“… it surely ‘takes a diocese (and more) to raise a deacon.’”
by the Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, Bishop of Vermont
Mountain Echo, February 2009

On the Feast of the Epiphany we ordained three new deacons to serve in the Diocese of Vermont. It was a powerful and moving liturgy for me and the other 250 people gathered in Saint Paul’s Cathedral on January 6. In a service that lifted my spirit and filled my heart with joy and gladness, these three new deacons—Stan Baker, Armand Henault, and Beth Ann Maier—were joined by friends, family, choir members, parishioners from their “home” congregations and the congregations where they served as interns, clergy and lay leaders of our diocese, and colleagues from their ministries in daily life.

You can read more about the event in this edition of the Mountain Echo, and I know you join me in welcoming these deacons to their new ministries as sign and symbol of the ministry of all the baptized to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves; and to strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being” (The Baptismal Covenant).

This ordination represents a significant step forward in the encouragement and development of the diaconate in our diocese. Including these three, there are currently 13 “active” deacons serving in congregations throughout Vermont. In addition, there are other “retired” deacons among us who continue their service through prayer, wisdom and “quiet” ministries of care and advocacy, and there are other persons currently in discernment about a calling to this ministry. The Commission on Ministry and the newly formed Deacon’s Council are actively engaged in the process of refining our discernment and formation process to encourage even more persons to consider and pursue a calling to this ministry.

The ordination liturgy for a deacon in the Book of Common Prayer makes it clear that the ministry of a deacon is 1) To serve: “you are to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely.” and 2) To reveal: “you are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.”

This ministry, as with all baptismal ministries, is rooted in the ministry of Christ. Deacons call the Church to “be Christ” in the midst of a broken and hurting world. Deacons call the Church to ministries of caring, advocacy, social justice and poli-tical action in service to Christ’s redemptive grace and love. Deacons call the Church to “live and move and have our being” in all the places where Christ’s mercy, compassion and justice can and do make a difference. My experience of the deacons in our diocese is that they live out this ministry with great conviction, passion and humility, and I celebrate their ministry among us.

One of the powerful realities for me about the liturgy on the Feast of the Epiphany is that these three new deacons all had significant ministries in their “home” congregations and beyond before responding to God’s invitation to serve the Church as deacons. This “homegrown and beyond” dimension and story associated with each of them is well known to me and speaks in a most positive way of the loving and caring formation present in the faith communities that encouraged, nurtured and participated in the process of discernment that led to their ordination.

Along the way, the diocesan formation process, including the work of our Commission on Ministry and Standing Committee, the Clinical Pastoral Education program at Fletcher Allen under the leadership of the Reverend David Hamilton, and the congregations where these deacons served as interns, helped each of them to sharpen and focus their call and commitment to this ministry. I am also mindful that the families and those connected to each new deacon’s ministry in daily life played a huge part in their journey. I commented at the ordination liturgy that if indeed “it takes a village to raise a child,” then it surely “takes a diocese (and more) to raise a deacon.”

As we move ever more deeply in our diocese in our understanding and practice of baptismal ministry and ministry in daily life, I give thanks for the witness of our deacons. As you encounter them in your congregation (if one is serving among you) or as they accompany me on my visitations, I invite you to talk with them to learn more about their ministries and to discover how our common ministry in Christ is made more rich and complete through their ministries of service and advocacy. Pray that each “may be to us an effective example in word and action, in love and patience, and in holiness or life” (BCP page 547).

In service to Christ,
+Thomas

Go to index of Bishop Ely's Mountain Echo columns and letters to the diocese