From the Deacon's Bench

In the Annual Report I offered an overview of my duties and responsibilities as a deacon in the Church. For this article my intention is to briefly sketch my role as a deacon in the context of the Diocesan mission strategy of Inviting, Forming, Sending, and Serving. 

Docesan Mission Strategy
The Diocese has a mission statement that charges all Episcopal churches in this diocese to join together in God's transforming mission of "healing, of reconciliation, of loving every person and all of creation into holeness" by inviting, forming, sending, and serving. This ambitious mission is what the heart and soul of the diaconate movement is really all about. Through our work and ministry deacons are already in the lives of many of those that need to be invited to wholeness by hearing the good news of gospel.

Inviting
Deacons invite people into the body of Christ through liturgy and through their work. As a deacon I invite people to hear the gospel and prepare the table that welcomes them to the Eurcharist feast. In the world I invite all to come and see what God is offering and to share with me their fear, pain and suffering so that it might be transformed by the grace of God.

Forming
As leaders in the Church, deacons are involved in the formation of the congregation in which they serve by preaching, modeling, Bible study, starting new ministries, and proclaiming the needs and concerns of the world to the Church. Indeed, the church community is all about the formation of God's people. By virtue of their leadership position in the Church, deacons are leaders in the world because the secular positions they hold in their everyday lives help to bring people to wholeness by recreating the community of the Church as Christ's body in the world.

Sending
A primary role of the deacon is the dismissal at the end of the Eucharist that sends the congregation out into the world to be the body of Christ. It is this very sending out into the world that reveals to the world the
sacredness of creation. As a deacon, I go out the door first asking the people in the church follow me in carrying the good news of the Gospel out into the world.

Serving
It is in serving as an example of Jesus Christ in the Church and the world that I serve as Jesus' agent by living out my baptism and ordination vows. I believe that it is nothing other than my faith and way of life that
attract people to me in my secular work and identifies me as being a leader. I find that when I am going quietly about as "servant" I am most effective in meeting the pastoral needs of those that I am serving and this
allows me to invite these people to join me in the body of Christ. I try to serve the Church's mission by making my life and work, and the life and work of whatever community or group I am in to be part of the mission of the Church. In future articles I hope to be more specific and reflective about my personal ministry in the Church and the world.

The Rev. Katherine Mitchell
serves as a chaplain at Brigham and Women's Hospital as well as the diocean Ministry with Christians in the Holy Land.
She is a liturgical Deacon at the Church of the Good Shepherd