11 Those Who Make Vision Reality

The role of deacon seems to be a mysterious one. People have very different ideas of what a deacon is and what a deacon should do. And if you look around at many churches, you'll see two extremes. In some churches, deacons are those that form a board who hire and fire the pastor.

They have this authority where basically they govern the church. That is elevating the role of deacon beyond the role of authority that we see in Scripture. On the other side, in many churches, deacons are the ones who clean the building and lock it up and hand out Bibles.

Because the word deacon means servant, so they should just serve. But we need to see what deacons truly do and what God has called deacons to be. The primary scripture we use here is Acts 6. But I do want to unpack a few things in this that sometimes I think we get wrong.

What a Deacon Really Is

Sometimes in a congregation we'll see somebody who is really serving well. We say, "Wow, he's serving really well. We should make him a deacon." No, the qualification of a deacon isn't that he serves well; the qualification of a Christian is that they serve well.

One of the descriptions for us as believers is "doulos", or slave. All of us are slaves, all of us should be those who serve our Master, willingly and unconditionally. Yes, the word deacon means servant, but another nuance to that word or to that meaning is: one who serves or carries out the commands of another.

And I think as elders, that is an important distinction that for me, a deacon is one who carries out the instructions or command of another. In other words, a deacon is the one who takes the instructions of the elders and then makes it a reality.

And without strong deacons in place, and without deacons doing the job that God's called them to do, as a church, we will not move forward in the things that God wants us to. I was working with a church in Brazil a little while ago.

An incredible church with incredible leaders. They've got apostolic leaders in the church. They've got great eldership team. They've got an incredible youth. Talking to them about their doctrine and their theology, it's almost identical to ours. But their church wasn't moving forward and their people really weren't.

They didn't have a priesthood of all believers in a manner that they'd observed in JoshGen. And they said to me, "Why is this? Why are we so similar in so many respects? But your guys are so activated and moving forward. And your people are growing.

And your people are prophesying and ours aren't?" And I believe God gave me the answer. And I looked around and I said, "You don't have deacons." They had good elders, they had apostolic input, but they had no deacons. Because deacons, in many ways, are those who make the vision a reality.

Acts 6 and Delegated Responsibility

But they can only do that if they're allowed to do so. So let's look at Acts 6 for a moment. The situation in Acts 6 wasn't a situation that they didn't have enough people to serve food. That wasn't the problem. It wasn't a lack of waiters in the restaurant. The problem they had was one of prejudice, where you had conflict between the Greek-speaking widows and the Hebraic-speaking widows.

In other words, you had a problem in the life of the early church that could have split that church in two and destroyed the church before it had even got its footing. This was not a minor problem. This was a big, big problem in the life of the church. And what did the apostles say? They said, "Choose seven men who are full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit."

And here's the key sentence in Acts 6 that I think we sometimes miss. And I want us to hear this. It says, "We will turn this responsibility over to them." It doesn't say, "We will tell them how to fix it." It doesn't say, "We will fix it and then tell them how to serve soup."

It says, "We will delegate responsibility over to them." These deacons who had the favor of the people, they were able, within the wisdom and through being Spirit-led, to resolve a problem in the life of the church that could have destroyed the whole church.

That should give us pause when it comes to how do we consider our deacons. We later see, of course, a specific mention made of two of those deacons. Stephen, who is preaching in a synagogue, and he's preaching with power, and becomes the first martyr.

And Philip, who brings revival to the whole area of Samaria and conducts incredible miracles. He is out there and nowhere does it say, or even inferred, that he waited for permission to do that. He was full of wisdom in the Holy Spirit. So I don't think he was a lone ranger.

I don't think he was just off on his own mission and trying to get glory for himself. But there was a freedom to walk in what God had called him to walk. He wasn't confined in a very small place. And deacons weren't simply considered those who could do simple, easy, practical.

The dirty jobs that the elders don't want to do. That is not what deacons are. I sometimes think that we can fall into the trap of thinking deacons are less capable, that deacons can be interested in small deals, but big deals have got to be elders.

No, I don't see that in Scripture. I do think there's teamwork. And I do think it's wise, because elders have got a governmental gifting and a governmental authority, that deacons and elders work closely together. Deacons aren't junior Christians. They're not less than. It's just a different role.

And if you look at the qualifications of deacons and the qualifications of elders, they're virtually identical with the exception that the elders have that teaching role or that setting doctrine role. So the elders carry the government, but in many ways, the deacons are those who make those governmental decisions real among the lives of the people.

Trusting Deacons to Make the Vision a Reality

I never had the dubious honor of serving in the military, but I do enjoy reading and studying military history. What you'll discover, almost universally, across countries and across conflicts: Armies that have been victorious, armies that have been effective, armies that have taken ground are those with good quality, non-commissioned officers.

It's not always been the brilliant general, but it's the men who are in the trenches with the soldiers. Those were responsible for implementing the general's vision that will make a difference between success and failure. I want to encourage us, as eldership teams, to work closely with our deacons.

To lift the vision of the deacons. To lift our own vision of what the deacons are. To begin to really trust our deacons with the role and responsibilities that God has for them. Trust is a two-way street. As elders, we have an expectation that people will trust us.

I think God has an expectation that we will trust our deacons. I think sometimes even including deacons or some deacons in our Elders Meeting. So that they can hear the vision, they can hear the direction, they can hear what decisions are being made.

Then they can go and implement them. But we need to be really trusting our deacons to run and to minister and to bring life into our congregations. I alluded to this in community leader training, but I would rather have horses than mules on my deacon team.

I want deacons that are ready to run. I want deacons that are running so hard I have to steer them and sometimes say slow down. But I do not want to crush them. I do not want to put a ceiling on them that God has not put.

And when we allow our deacons to run, I honestly believe that they will begin to take up some of the workload from the elders. So the elders can truly elder. Instead of, as at the moment in some of our congregations, I believe, some of our elders are actually doing the work of deacons.

So our deacons are doing nothing, and then our people are doing nothing. If we want a priesthood of all believers, let's understand the roles that we all have, and allow deacons to fulfill their God-given roles. Let's be excited at their victories. Let's be excited at their excitement, and let's truly release them to be what God's called them to be.