January 9, 2005 Sermon

Deacons
Acts 6:1-7

In the late 1960s a Presbyterian preacher made the comment, “There is no more segregated hour in America than 11:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings.” He referred to the separation between blacks and whites, a terribly hot issue then, in the midst of the Civil Rights protests. His point: blacks and whites, then and now, divide at church just as surely as they do in other areas of life.

Alienation. Division. Loneliness. These deep, dark realities loom over so many of us, so much of the time. At Wednesday morning’s Bible study it gave me great joy to hear a couple of our newest members state that this is still a very friendly church. One of them said, “We were greeted and they wanted to know my name.” The other added, “It makes you want to come back!”

Praise God! But we need to hear the next comment made at that Bible study. Yet another new person, who intends to join our church in the near future, spoke of how lonely she felt, at first, during our meet and greet time in the middle of worship. (One of our elders calls it “Grip and Grin”.) Her thought, to paraphrase, was that there is no more lonely time than those few minutes when all the other Christians are acting like they’re so happy to see each other.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must never permit ours to become a cold, closed church. Congregations go through life cycles. New churches usually begin as extremely friendly groups. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody feels like they play a key role in the church. But time passes, and with it goes this first, happy phase of church life. Soon enough new churches, like kittens becoming cats, become middle-aged. Their early joy and friendliness pass. Their closeness fades.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must never permit ours to become a cold, closed church. The Northern Lakes Community Church is seven and one-half years old. We have grown beyond that first phase. We can no longer know all of each others’ names, much less keep track of all the important milestones and challenges all the rest of us are facing. Will we hold on to that closeness, that joyfulness, that love of Christ that has always saturated our life together?

Or will we grow old and boring, an aging cat getting fat and lazy, not doing anybody much good?

Personally, I put responsibility for meeting this challenge squarely on the backs of our deacons. But who are our deacons? You can find one answer on the backs of your bulletins. Each week we print the names of our elders and deacons, with their telephone numbers. We actually hope you will call them if you have a need, an idea, a complaint. But in order to know whom to call for what reason, we need to understand what elders and deacons do in a Presbyterian Church.

Presbyterian elders run the church. Following the New Testament model, elders rule. The very word elder, in New Testament Greek, is “presbuteros”. Sound familiar? Elders—presbyters—rule. They run things. They have authority and responsibility. Elders make financial decisions. Elders decide how the church will worship. Elders determine which curriculum the Sunday school uses, what programs to offer youth, how the church will reach out to unchurched people in the neighborhood. If you have a question or a comment about the decision-making and running of the church, call an elder.

Presbyterian deacons care for human needs. Following the New Testament model, deacons serve. The very word deacon, in New Testament Greek, is (are you ready for this?) “deaconos”. In Greek this word means servant or care-giver. Deacons lead the church in feeding the hungry, tending the sick, being present for the lonely and aged. If you have a question or a comment about the care-giving ministry of this church, call a deacon.

Just look at how and why deacons got started. We read the story this morning in Acts 6.