My church uses the Deacon Family Ministry Plan. The idea behind the Deacon Family Ministry Plan is that every family within the church is assigned to a particular deacon. That deacon then forms a relationship with the family and ministers to each family member in a variety of ways. The plan provides the organizational infrastructure that allows for each deacon to be adequately trained and accountable to both his peers and the pastor.
I don’t like the plan for a few reasons. First, I don’t believe every deacon is gifted in the same manner. The Deacon Family Ministry plan essentially determines that every deacon shall be a round peg fitting into a round hole. As shall every family in the congregation.
I also don’t like the idea that just because my last name begins with “M”, Brother Smith will be my deacon. (If my last name were “Walker”, then Brother Jones would be my deacon.) What if I already have a relationship with a different deacon? Why can’t I be assigned to Dan or John or Horatio (since I already know them)?
The main reason I don’t like the Deacon Family Ministry Plan is because my church, like so many churches, stops at step one. I get a letter telling me I’ve been assigned to a particular deacon and that’s the last I hear of this whole approach to ministry.
All of which is to say: my church has just called and ordained several new deacons. So I can expect to get a letter or a phone call from someone soon telling me he is my new deacon. And, chances are, I’ll have to fire him.
‘Cause I’m done just being another name on somebody’s list.
Show me you’re a man worthy to be called “deacon”; show me – don’t just remind me my fellow church members voted for you – you genuinely care about our church, and then I might call you if I need you. Until then, go ahead and take my name off your list… you’re fired.
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Bowden -
They did a similar assignment system at my parent’s church. Problem is, each time they had new members or new deacons, they reshuffled the list so everyone had the right number of people … the alphabet kept shuffling back and forth a little bit, so that even if the relationship with one deacon was a good idea, you might have your deacon changed at the next quarterly business meeting because a few more K’s and L’s came in and joined so the M’s would have to go to some other guy now.
Dorcas,
What if deacons served according to their gifts? Then we might have a deacon or two who were really into hospital visits; or one who was very effective at helping the widows out with all those little chores around the house their husbands used to do.
I was serving at one church when the congregation wanted one particular young man to be a deacon. Very shy with limited social skills, he just wasn’t sure he could fulfill the job description. He was a computer/tech nerd who knew everything about computers, phones, sound system stuff, etc. Instead of a deacon with X number of families he was responsible for, I asked him to be the deacon in charge of technology. It not only worked out well for me (the interim), the next pastor kept him in the same role.
I sure do agree with you on this one, Bowden. I stopped being an active deacon in our church for this and a few other reasons.
The real problem is that the “Deacon Family Ministry” plan is an imitation of relationships. In Acts, some guys who were concerned about a problem were told how to go deal with it. That’s not the case in the DFM plan. We’re supposed to play like we’re concerned about some needs of some particular people and then go minister to them. It didn’t, and frankly doesn’t, work.
I used to call my families once a month (of COURSE it was the Sunday before the Deacon meeting….) and ask how things were. Several members accused me of being the finest deacon they had ever had, even though I never DID anything except call them. That blew me away. Still does, in fact.
Ken Hemphill wrote a (to me) terrific course about Spiritual Gifts … “Serving God .. Discovering and Using Your Spirital Gifts”. It’s outside-the-box thinking and I bellieve all churches should adopt it. And DO SOMETHING about it.
I like your thinking on the computer-geek deacon. Geecon?
I’ve had similar concerns with this type of approach to deacon ministry. I can tell you from experience that when you assign someone to a task or ministry that does not fit his or her calling, passion, giftedness, personality, etc., that it won’t be long until the job is not getting done. A friend of mine led his church to transition to a Deacon Task Oriented Ministry in which deacons were assigned to certain ministries based on their giftedness and interests. From what I have heard this has revitalized their deacon ministry as the deacons are serving in areas that are a good fit for them.
I personally believe it is more effective for family ministry to be done through the Sunday school/small groups. I just think that ministry means more to a person when it is provided by those with whom he or she has a relationship than because it is someone’s job or duty.
Bowden this is something that I have never been able to reconcile: Shepherd don’t need lists. They know the ones to whom they minister and they take care of them. I can’t say I’ve ever been a member of a church where this was done.
Josh
“…the word of God is not bound.”
–2 Timothy 2:9
Bowden-
Speaking as a former member of the same church, I can attest that at least the execution of the Deacon Family Plan was a miserable failure. The extent of contact with my assigned deacon was a single, photocopied form letter mailed from the church office. Never again any contact, nada, nothing. Of course, this may be partially due to the fact that our assigned deacon did not even attend our church for about the last year that we did.
Some of my friends who were deacons in the church and have since left seeking new church homes also expressed great frustration with this plan. They were no more comfortable being assigned to families with whom they had little or no common ground than I was being assigned based on my last name. And, I agree, as your church membership has changed over the past several months, the comment on shifting members around between deacons may very well have to happen along with the addition of new deacons.
I agree that a major flaw is the assumption that all deacons are equally gifted in a certain area. Using their God-given gifts in a relevant manner would be so much better. That, however, opens up an entirely new can of worms for me … how many times have we been through spiritual gift assessments? Dozens? Yet we are still talking about how the church does not leverage these gifts but assumes each person should be equally gifted in certain areas.
How refreshing it would be to see the gifts and abilities of the person taken into account when customizing a ministry plan. But then it becomes awfully difficult to fit it into the latest Baptist Press published 9-week church fad.
David,
Good to hear from you! I hope everything is going well in D/FW.
There really are a few churches that have deacons who “get it”. I hope that someday Swood will be one of those churches.
Does being a deacon automatically give you the gifts to serve families in your congregation? No.
I once belonged to a congregation where people were placed in areas of ministry that they had no business being in. They did not serve God or others with joy, but with a sense of obligation. That’s not what God wants of us.
Discovering the gifts God has given you, then finding the place he wants you to serve, is the way to approach this. It may mean that a deacon does not serve families in the church – they may enjoy serving children or the elderly instead.
This approach did not keep families in our church. Many of them left – including mine.
People become invested in ministry and serving others when they “know” God has gifted them in a certain areas. It make take a few tries to find the right spot, but it’s worth it.
I once tried teaching Sunday school classes for 3-4 year olds and thought they would all be dead before the class was over.
I eventually took some classes on spiritual gifts and discovered God wanted me to serve pre-marital couples. I’ve been in this ministry for 9 years now and God has shown me over and over again this is the place he wants me to be – not the place “someone else” wants me to be.
You might want to emulate someone other than Donald Trump! Besides that, you may also want to consider your role in the situation. Have you ever contacted your deacon? Do you really think the relationship is supposed to be one-sided? I’m not saying the plan is always good, but it’s not always bad, either. You have approached it with a poor attitude, and you’ve experienced poor results. Are you surprised?
Steve,
Thank you for visiting.
To answer your questions, yes I have contacted the deacon to whom I was assigned (both now and in the past); no I don’t think the relationship is supposed to be one sided and I don’t believe I have a track record of treating it as such. And, I have a different view of causality: poor experience with the plan has caused a negative evaluation, not the other way around.
On the other hand, you seem to have enjoyed a positive experience with the Deacon Family Ministry plan. I wonder if you would mind sharing some of your history with this approach?