Devonport: Adding deacons' perspectives

At Devonport Presbyterian Church, men and women are serving together in new ways, with the recent formation of a small team of deacons meeting alongside the Session.

Annette Christie is one of the new deacons.

“Our newly formed diaconate currently has two women deacons who are meeting together with our elders, who are men,” Annette said. “And we work together very well, I think.”

While the main role of the deacons is to strengthen pastoral care and respond to practical needs within and beyond the congregation, they also bring broader perspectives into the church’s leadership.

Session Clerk Malcolm Paterson has found the practical arrangement to work smoothly.

“The deacons meet before the elders and have their meeting,” Malcolm explains. “Then the elders start... and we talk about issues that affect both those groups [before the deacons leave the meeting]. The elders certainly value the input from the deacons.”

Pastor Nick Rabe believes this partnership has made the church’s care for its people stronger.

“I really appreciate that I can’t get around everyone, and not everyone in the congregation is necessarily going to be comfortable sharing either practical or spiritual difficulties with me or even with any of the elders,” Nick says. “But the beauty of a church family is that God has given each of us different gifts to use as we care for one another.”

Fellow deacon Chris Paterson agrees that the new structure brings balance for those looking for help.

“It opens the way for people to pass on something they may be more comfortable passing on to [the deacons],” Chris says.

Meeting together monthly has helped the elders and deacons form a collaborative relationship that goes beyond practical and pastoral matters.

“Because we have women who are elected by the church and biblically qualified for their ministry meeting with us as a Session each month, we take the opportunity to share what’s on the agenda and get input from them them,” Nick says. “It gives us perspectives we wouldn’t otherwise have.”

This sense of shared ministry goes beyond closed-door meetings, appearing on Sundays too.

“A good example is in our pastoral prayers,” Malcolm says. “We have three women at the moment involved in those prayers as well as some men. It’s wonderful to have that input of different people praying.”

For Annette, the change has been deeply encouraging.

“It brings joy to my heart to be able to see people who were to start off fairly shy and are being built up to the place where they’re encouraged and happy to speak and do things for the Lord,” she says. “They add a different dimension to the whole of the way the church works.”

“It makes women feel more valued on the whole as part of our church and not just bystanders,” Chris says. “It places them on a much more confident footing to contribute and share their talents.”

“You can’t have such a large number of people who are silent. If you want to encourage people to be in church, not discourage them, then giving women a voice makes an awful lot of sense.”

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