Browning Calls Deacons To Deeper Spirituality
Episcopal News Service. June 25, 1987 [87137]
W. W. Baker
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (DPS, June 25) -- The Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning, Presiding Bishop and Primate, celebrating solemn Eucharist with the bishops of West Missouri and Kansas as concelebrants... a procession of 200 deacons... and a congregation of more than 250 Episcopalians singing a Charles Wesley hymn in a Roman Catholic cathedral.
That was the scene on a June Saturday in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception here, as the North American Association for the Diaconate closed its three-day meeting. Deacons of the two Midwest dioceses and other deacons of the association participated in the service, and the Rt. Rev. Richard F. Grein, bishop of Kansas, preached. The closing Eucharist was held there because of reconstruction under way in Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.
Nearly 200 deacons from 62 U.S. dioceses and six provinces of the Canadian Church attended the conference. At the banquet, they heard Browning issue a call to deacons to regular re-examination of the spiritual foundations of their ministry, through study, prayer, theological reflection and worship.
"I say to you that without an understanding of your spiritual foundation and without a discipline of personal spirituality, the compassionate ministry of servanthood must stand on weak and wobbly legs," he said.
"Without that foundation, the ministry of the individual cannot tolerate the stress or anxiety or frustration or ambiguity or failures, or even the success."
The diaconal ministry has come a long way in establishing its identity in the life of the Church and in the wider Anglican Communion, Browning said. The international conference symbolizes and substantiates the role of deacons in the Church and the renewal of the diaconate.
Browning noted that in his travels since he was elected Presiding Bishop, he had seen other signs of the growing appreciation of the importance of the diaconate. He recalled that in his discussions with the Greek patriarch in Istanbul and with the Armenian patriarch, the diaconate was on the agenda. At the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Singapore, the place of the diaconate in the Church was a substantial part of the discussion.
Browning suggested that there are no longer questions about the identity of the deacon in the Church, although there is still need for further clarification of the deacon's role. He renewed his pledge to the diaconal ministry and challenged the deacons to continue to articulate with as much clarity as possible to the whole church a definition of the diaconal ministry as well as a model for such ministry in the world.
"Society is filled with a great deal of pain and a great deal of suffering," he told the deacons, "and your ministry in that society will be effective only if you are able to acknowledge and accept the pain and brokenness of your own life.
"Accept who you are within the community of God's creation, and only then will you with effectiveness be able to interface with the brokenness of the society to which you are called."
"My prayer for you is that you will come to see in a deeper way and to share the ministry of reconciliation to the pain of the world to which you are called. I invite you to join me in that ministry to make our Church inclusive, so that diversity might be brought together in such a way that the whole church might be a servanthood church to the glory of God and service of creation".
One purpose of the conference was to share various models for the training of deacons. A "Deacons' Fair" presented exhibits on various types of ministries in which deacons are engaged.
At the business session, Grein and Winnie Crapson of Topeka were elected to the board of the North American Association of the Diaconate (NAAD). Grein was elected for a four-year term and Crapson was elected "perpetual lay person" on the board. Both have been active in the renewal of the diaconate. Other directors, all deacons, elected: Phina Borgeson of Nevada, president; Gloria Wheeler of Central Florida; and Ernie Williams of Connecticut, four-year terms; and deacon Ted Hollenbeck of Rhode Island, two-year term. Deacon Ormonde Plater of Louisiana was appointed treasurer.
The next North American Association of the Diaconate (NAAD) conference will be at the Kanuga Conference Center, Hendersonville, N.C., June 3-5, 1989.