Finally: Ordination for Deacons, Beyond Classism Toward Partnership

By one little word the ELCA in assembly changed the entrance rite for ministers of Word and Service—Deacons—to “ordination.” I celebrate that decision. The vote wasn’t even close. We have come a long way, but it has taken a long time.

Let me go back before the ELCA came into being. I served on the “Design Task Force on Specific Ministry” (1983-4) We presented a model to the proposed new church on the “Public Ministries of the Church” for the “Office Word and Sacrament” and the “Office of Word and Service.” I remember drawing the parallel chart. The two ministries were to be side by side. The proposal was not accepted

After the beginning of the ELCA, January, 1988, the “Task Force on the Study for Ministry” was formed. I also served on that (for five years) and on the subcommittee which designed diaconal ministry. Diaconal ministers would be called to serve inside the structures of the church and called by the church to serve in the world outside the structures of the church. For many years we had faithful diaconal ministers, associates in ministry and members of the ELCA deaconess community.

Meanwhile I also served on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission which produced the Hanover Report “The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity.” (1996)

I had the privilege of teaching M.A. in Diaconal Ministry students at Wartburg Seminary for many years, seeing them flourish in their service in the world and yet never quite understood or fully accepted in the church on whose behalf they served. (“Why don’t you want to be a pastor?”) We still had a ways to go to fully catch the vision of the being the church for the sake of the world.

As the ELCA studied uniting the three “lay” rosters into one, I prepared a paper, “Diaconal Ministry from the Open Tomb to the Open World.” Jesus was a diaconal minister. Faithful diakonia is theologically grounded in a theology of the cross, facing the great wounds of the world, and a theology of the resurrection: death no longer has dominion.

I celebrated the ELCA’s 2016 decision to adopt a unified roster of “Word and Service” using the term “Deacon.” Deacons are now serving as hospital chaplains, musicians, congregational administrators, in disability ministries, in urban education and food ministries, as lawyer, college president, and so much more.

Finally, would “Pastor” and “Deacon” be side-by-side in collaborative ministry? However, the word “ordination” remained difficult. It was the entrance rite, not the essence of service, but it would take more time to move beyond systemic hierarchical and classism biases.

Finally, in 2019, the ELCA made a bold “new” and yet very New Testament decision with global and ecumenical support. Within the one ministry rooted in baptism, some are called to the ministry of “Word and Service” and some to the ministry of “Word and Sacrament,” side by side. Partners in the Gospel.