Church Deacons

 

The word deacons have come from the Greek word diakonos. It has several meanings like service, minister and caring for physical needs. It is translated as servant and minister sometime in the bible.so the deacons are non-other than servant and minister. Deacons are the person who is appointed to take care the physical needs of the church. both man and woman are allowed to be the deacons in the local church. the letters of the Paul to Romans16:1 says the phoebe was the deacons. There are some qualifications in order to be deacons in the church according to the scriptures (1timothy2,3 and actes6. The person must the husband of one wife, deacon must not be an addict(v3) not greedy for money, blameless, and able to manage his family well.

The responsibilities of deacons

There are many responsibilities of the deacons in the local church. we can find this idea of the responsibilities in acts6. in acts 6, we can see there a number of disciples were multiplying. The apostles were busy at preaching and teaching. some widows were sharing the they were not able to eat food properly. So, they appointed some people who are filled with spirit and wisdom and honoured by people(act6:3). They are chosen to care for physical needs of the church, work for unity in the church and support word ministry.

a.      Care for physical needs of the church

There are two kinds of the need in church: physical and spiritual. the physical needs of the church refer to building, instruments, food, and infrastructures. The spiritual needs refer to prayer and word of God. The deacons are appointed to take care of the physical needs of the church. the deacons take of the church financial thing.

b.       Work for unity in the church

The deacons are the unity builders. they build the unity in the church being the servant.  There was dispute among the Greek speaking and Hebrew speaking in the Jerusalem church. Due to that some widows of the Jerusalem church were not able to eat food properly. As result, deacons are appointed by apostle. They work for unity.

c.       Support word ministry

The book of acts 6 tells us that the apostles were preaching and praying whole heartedly but they are failed to take care of the people who are with them. They appointed deacons to support their word ministry. The church needs deacons to provide logistical and material support so that the elders can focus on the word of God and prayer.

The plurality of deacons

Church is the gathering of the believer where the word of God is preached faithfully and rightly and ordinance is practiced rightly.   There is many and different programme in the church like children ministry, hospitality, church budget, ordinances, member care, sound system, mission, community outreach, conference and women ministry and so on. One man can do everything and can't available every time everywhere that's why it is helpful to have the plurality of the deacons. Talking about the plurality of the deacons reminds me the leadership of Moses. Moses was tired leading alone more than six million Israelites but later his father-in -law suggest to give away some responsibilities to the person who are able and then he chose seventy people form different tribes and group that will make his work easier than before. This is the power of plurality of deacons in contemporary church. The advantages of the plurality of deacons are logistics, ushers, finances facilities

Logistics: deacons should be available to help in variety of ways so that elders are able to concentrate on teaching and shepherding the church.

Ushers: the deacons could be responsible for distributing bulletins, seating the congregation, or preparing the element of communion

Finances: while elders should oversee the financial business of the church. It must be best left to the deacons to handle the day-to-day maters. this would include the collecting and counting the offering.

Facilities: the deacons could be responsible for managing the church property. This would include making the place of worship is prepared   for worship service, cleaning up and running the sound system.