wfn.org | Deacons called 'lightning rods of grace' at NAAD gathering

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2001-174

Deacons called 'lightning rods of grace' at NAAD gathering

by Dutton Morehouse

     (ENS) "Lightning rods of grace": that's how Deaconess Chita Framo described 
the world's deacons and diaconal ministers in her keynote address to the opening 
plenary session of the 2001 Biennial Conference of the North American Association 
for the Diaconate (NAAD), held June 20-24 in Winter Park, Florida.

     Some 130 deacons, diaconal ministers, lay persons, candidates for 
ordination, presbyters and bishops from four countries gathered together for the 
conference, whose theme was: "Stretching to the Edges: A Common Diaconal Voice." 
They came from places as far apart as southern Florida and the Yukon, from 
Bangor, Maine to Stanford, California and from England to the Philippines.

     Framo, a Methodist deaconess in the Philippine Islands and the current 
president of DIAKONIA World Federation, exemplified the ecumenical and 
international focus of this year's conference. 

Aspects of diaconal ministry

     Noting that the modern servant ministry movement began in 1836, when Pastor 
Theodore Fliedner restored the deaconess order to the Lutheran Church at 
Kaiserswerth in his native Germany, Framo said, "He saw the suffering of the 
people and the great need to help them. Since then there was no stopping the 
movement of the spirit of diakonia (service) to all the world."

     Framo articulated three basic aspects of diaconal ministry which served to 
sum up much of the thrust of the conference. "Servanthood," she said, is critical 
to diaconal ministry. It is a call to be in relationship with God and God's 
world, to accept, support and comfort God's people, to equip and encourage others 
to use their own gifts and to fulfill their potential to service and life, 
enabling others to experience God's unending, unconditional love and forgiveness. 
It projects an image of a God whose love and care extends to all persons, and it 
is experiencing the sacred in the ordinary aspects of work. 

     The prophetic role of diaconal ministry is to see and speak out boldly about 
what is not right in the church and in the world, and to protest against evil and 
injustice in any form, said Framo. It is to call the church to respond in 
relevant ways that will transform the world and its people into a "shalom" 
community and to call upon the leadership of the church to ensure unity and 
continuity of "diakonia" as the essential nature of the church. 

     Diaconal ministry is not a function or a job, but a way of life,of being and 
loving, said Framo--a calling accepted by choice and followed in obedience to 
Christ. It is a ministry that enables others also to do ministry. Ministry is 
fruit-bearing when it draws others into ministry.

Deacons at the boundaries 

     The other keynote speaker was Deaconess Louise Williams, executive director 
of the Lutheran Deaconess Association and the current president of DOTAC 
(Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean).

     "During the past two years, NAAD has implemented its decision to become a 
member of DOTAC, one of the constituent regional associations forming DIAKONIA 
World Federation," said Deacon Katherine Salinaro of California, incoming 
president of NAAD. "We have come together here in Florida as diaconal ministers, 
in a gathering that is not only diaconal but ecumenical and international. We 
have come together to work and to learn together, and to give the NAAD membership 
a direct experience of the worldwide and ecumenical movements that make up a far 
wider understanding of diaconal ministry than most of us have ever been exposed 
to."

     Speaking to the second plenary session, Williams said, "Through the ages the 
diaconate has stood, as it were, at the boundaries between the church and the 
world. Deacons were positioned at the edges, some would say the cutting edge, of 
the church, leading the church more and more into diakonia in the world and 
inviting the world with its longing and pain ever more into the church.

     "But it is not just about standing at the edges," Williams noted, "it is 
also about movement-could we even say dance? Movement as go-between, as agent, as 
emissary-from bishop to the community, from God to creation, from church to 
world. Members of the diaconate carried messages, ran errands, acted on behalf of 
the one who sent them.

     "Jesus, of course, has taught us that dance. Jesus, who was on the boundary 
between heaven and earth, between God and humanity . . . Imagine if you can," she 
continued, "the whole church joining in that diaconal dance-going to the edges, 
reaching across the boundaries, welcoming all manner of folk into that graceful 
dance choreographed by Jesus the Christ. And there are the deacons-at the edges-
helping it to happen."

Ministry in the World

     In her inaugural address as president of NAAD, Salinaro said,  "NAAD and the 
diaconate have changed since the early '80's and are continuing to change. We are 
still not always seen as a full and equal order of ministry. We are still asked 
that question, 'when are you going on to be a priest?' It is not that we need 
more clergy, more 'orders' in the church. What we do need is more ministry in the 
world, and that is what deacons are about. We are about leading folks out of the 
church, into the world to fulfill their baptismal covenant: to serve Christ in 
all persons, with justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human 
being."

     The following officers were elected for two-year terms: president: Dn. 
Katherine Salinaro, Diocese of California; vice president: the Ven. David P. 
Nard, Diocese of Western North Carolina; secretary: Mary Hassell, Diocese of 
Minnesota; treasurer: Dn. Ted Hallenbeck, Diocese of Rhode Island.

     Elected to the NAAD Board of Directors, with terms expiring in 2005, were 
deacons Patricia J. Hardy of Arkansas and Marcia K. Stackhouse of Colorado; 
presbyter Susan B.P. Norris of New Jersey; and layperson Roderick B. Dugliss of 
California.

--Deacon Dutton Morehouse is the editor of Diakoneo.