The Episcopal Church. Indeed as we consider the diaconate in this church, the last forty years are critical to our understanding and development of the Order.
It thus becomes important to reckon with the history we've been a part of making. History here, as it relates to the contemporary story of deacons, and to the diaconal ministry of all believers, begins just after the approval of our current Book of Common Prayer (hereafter BCP 1979). Of course, I find this part of church history remarkable because it's the part of the church's history that I've lived. I've never lived with any other version of the Book of Common Prayer, so I assumed from the beginning (my beginning in The Episcopal Church being in 1977 when the book was already in pews for trial use), that the theology set forward in our current prayer book is what we all believed. What I didn't realize, for many years, is that it has taken the church a while to live into this theology and the changes this version of the prayer book brought us. The diaconate is part of that. In fact, the church's understanding of her own servant nature is part of that.
Only now am I coming to recognize the ways in which I was personally (along with many others) caught up in making history as I journeyed, nudged by the Spirit, toward the life and work of a deacon and the meaning of a long-ignored Order in the Church. While I offer this interpretation of history from my own point of view, there are many others who have been making it and living it in their own ways.
I was thirty-one years old when a supportive vicar spoke to the bishop about my becoming a deacon. The year was 1980—just a year into the "official" use of the BCP 1979. I had struggled with the ordination of women and, though I supported it, it called me to move beyond tradition in a way that surprised me. Looking back, I suspect the struggle was less about ordaining women and more about patriarchal models of leadership. As more and more women were ordained to the priesthood, I would be uplifted by new models, new images, and new possibilities. However, at the time, someone suggested that since I wasn't sure about ordination to the priesthood, maybe I should look at being a deacon. I had no idea what a deacon was, but when I looked at the ordination service, everything about it resonated with me. It wasn't any longer about women's ordination, but about which Order captured my soul. And because I was a new Episcopalian, unaware of the significance that the Order was being reenvisioned, I simply had no idea that this was such a novel and unexplored option in The Episcopal Church. It's taken me nearly twenty-five years to recognize how significant that was and, I suspect, the church may still be living into that—into what came with the liturgical and theological revisions incorporated into the BCP 1979.
In 1980 the bishop didn't tell me no. Nor did he tell me yes. He told me that the church had undertaken a six-year study to examine what the diaconate should be in its new incarnation. He offered to send me to a conference at Notre Dame on the diaconate, and suggested that I report back and keep him informed. What I experienced there is, quite likely, what carried me through the next eight years of waiting.
Those in attendance were history makers. They'd already been part of research on the diaconate, shaping the prayer book, and offering statements on why they thought this distinctive Order important, even necessary. They were leaders in thinking about the "total ministry of the church." While they envisioned a distinctive diaconate, it was always in relationship to all other ministry, and especially so as the church claimed a new and deep commitment to develop "lay ministry." But before I say more about that gathering, it's important to return to the beginning of the six-year study the church had already undertaken.
A report of a 1978 survey said:
At its 1977 meeting in Port St. Lucie, Florida, the House of Bishops asked the Council for the Development of Ministry to undertake an empirical study of the Diaconate in the Episcopal Church in the United States. The study was underway when the house met in Kansas City in 1978. The charge was then enlarged to ask not just for data on the diaconate, but for analysis and recommendations from the Council.
During the past two years the Council has designed and executed the survey, analyzed the results, and appointed a special committee to prepare recommendations. While committee members often disagreed and debated the issues, in the end they found they could come to a common mind and submit this report for the consideration of the House. This consensus is evident in the following agreed statement:
Upon reflection on the report of the findings of the survey, the committee agrees that the primary issue of concern is the servant (diaconal) nature of the church. Questions directly related to the order of deacons are secondary to the primary issue.
The study has demonstrated to us that there is an obvious gap between the experience of the Diaconate as it appears in the study, and a vision of the Diaconate expressed by a majority of diocesan Commissions on Ministry and bishops.
The doctrine of diaconal ministry as expressed in the Ordinal of the Proposed Book of Common Prayer and the description of actual diaconal ministry as portrayed in the Study point to a disparity between the reality of the diaconate as it is now practiced and the ideal expressed. We believe that some change will be necessary if the permanent Diaconate is to live out more clearly the understanding of the Church as the servant (diaconal) people of God.
Though some amongst us think that the permanent Diaconate might be discontinued, others feel that it has validity but should be enhanced. Given the realities of the study and the opinions identified therein, we all believe that the new directions called for in the study should be evaluated and this evaluation should be presented not later than 1985 at General Convention.
The report has demonstrated the need to explore new forms of ministry which express the servant ministry of the Church....
The disparity between the vision of a diaconal ministry of servanthood and the actuality of a diaconate which is often seen—and often sees itself—as a minor order of priesthood understandably evokes the apparently conflicting responses reported in the survey: 94% of all respondents feel that the church should have a vital diaconate, yet only 18% of the participatory bishops have plans to ordain permanent deacons.
The survey makes it obvious that there is reluctance on the part of many to continue support of the diaconate in its present form. At the same time, there is a great interest in developing a Diaconate which would be distinctive from and yet enhancing of the ministry of the other clergy and of the laity.
It's taken me many years to fully appreciate why the bishop in my diocese wanted to wait until the six-year study was complete. Here I was in 1980, only two years after "some amongst us" thought the permanent diaconate should be discontinued. And yet, the church had just adopted a prayer book which included a new vision of the diaconate. How like Episcopalians!
While the diaconate has a long history, beginning with the earliest church, and while there had been many discussions about renewing it for the contemporary times, The Episcopal Church simply did not have a history with the new vision offered in the prayer book. Thus, it was easy to conclude that, for a time, there was no common understanding of this Order. Since then, however, many deacons and others who believe in diaconal ministry have more clearly defined that vision.
It is that defining journey that we will explore here. How did we get from "some amongst us" believing that we should do away with the diaconate to an order that is vibrant and vital?
Six Long Years
After the empirical study conducted in 1978 and the presentation of its subsequent analysis to the House of Bishops, the 1979 General Convention "directed the Council for the Development of Ministry to begin to implement the recommendations contained in their report and to be prepared to make a presentation on the results at the 1985 General Convention." The next step was for the Council to call a Consultation on the Diaconate in May of 1980.
Thirty-one dioceses (about a third of the dioceses in the church at that time) were represented at the consultation. We learn from their report that
the first task of the consultation was to define servant ministry, a term entering the consciousness of many people, at least in regard to the Episcopal diaconate, for the first time. Once arrived at, the definition quickly became the focal point of all the discussions that followed. This was their definition of the servant ministry:
Servant ministry is the sacrificial work of the baptized community in which we share Christ's presence and activity of making whole by our response to and advocacy for those in need. This work includes identifying and proclaiming to individuals, institutions, and authorities the needs of the world.
It was through this lens that those attending the consultation would look at the selection and deployment of deacons, appropriate training, supervision, and the effects of the diaconate on other ministries.
The consultation spent no small amount of time in reiterating and clarifying that "in order to select people for the servant ministry of the diaconate there had to be a clear idea on the part of the persons selecting as well as on the part of the aspirants to the diaconate what the role of the deacon was actually to be."
It is important to note here that at the time these studies were undertaken, the role of deacons in the church had been primarily as pastoral and liturgical assistants. In the servant ministry definition shared by the Consultation, we begin to see the importance of the "baptized community." It was a remarkable thing that the church was looking at the relevance of an Order in relationship to the whole people of God. It would also be remarkable should the church do that with all other Orders! The important thing, however, is that the diaconate was not reenvisioned in a vacuum.
Recall the church of that time was deeply committed to the development of lay ministry, now what we simply call "ministry." Over time we would come to see that this careful definition of the diaconate, albeit at times painfully slow, would serve us well in recognizing the role of deacons in developing ministry in and with others, owning a primarily baptismal identity, and pushing the church to deal with her tendency toward clericalism.
We would also come to realize that, while these initial attempts to define a role, the training for it, the best ways to deploy those serving in it, and how best to tell the church about it, those definitions were being offered by people who had never lived in that role. This will be important to keep in mind as we observe the further unfolding of the definition of the ministry, and the living of it.
The culmination of the church's six-year review of the diaconate would come with one more study, conducted between 1981 and 1984, of eight dioceses engaged in the renewal of the diaconate (Albany, California, Central Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Nevada, Pittsburgh, and Spokane). With this study we begin to see questions about the diaconate that have now evolved into patterns, qualities—questions not to be solved with a definitive answer but with a flexibility of living—and a conscious recognition of the importance of being contextual and adaptable.
The study of the eight dioceses addressed:
• the purposes and benefits of ordaining persons to the diaconate, including thoughts on the deacon as symbol of servant ministry, the meaning of ordination, the deacon's role in the liturgy, the deacon as enabler of lay ministry;
• the hierarchy of orders, including whether deacons should have a distinctive and equal ministry, factors that hinder that equality with other orders, canonical requirements regarding authority, differences in education between priests and deacons, the part-time status of nonstipendiary deacons compared with the full-time status of the stipendiary priest;
• issues in the training and deployment of deacons, including how deacons might be similarly or differently trained than priests, whether they should stay in their home congregations, or whether they should be moved, ministry assignments in general;
• equality in the relative value among orders, including establishing collegial relations between priest, supervisor, and deacon, the relationship with the bishop, and developing distinctive ministries;
• and finally an assessment of the overall impact of the participating dioceses' diaconate program on the understanding of the Order and of deacons in these dioceses on the ministry of their congregations.
We discover that overall the diaconate is growing and seen positively. And yet we read in the foreword to the document, "In spite of current enthusiasm all should not be viewed as in order. From those surveyed, it is clear that there is no consistent or necessarily coherent vision of what the diaconate should be, specifically what is distinctive about what the deacon is to do to be an effective sacramental sign of our common ministry of servanthood in Christ."
Once again we return to a key concept. All of the study, all of the questions, all of the issues about training, deployment, authority, relationship—all of these—were ways of defining an Order that would enable the church to engage with the diakonia of all believers—to be a servant church.
Often the church tends more to institutional concerns created by new ideas than it does to spiritual ones. In fairness, those institutional concerns can come to make up the important infrastructure that will undergird glorious new possibilities, but without holding the practical spiritual living of the idea in tension with our constitution and canons, we risk rather brittle interpretations of what the living, breathing, changing, growing, imagining body of Christ really is. Without the positive and practical, that infrastructure can be used to control instead of to free us with support. Therefore, it's important to consider what other initiatives were taking place at the same time as these church-sponsored studies.
Imagining New Possibilities, Reenvisioning the Church
At the same time the six-year study was taking place, a movement was growing. While my first exposure to that movement was at Notre Dame in 1981, that meeting was actually the second gathering of reformers committed to the renewal of the diaconate.
In 1979 a three-day meeting on "The Diaconate ... A Unique Place in the Total Ministry" was sponsored by the National Centre for the Diaconate and Associated Parishes, Inc., with the help of the Episcopal Dioceses of Central Florida, Indianapolis, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Pittsburgh, and Western Massachusetts. The program was held in liaison with the Episcopal Church Council for the Development of Ministry, though it is not clear that the Council was an actual sponsor or financial contributor. They were conducting studies of their own.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Unexpected Consequences by Susanne Watson Epting. Copyright © 2015 Susanne Watson Epting. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,1 Creating a New Vision; Setting the Stage for a Renewed Order,
2 Waves and Ways of Being,
3 Shaped by a New Prayer Book,
4 Shaped by Living—The Fifth Wave as a Decade of Definition,
5 Living in the Fifth Wave—Wading into a Sixth,
6 The Sixth Wave—Interpretation and Prophetic Voice,
7 Wading More Deeply into the Seventh Wave-Up to Our Waists Integrating All We've Learned,
8 Seven Waves and Room for More,
9 Are We There Yet?,
Postscript,
Acknowledgments,
Appendix One: Deacons Are in the Picture,
Appendix Two: Citizens of the World—Servants of Christ,
Appendix Three: Principles of Orderly Exchange,
Notes,