UMR Communications is offering the latest headlines in the RSS format.
News
Guidelines adopted on deacons’ authority Linda Green, Dec 1, 2008
UMNS FILE PHOTO BY MIKE DUBOSE
FORT WORTH, Texas—The Rev. Sharon Rubey prepares to serve Holy Communion during opening worship at the 2008 General Conference.
By Linda Green United Methodist News Service
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga.—The United Methodist Council of Bishops has approved guidelines for when deacons may be allowed to administer Holy Communion and perform baptisms.
The new sacramental authority for deacons—granted by the denomination’s top legislative body at the 2008 General Conference—becomes effective in January.
According to the bishops, the new sentence in Paragraph 328 of the denomination’s Book of Discipline that describes the ministry of the deacon “does not fundamentally change the sacramental privileges of the order of deacons.” The sentence reads: “For the sake of extending the mission and ministry of the church, a pastor-in-charge or district superintendent may request that the Bishop grant local sacramental authority to the deacon to administer the sacraments in the absence of an elder, within a deacon’s primary appointment.”
Meeting Nov. 2-7 at historic Epworth By the Sea, the bishops said the new language is an attempt to describe the extraordinary missional reasons that justify exceptions to general church practice. However, bishops noted that the Discipline gives them final discretionary authority to decide under which circumstances to grant local sacramental authority to a deacon.
Deacons are called by God to a lifetime of servant leadership and to lead the church in relating the gathered life of Christians to their ministries in the world, said the delegates to the 2008 General Conference. Deacons give leadership in the church’s life, teach and proclaim the word, contribute in worship and assist the elders in administering the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion.
Bishops said that “local sacramental authority” refers to the primary field of service of the deacon, meaning the community of faith for a congregational appointment or the primary service setting for deacons serving beyond a local church.
While the guidelines are the bishops’ attempt to find common ground in implementing and interpreting Paragraph 328, the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, the top executive of the denomination’s General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, said the new sentence in the Discipline “alters significantly the nature and purpose of the order of the permanent deacon as enacted by the 1996 General Conference.”
The ordering of ministry underwent a major shift that year when the General Conference created two distinct clergy orders: deacons and elders. Previously, being ordained as a deacon was a step toward ordination as an elder. Dr. Del Pino said the creation of the order of deacon “was crystal clear that the order was to engage in radical forms of service and not replicate duties of the pastoral office.”
The new guidelines adopted by the bishops state that, “The church provides for administration of the sacraments through the ordinary sacramental authority invested in ordained elders, licensed provisional clergy and licensed local pastors, and the new language gives guidance for the extraordinary circumstances that require the provision of the sacraments by Deacons.”
Absence of an elder refers to the unavailability of an elder in the congregation or community and is “not for the convenience of church staffs or to fill gaps during vacation, but to assist in the extraordinary circumstance where no elder can be present,” they said.
While the guidelines are to assist bishops in determining “local sacramental authority,” Dr. Del Pino said the council should “take a strong minimalist approach to implementing this truly extraordinary innovation that has been introduced into our church order.”
The additional sentence, he said, “upstages and presupposes” the outcome of the work of a 28-member Commission to Study Ministry that is examining the theological, ecclesial and practical groundings of the church’s system of lay, licensed and ordained ministry.
The commission will present the 2012 General Conference with legislation that addresses the ordering of ministry, the separation of ordination and conference membership, and the streamlining of the ordained ministry candidacy process.
UMNS FILE PHOTO BY MIKE DUBOSE
While the guidelines are the bishops’ attempt to find common ground in implementing and interpreting Paragraph 328, the Rev. Jerome King Del Pino, the top executive of the denomination’s General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, said the new sentence in the Discipline “alters significantly the nature and purpose of the order of the permanent deacon as enacted by the 1996 General Conference.”
