Becoming a Deacon(ess): just passing through

The day in September that I was flying to Minneapolis for the Why Christian? Conference, I got a phone call.

“We’d like for you to consider being a deacon,” Scott said. I felt his smile through the phone, and I think it widened when I started cackling.

“Okay!…are you sure?” I said through shallow breaths.

See, we’ve been in this beautiful little community for about a year and a half now, and while I certainly admitted deep down that I’d love to be a deacon in a church someday, I didn’t know it would come so soon.

The defintion of a deacon is something along this line: a servant who’s passing through.

If you’re of a certain conservative lot like the one I grew up in, you might be a little uncomfortable with this. A woman, a deacon, a worship leader…a woman.

Well, it seems the longer I know Jesus, the wider the Kingdom becomes, and He calls every single one of us into something unexpected and holy and good, if we just widen our scope of the Spirit.

And even when we aren’t listening so well, He’s still good. If that isn’t miracle on earth, I don’t know what is.

But I know that I’ve found in this last season of living in Atlanta that God is stretching me bigger than I thought my being could stretch.

I am so small, and yet I find that somehow He grows my capacities, and multiplies gifts like bread and calls me good when I think I know better.

So then He pulls me close again and asks me to serve.

Serve, daughter. Give yourself again to these people. Be filled by them and pour your gifts out like I’ve asked you to. Be church. 

I remember someone else who passed through, a man who healed for some years before He passed on into eternity to take over the throne seat that had been waiting for Him for so long.

If deaconship is following in His passing-through-as-servant example, I’m in.

So while I pass on through, I get to wash some feet.

I get to know stories and faces and embrace bodies and speak life.

I get to mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those whose hearts beam joy.

I get to remember, again, that I am part of this deep and everlasting well that calls everyone to her, calls everyone into some sort of servanthood, some sort of “love one another” beckoning.

Hallelujah, that this Kingdom is a serve while you’re passing through kind of Kingdom.

I’m so honored to be here.