David Nakhla 0:00

This is David Knockley with the OPC Committee on Diacon Ministries. We're bringing this to you as part of a series of special episodes of the Reformed Deacon. These episodes consist of the audio of the many plenaries and workshops presented at the fourth OPC National Diaconal Summit held in Wheaton, Illinois in June 2022. It's our desire that deacons who were not able to attend the summit or those who simply missed one of the many wonderful workshops offered will benefit from this practical content. If you find this episode especially invigorating, please consider sharing it with your fellow deacons. If it's an episode that's particularly suited to the work of your diaconate, consider watching the video version of this presentation together with your fellow deacons and discussing it. The videos can be found on opccdm.org. And now I hope you enjoy this episode. Okay, so uh welcome to your diaconate, your denomination. Uh I am uh David Knockla. I have served with the Committee on Diacon Mysteries. Um actually I I started with the committee in 2007, that's when I was elected to the committee. And so I've been connected with them for a number of years. Have been serving uh full-time with the OPC uh since 2010. So I'm towards the end of my 12th year, and uh great privilege to serve the the Lord in this capacity and just to see what the Lord's doing in the area of ministry and mercy in the OPC. So um very encouraged to have you here. Uh this is shopefully it will be eminently practical. Uh this is supposed to be a workshop, so please feel free to interject and uh I'll keep us, I'll try to keep us going. I have no idea how we'll do for time, but uh we'll we'll I don't I think we'll get through okay, so please feel free to interact with your thoughts or questions. If you don't, I probably will keep on rolling. So um, you know, flag me down. But um why don't we uh open our open our time in prayer? Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we're so thankful for uh your wisdom in in uh raising up the um office of deacon uh to uh oversee the important ministry of mercy. And uh we thank you, Jesus, that you are head of the church and that we serve as your servants. And so, Lord, as we think about the diaconate today and how we're organized even in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I thank you for this time that we have together to consider this uh topic and this subject. I pray, Lord, that um that these thoughts and these interactions would be would be helpful and would be glorifying to you and would be uh that the that the brothers here would take take these things away and and build up your church with them. So we pray, Lord, that you, uh Jesus, would be glorified and all that transpires in this next hour and a half. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. I'd like to start with this statement that you are not alone. You are not alone. And uh some of you may say, well, that's easy for you to say. Uh you may say, you haven't been to my little OPC church. Um you may say, you, David, are not a solo deacon. Um you may say, there aren't there, there aren't, there is not another OPC within hundreds of miles of my church. Um you may say, you are in our town where where there is no interest in the Reformed faith. You may say, um, your church may not see that, it has not seen the poverty that my church uh faces. And all of these things may be true, um, but I stand by my statement. You are not alone. And uh and I hope that uh in our time together, that will be our big takeaway is that you you are not alone. You'll get a sense of that. Um the first thing I would like us to think about is one of the most beautiful aspects of the Presbyterian form of government is that we are connected church. And uh the OPC is not the Orthodox Presbyterian churches, it is the Orthodox Presbyterian church. Singular, one, uh it's not plural. Um we are one church, um, and yet we don't always act like one church, maybe. Um maybe we don't always feel like one church, uh, but our ecclesiology is just that um we are one church. And um and that ought to be reflected in our ministry of mercy. And um and hopefully you'll get a sense of of how that's um get a sense of how that is is is occurring and uh and and how it hopefully will occur even more in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Bible uses the picture of a body to describe the church. Uh not all our hands, not all our noses, different parts for different functions. And what what a blessing to just have heard that all the gifts given by the Lord to his church, they're all charismatic gifts, which we just heard in the talk this this morning. Um they're all important. They're all uh useful for the building up of the saints. Um so this analogy says that one part of our body hurts, the whole body suffers. Uh and isn't that how your body works? Now I know that we're men and we're kind of wimpy that way, at least I am. Um I have uh, you know, I may have a hangnail, and all I can think about is where can I get a scissors or something to deal with this? Because it is, it's killing me. It's very distracting. And my I put my eyes and my focus and my hands and everything in my intentions to deal with this one little part of my body that is not functioning properly, and it's hurting and affecting my whole body. Or a sliver, you get a sliver in your hand or in your foot, right? Uh you're hobbling around, you you were walking around without shoes on where you shouldn't have been, or something like that, and you get a sliver in your foot, and you know how debilitating that can be. And it's getting red and it's getting, you know, not looking so good. And again, everything, our our minds and focus and everything goes to dealing with that one aspect of our body that's debilitating us, so that we can relieve ourselves of that and we can move forward with the other, probably more important functions of our body. Just so when one part of the body of Christ hurts, the whole body is affected. And the whole body suffers with that one part of the body that hurts. Um and the whole body ought to work together to alleviate that suffering as far as is possible. Now, again, you and I both know that the church doesn't always operate this way, but it certainly ought to. And uh, otherwise, it's an unhealthy body. Um an army. It's another helpful analogy to consider. The weight and burden of the whole mission of the army does not weigh on the shoulders of one soldier. Right? And there's an active war going on in Ukraine right now, we're aware of it. There's a lot of men fighting in a lot of different places. Um each soldier has his place to play. And we just lost our oh, there it goes. Each soldier has his part to play. He is into to engage in combat with that opponent opposite him. But that soldier knows that he has tiers of layers of support behind him. He's on the front lines, but he's got all this support mechanism behind him. That one soldier, he may be part of a company. That company may be part of a battalion. That battalion is part of a regiment and so forth. Um again, that soldier, he may be on the front lines. You are on the front lines, uh, but there are supply lines coming behind to refuel you, to bring reinforcements, to stand next to you, to bring you more ammo, to spell you when you need a break. As deacons in the local church, you're on the front lines. Um I like to say that despite diaconal ministries being in the name of the committee on diaconal ministries, uh, it's rarely done. The diaconal ministries is rarely what we do. Um rather, diaconal ministries is predominantly carried out by local deacons who are in the trenches, boots on the ground, face to face. It's hugely personal, it's hugely uh specific to one person, and yet a deacon is not alone in the service he carries out. He's backed up by the whole army that it serves. Yes, the army of God. And even as we learn just, you know, just in this last hour, the importance of prayer and how you are fueled for your ministry through our relationship vertically, fuels our relationship horizontally. So the first tier of that backup is in your local diaconate, but we first need to talk about the solo deacons. So, any solo deacons in this room? Oh, few of you. Okay, so this will resonate with you. Um first of all, I'd like to say I'm sorry that you find yourselves in those circumstances. Uh that is not an uh enviable uh situation, but of course that's where the Lord has you at this time. Um and I'd like to I'd like to present you with some thoughts specifically for solo deacons, although I think all of us can listen in and uh can benefit from each of these. Number one, which I'm sure you're already doing, if you're a solo deacon, you are definitely doing this. Pray that the Lord would raise up more men to serve with you. Um the Lord can and will supply. Uh the Lord is the one who um uh who raises up officers. We're not to elect and ordain men who are not uh who are not the right um ones, who do not have the right qualifications, but the Lord can and will supply. We do have to wait for him and his timing. Uh again, we don't want to be quick to lay lay on hands, uh but but if we if we ask, um it is that's a good prayer request, and the Lord, the Lord um in his time will answer. Oops. Secondly, seek assistance from the session. If you're not doing this already, you should. Um you should consider the session to be your fellow deacons. Uh you are you are actually not alone. Um possibly the session delegates that assistance to you with one or two specific elders. That's a way to do it. It could be delegated to two specific deacons or elders. Uh personally, I think that would be uh a very helpful way to go. Um but you do need to be you do need to be augmented. Um the Lord teaches the concept of two by two. And uh serving alone uh is unwise. I would argue that it's fraught with dangers on on many sides. So if you are alone and the session is not yet augmenting, you uh plead with them for that help to protect both you and those you serve. Um plurality is a biblical uh concept and it's the better part of wisdom where we um have when we, as you deacons who are not alone, can testify when you are meeting with somebody and meeting with a considering a specific case, you all have sit at a different angle, so to speak. You look at it from a different perspective. You will walk out of the room, or maybe the person you're sitting with walks out of the room, and when you discuss the case, you realize that you have different perspectives. You caught one one of you catches something that the other doesn't catch. One of you reads something. There's a lot of body language we're reading when we're serving and ministering in diagonal ministry. Um, it's really plurality is so important. Brothers who are on a deacon board of more than one, can you imagine serving alone? Can you even imagine that? That is just really a really difficult calling. And so, whatever you can do, brothers who are alone, um, seek for that plurality. Um I have a friend and colleague who he often quotes an African proverb that says, uh, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And uh and it would be our prayer for for those of you serving alone that you would go far. Um not fast to a quick end, but that you would go far. So so I encourage you to ask ask your session for help. I encourage you to consider the concept of deacon helpers. This is something that uh we've kind of employed at our at our church, our local church. I'm part of Calvary OPC in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Blessed to have a bunch of deacons, a bunch of deacons here, and uh Lord's augmented our session after many years uh with uh uh three or four uh new guys in recent years since COVID. Um but with the blessing of your session, um, you can identify those in your congregation who can serve as deacon helpers. And I'm sure you can all appreciate that you determine that there's something that needs to be done. We've met with a family, an individual, and we've determined a course of action, and now we need to execute. We've decided we're gonna take this walk into the grocery store and actually buy her groceries. Well, somebody's actually got to go do that, right? And and I would argue that that doesn't always need to be the deacon. As a matter of fact, I would argue that it would be good. That is a great opportunity for service for those in your congregation. That's how we lead in service. And I think that that's oftentimes uh the the deacons we are, deacons tend to be doers. So a lot of our deacons tend to be doers. And leading in service is a whole nother level of leadership. And so um so the concept of deacon helpers is where you have invited the congregation in advance, um, whether it's whether it's inviting them just you know through some sort of communication or whether it's you talking to people individually, but you've identified a set of people in your congregation who would be deacon helpers. Those who are said, you know, I'm not a deacon. I will never be a deacon. Maybe it's a it's one of the women in the congregation who says, I'll never be a deacon. But I am happy to serve whenever. You can call me in the middle of the night if you need to, if somebody needs a ride to the hospital, or if somebody needs to be picked up from the airport, or whatever it is, please call me at the drop of a hat, no questions asked. Feel free to wouldn't would that be a resource to you, deacons? To have that list of people who you're not begging them to do this thing now, but they well in advance they said, please call me, consider me, talk to me. That's the concept of deacon helper. And by the way, with respect to young men or men who are not officers, I think it's a wonderful testing of the gifts, right? Suddenly you are engaging them in service, you get to see how things go. They're not the decision makers, that's a very important distinction. I think that the deacons are ordained to ascertain the situation, to consider all the circumstances, and to make the decision. This is not you passing off your responsibility. You're making the decision. But once the decision is made, that's when you can uh the the execution and the carrying out of the work, uh you can uh raise up helpers for that. Um so outside of this, I think oftentimes it's easier for us to just say, you know, it's just easier for me to just do it than ask somebody to do it. But if you have those who've already volunteered in advance, um it's a huge step forward, Stuart.

SPEAKER_08 17:59

As a follow up, if we're not doing number three, we'll never get number one. Maybe we resolved number one. Yeah. For it's being stuck as well as we've taken off all the burden or that all.

David Nakhla 18:13

Excellent point. That's one way of praying and acting upon that prayer, right? And that's that's a very helpful point. When we pray, we don't just say, Lord, you know, um, you know, cause my fields to grow. No, you gotta get out there and get, you know, bring rain for the fields to grow, right? No, you've got to get out there and get the rain, get the fields ready for growth. And uh so this is one way we're tilling the ground. We're um exercising the gifts of individuals and see if the Lord raise them up. Thank you for that. Okay, anybody up employing the concept of deacon helpers? Any of your congregations yet doing that?

unknown 18:51

Yes.

David Nakhla 18:52

Okay. Next time we'll have a bunch more hands, right? Because you're gonna take this home with you. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 18:56

Can I say something up?

David Nakhla 18:57

Yeah, hold on one second. I I'll come back to you.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

We had one thing that we did in the past and resurrected called Alpha. Yeah, we just perform to fill out bigger foot out and things like that.

unknown 19:12

And then we would also have a company platform. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah.

David Nakhla 19:29

I think a lot of times he just for the record, he was talking about the concept of a talent pink. Sometimes, a lot of times I think what's happened is we've have people fill this out and then we kind of forget about it. That's what I've seen. Um or it's too broad. You know, it's like, oh great, I know what so many different areas people, but then we, you know, we don't we forget to use it. So I think the implementation of using it is the next step forward. Um, and maybe this whole concept is really refining it to let's find the let's find the gold in the in the bunch and the ones who you know would really desire to be helpful and want to be helpful. Lynn, did you want to add something?

SPEAKER_05 20:06

Well, one of the things that has happened at Harvest is the he can help her as often organically. They don't have to go out and you know, I have older women in the congregation. When I say older, I'm saying same time in their 50s and 60s. So come and they want the help. They go out and visit. They call me up and say, hey, bro, I'm visiting this person on how it's this, what can we do? So make it happen. I'll make it.

David Nakhla 20:37

No, you don't want to pro yeah, you don't want to program it, and you you don't want it to be everybody in the congregation. We want you to fill out the list uh because I think you really want to identify the people who it isn't gonna be the area of service for everybody. And so you really want to identify those who who this is the these are the gifts that they have, this is the area that they can serve in and desire to serve in. So that when you call them, they've already identified in advance this is something, this is a way I this is how I'm gonna serve the church, so please do call me.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

I see what you're saying as far as you'll you'll know the people that are gonna want you to come up and say, Hey, would you do this? But I think particularly for the younger folks in our congregation, that we um we've got a lot of kids grow up and realize as officers, but tend to still think of it as kids, but if you start asking them to do things, but I think if you at least present it to everyone, they kind of hear that mindset that I could be here at help, too. I mean, it may take a while, but I think if you try to have it at least broadcast everybody generally helped to get people thinking about I could be here to serve also, not just the how many of your churches do you think where the the the mentality is well the deacons will take care of that?

David Nakhla 21:54

Is that a common threat in your churches? The deacons take care, the deacons take care of that, or the deacons will take care of that. And I think that that's you know, I grew up in a church, and that was I think very much easily the mentality because unless you invite the congregates into the service that you're carrying out, they don't need to know all the details. There's private matters and stuff like that. But sometimes I think the work of the deacons can be so private that that it's like, oh, the deacons, I don't know what they do, but something behind the scenes. And and and that's actually, yeah, that's that's actually not the most helpful. And that's where I think even raising up that next generation of deacons is this mysterious thing that they do. I don't know what they do. Um, so it's welcoming them, and I think that's a part of it, is you're inviting them into service in the church.

SPEAKER_10 22:45

That's that's a yeah, I think it's a general problem in the church in general. I mean, is people come in whether they realize it or not, they're being served, and then I think what happens is you get hard enough expectation of being served. Yeah. And then there's fewer number of people in the church that actually served. Yeah. Yeah.

David Nakhla 23:06

Yeah, we can we we can begin to foster a consumer mentality in our churches. And I think that that's where the the the talent bank upon somebody coming into church, and I know harvest, like I understand. You're at harvest too? Are you at harvest as well?

unknown 23:23

No.

David Nakhla 23:23

No. But but I know that in at harvest, like, you know, when you become a member, all of a sudden there's people, they see their name on the list to serve at the nursery. Like, you're a member of the church, now you're serving, you know, so, and that's good. I mean, that's what that's what the Bible says the man who does not work shouldn't eat. There's a spiritual component to that too, right? I mean, it is not only our privilege to serve in the church, but it's our responsibility. And so we we we stunt the spiritual growth of our members by not inviting them and welcoming them and encouraging them as becoming servants. And I think it stunts the whole growth of the church. Because can you imagine if your whole congregation was full of vibrant workers? I mean, that would be amazing. Um third idea. Consider a deacon on loan. Again, you might want to loop your session in on this. Keep me out of trouble. But I would encourage you to think about, and we'll be talking more about the Presbyterian Diaconal Committee, but I would encourage you to think about being in contact with your Presbytery Diaconal Committee and see if they are willing to connect you with another diaconate in your presbytery who might be willing to loan you a deacon, you loan deacon guys. Uh, this is someone who you can contact by the phone or by Zoom or by whatever many means we have of communicating nowadays. Uh, whenever you find yourself in a sticky situation, or you need a second set of eyes, um, you need a second set of ears, let me talk to you about the situation. We had one of those just this afternoon, right? Well, here's our situation. Help us. Um this is the the this is the this is uh somebody who's on on your speed dial. Um I would hope that this would be a more senior deacon, uh somebody who's uh been around the block a few times and seen a lot, seen it all. Uh for those of you deacons who've been around, there's nothing new under the sun, right? Um you've seen this. Uh sometimes there's like, wow, I've never seen that before. Uh but generally I think if you talk to deacons who've been with 10, 12, uh, 15, 20 years experience, they're they've seen most things once or twice. Um this could be hugely valuable. Imagine having a John Voss. Now John is not here, but John is an unbelievable deacon. Or a Chris Sudlow or a Bob Keys on your your local diaconate. Um these guys would be like gold. Uh there's just a huge wisdom and experience that you could tap into uh because they're they're they're happy to serve alongside of you. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

You text us or speed dog?

SPEAKER_09 26:32

Oh, it's already on that spreadsheet. Thanks with a name.

David Nakhla 26:39

Anybody consider the concept of a deacon? A loner deacon? Thought about that before? So it's a relational thing. I think it's something that you know you you you you as a lone deacon, you need to build, it'd be something it would be good to build a rapport with whoever, whoever it is. Um there's got to be a relationship, there's got to be trust built and stuff like that. Um again, I think it's something where you know stretches the bounds of what we're doing as a congregation. And so I think uh as you seek to use the gifts and abilities of somebody far away who's not part of the congregation, it would be good to get some advice and input from your session. Um But I think that that's more how we work as a connectional church, uh as a connected church, uh, which you'll be seeing more as we reflect on this. And then number five, I would encourage you to plug into our deacon check-in program. And actually, that your your the deacon check-in could lead to your deacon on loan. Uh, anybody familiar with the deacon check-in? So the deacon check-in is something new that we started about a year ago. Uh we had a um, actually, when we weren't the summit was supposed to happen last year. Do you remember we when we had to postpone it a year? We had a 90-minute Zoom called Zoom call called continuing the conversation. And out of the and and on that call, we basically announced that we were, for those who'd like to do it, we were willing to connect you as a deacon with another deacon far away, out of outside of your presbytery, um, who you could just you know have fellowship with over a phone call, um, you know, talk, pray together, that type of thing. And again, I think if you were a lone deacon, I think it could be particularly beneficial to you. Um, even if you're not a solo deacon, I would encourage you to consider all these pieces of of uh thoughts, ideas, advice, um, because they could all really apply to you too. Okay? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

Is there something you can say about the podcast that would be in help?

David Nakhla 28:53

The podcast? Maybe you should say something about the podcast. I just I just heard about it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, it's funny because I see all these shirts that say something about Reform Something or whatever. Yeah. So yeah, the re the Reform Deacon podcast was launched uh in on November 1st. We uh dropped, I guess that's the phrase, dropped our first episode, uploaded our first episode. And uh so on the first of the month of every month uh is a new uh episode. And um I don't think that there's anything like it out there. I I've I've looked, I don't think that there's any other uh podcasts specifically focused on the work of Deacons. So if you've not listened to it and you don't know how to find it, just look at the back of the shirt and the guy in front of you and you'll be able to find it. But uh and we and actually I'm very I'll just tell you, I'm very excited about it's been a very fun venue. Uh it's it's really fun for me to have diaconal conversations that then I get to you know know that a bunch of deacons are gonna be able to listen into. Um and and I'm expecting that we're gonna increase our you know um rate of of podcasts. Right now it's one a month, but um as we get through the summit and the work that's gone into the summit and we move forward into focusing on other areas, that's something we're gonna increase. So that should be another area of encouragement to you. Not sure exactly, it's not gonna answer all the questions, but you know, I think that'll be those will be good episodes. What are the thorny questions that deacons face? Um we could talk about those things, yeah. Diaconus of more than one. If you're blessed to not be a solo deacon, great. You know what it's like to have a local band of brothers to lean on as you consider difficult cases together. I already mentioned it before, but one of the cornerstones of Presbyterian polity is that is that big decisions are not to be made alone. Big decisions are not to be made alone. Um plurality means more than one. You have more than one mind on the matter. Again, the Lord sent the disciples out two by two. Um better yet, how about four by four? Or ten by ten? Um how many of you are part of a diaconate that's more than five? Five or more. Ten or more. So we have a few of those. But may it be that the Lord raises up some of you who are deacons in training to augment your diaconate, and we have more and more. Um but yeah, two by two is super, super important. Uh plurality. We we definitely focus on that in the area of the work of the session. Sessions are not the elders are not supposed to make making uh big decisions individually. Um and uh and so the blessing of plurality with the deacons important. When you're meeting with somebody, I think this is wisdom, hopefully you've heard before. I mean, really is in to particularly today's world, really dangerous for you to be meeting with somebody alone. Um in, you know, particularly let's say a walk-in, somebody who comes off the street, really be very careful. We've had some very strange boy, I think of this one gal who came in, and she wasn't actually, I don't think it was a gal, but boy, that was a very strange interaction that could really go sideways and uh really uh put a lot of the witness of the church in jeopardy, uh depending on what accusations are made or whatever. So just be really, really careful with uh with that. And that's again, um maybe popping back to the solo deacons again. That's where you know you bring have one of the elders meet with you if it's that type of situation. Or or even a member. I mean if it's a walk-in, maybe just another member to act as a witness. Parity. Uh we don't really talk about this a lot in the area of uh diaclomenary. We do talk about it with the the with with elders. Um, because we talk about ruling elders and teaching elders, and there's parity. There's uh uh uh equals before one another. And uh we don't have a hierarchy. We don't say, you know, ministers are here and elders are here, and but but as they as they meet as session or as presbytery or as general assembly, there's parity. And um and again, this is a blessing of uh deacons serving together. We don't say, well, he's he's got 20 years of experience, so he gets two votes and I get one vote because I'm a new deacon, right? We if we're voting on things, I I don't know that deacons a lot of times are getting to the point of voting on things. Um probably more looking for consensus uh way forward, but um that we're we're equals with one another as we sit sit in in the course of our work. Um that said, it's not always possible to involve others in every decision made, okay? That's not what I'm saying. It's the big decisions. Um and I would further say that our the system of our church government uh does ensure that any decision made individually, leaving little decisions, are accountable to our church courts. You know, that's that's one of the beautiful things about Presbyterian form of government is that those who are in authority are under authority, ultimately under authority of headship of Christ. And I uh hopefully in any church system uh that that's acknowledged. But but it really takes takes root in our system. You know, the the the local um your pastor and your elders make a decision, that's not the end all. If they make a decision that's unbiblical or they make a decision that's really unwise, that decision can be is accountable to the presbytery, can be appealed to the presbytery. And and uh and presbytery makes a decision, it's accountable to the General Assembly. That's our form of government. There's a lot of accountability, and so even when we make uh decisions individually, um uh all of those are uh accountable were accountable to one another, uh uh which is a beautiful thing. It keeps us all in check in the decisions we make and the way we conduct ourselves. Um ultimately, again, under the authority of King Jesus. As an aside, I'll just share this with you because I thought this was really encouraging. Um actually, the a recent interaction I had, this was a man in our presbytery who is, he's an elder in one of our churches, but he's also an attorney involved with cases of abuse in the church. And he said that statistically, Presbyterian churches of all stripes, not just you know the conservative ones, but all stripes, by virtue of of their um of their form of government, have had far fewer cases of abuse in the church in comparison to those that uh the churches that are congregational or hierarchical. Congregational, it's like there's no accountability, right? It's everything that is here, you know, the you know, there's nobody to appeal to. And hierarchical, you know, it's uh it's this form, right? Where everything's going to you know to the Pope or uh or or whatever. And so you have less minds on it as it goes up. And those those systems are not inherently accountable and therefore much more ripe for abuse in the church. And so we can thank the Lord for uh the form of government that we have, that we believe is biblical, uh modeled in scripture, and um and has uh has actually protected the church and is protecting our churches from um from these scandals. I'm not saying that they're not that they're that we're immune to them, but by and large are protecting us from these such scandals. Uh yeah, Stuart.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Just to be clear, we're talking about abuse of our usage of abuse that are operated.

David Nakhla 37:27

Like, yeah, not I'm not talking about domestic abuse, but I'm talking about abuse of spiritual abuse, I guess some people call it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, that's that's a good thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

That's a question. It's great. We've got people here who are on a figure dead and it has, you know, we all hope our congregations grow, but how do you keep the parody still, you know, if you have ten people coming to a deacon's meeting, it's almost out of media. And there's obviously a lot of things to be done if you're churches that big. How do we actually divide things up or you know uh handle when you've got a lot of stuff to do, but multiple people do that?

David Nakhla 38:08

That's a good question. So I would answer that your your head deacon uh has to be careful about his role as head deacon, that he's not the boss, but that he's moderating the meeting, moderating the decisions. Where does the head deacon come from? Well, I don't know, chair whatever you call it, chairman or whatever.

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Lynn, you're where does the head deacon come from? You're booking church order. And on the meeting after a meeting. And then he takes over the meeting and he runs the rest of it the exact same way. And you probably should have one third person that can come in either as a clerk or as a uh chair that's uh the normal chair is not gonna be there for us.

David Nakhla 39:30

And to be clear, leader does not mean, okay, guys, we're going this way, right? I mean they're leading the meeting, and that's that's where um uh and I don't know if you guys use Robert's rules of order, but and I mean our our deacon's meetings typically I don't think get to that, right?

SPEAKER_05 39:46

Harvest is semi-Robert's rules.

David Nakhla 39:49

Well when you have a when you have a body of ten, right? If you have a deacon diaconate of ten, you you do need to start um operating that way, but most diaconates, I'm sure, are working more for consensus. You know, the like the one leading the meeting is looking around the room. Is this the direction we're going? Okay, this is the direction we're going. He's not saying, okay, this is the direction we're going, right, guys? I mean, this is this is what this is the right thing to do. Um he's asking, and and um that's that's parody where it's where you're submitting yourself to the body. Yes?

SPEAKER_13 40:18

In conjunction with what I'd rather share about the collecting of the chairman, so uh we have three D can three or four, so we would also rotate. Okay, there are only three rotated or one data or three of data. And then you have the agenda for the for E and B of which you are likely to stay at and what needs to come to chairman.

David Nakhla 40:40

Good. Good. Rotating is a good a good idea. Let me let me jump to the back.

SPEAKER_11 40:45

Yeah, we just got two deacons, but we we started from the beginning working with the academy. We started with Robert right from the start, it's helpful organization.

David Nakhla 40:54

Yeah, we're Presbyterians, we love Robert's rules and all that stuff. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_10 40:59

Well, I'm just a pretty small church, but I guess the right question is all the deep things, but what does it look like in the communist when you have more and more people? I guess we're gonna present sometimes doing lots of stuff all the time, or I don't know, I just don't feel like you don't know much at all.

unknown 41:23

I I guess that's what I'm interested in. What does it look like? And sometimes, you know, uh figures.

SPEAKER_11 41:36

So, you know, I I guess that's what my question is, is I guess what does that look like?

David Nakhla 41:42

Yeah, so what I would encourage you to do, and others who might find themselves in similar shoes, is if you are within driving distance of another, like a a healthy, another healthy church, I would ask them if you could sit in on their deacon's meeting. I think that would be hugely um uh uh um educational to you, uh, because you could see how does a healthy diaconate operate. Um I think if we went through the room and asked what everybody's meeting looks like, there's gonna be some with written agendas, there's gonna be some, what's that? Right? Never never had a deacon's meeting with an agenda. There's gonna be some that you know don't take minutes. You are supposed to take minutes, you're supposed to keep a record, and actually, according to the Book of Church Order, present that to the to the um to the session on a periodic basis. Um so this is an area probably for growth for a lot of our churches, but um, but I think patching into a meeting and saying, this is great, can I come again? Um you will learn. I mean that's and I I like to say that Presbyterianism, which I think it applies to the diaconate, is is is better caught than taught. You gotta see it in action, you gotta feel it, you gotta learn, you gotta say, oh, this is how we interact with each other. Um but I would encourage you to look for a healthy one because not every not every church, not every diaconate is is is is healthy and operating. But if you can find one, and I could, you know, knowing where you're at and stuff like that, I could probably help point point you in the right direction. Does it help? Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_13 43:17

I think also uh our responsibility that's deacons, the mercy ministry, but as well as for those of us who want a building, uh, you have that aspect of facilities, and there are all kinds of needs there as well. So uh that would spread the the deacons, like let's say a church that has 10 deacons, so there's all kinds of things to move around among the gifts of the deacons as well as among the congregation.

David Nakhla 43:49

So just to speak to that real quick, uh in the OPC there are differing differing models. Uh some of our churches have a board of deacons, or I'm sorry, board of trustees. And all the building stuff is relegated to the Board of Trustees. So the deacon some of our deacons don't deal with any building stuff. Others have other churches have the deacons dealing with all the building stuff. So those I'm arguing, I would argue for having the deacons less involved with property stuff, because I think that the Ministry of Mercy should be more focused on people than it should be on property. And I think when you have the same individuals focused on property, the people suffer because the property is demanding. But we won't get into that debate right now. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_07 44:36

So talking, and this is probably just a whole main problem, with being a deacon and taking care of something like property though. So we have a kind of a spring cleaning every year where everyone comes and we we weave the garden or the around the church and all that stuff. But then there comes times where something is actually being fixed. Where you gotta call a contract or something. I happen to be a contractor, so it's like the like I might have a Saturday morning, but the rest of the week it's like I actually have to schedule it's my likelihood. So it's what where is that balance of saying, alright, I'll just do it, and it doesn't have to cost the church anything because I'm a deacon or a member versus like yeah, needing to pay for the I have a brother who is a mechanic and a deacon, and he had to figure out where that boundary was too.

David Nakhla 45:26

Because yeah, they're oh you're a mechanic, maybe you could repair my car for free. Right? And and well, it's his livelihood too, so he had to figure that out. That's that's a good question, and uh and I can a little bit of a thorny one, but I do think f figuring out the boundaries there is important, but it does point to my the point that I was making before that I think that property can consume your time and your energies, and so to one way to guard against that is really even to separate some of that uh labor in the church. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

So and in cases you know, we really want to have session, right? Yep, and in some cases when there's a uh a deacon's visit with members of the congregation, it it works out well for us if we send the session an email out and say, we met with this couple of this family, this folks discussed, there's some needs that we were able to figure out from this. And so you get you including them in what's going on, and in a lot of cases, they're gonna come back to us and say, you know, go go visit with this family. You know, we talk to them and they need some help here. So it's there's a working relationship between, but we also have to keep it informing each other on what's going on, so we're all out of the same dog. Amen.

David Nakhla 46:56

Yes, communication between the deacons and session. I think I'll get into that a little bit pretty soon, but yes, super important. And I'll ask it now. Any of your churches where the session and the deacons have butted heads? Come on, you're not being honest with you.

SPEAKER_09 47:15

Anytime where you as deacons are a little disfront with the session made a decision that like they didn't even talk to us. Yeah. So I've been on both sides of that. Um but I would say that a lot of times it the problem is communication. Communication. So the more that we can work, the more serve the church together and trust both both ways. If I can share with you a little bit of what we're doing at our church recently, which is super exciting.

David Nakhla 47:46

So maybe we'll wait.

SPEAKER_02 47:48

Um I do think we need to probably keep rolling a little bit, so that's for you, Wilson.

SPEAKER_11 47:54

I I was just gonna say our model is that the session has a portion of the opening of their meeting where they invite a deacon to come in and just update them. And that's about that's a monthly thing. So to work with it.

SPEAKER_09 48:06

Yep, there's definitely lots of lots of models.

David Nakhla 48:09

But that even that model, which is good, does not preclude the possibility of the session making a decision later in the meeting about how the deacon's fund is spent or whatever, you know. We've had those. Okay. This kind of relates to maybe what we're talking about a little bit. Um, as you serve in your local diagnosis, I trust that you strive to establish policies and practices in your work. Um, policies and practices are a wonderful way to bring order, consistency, and fairness to the work that you do. Uh, if you establish some policies and procedures, practices, which is whatever you want to call them, you save much of your mental energies for those matters that are new to you or particularly thorny and difficult. Um, establishing patterns and rhythms builds camaraderie and trust with one another.

SPEAKER_09 49:15

Um effective diaconate is one where the deacons have have a healthy relationship with one another. So let me ask you, policies and procedures, is that something that you guys have be done to establish in your diaconates? Some?

David Nakhla 49:31

Some, yeah, somebody heads. So has that and that has that been helpful to you in your service? I remember just a simple, basic, when um I served as a deacon for uh for five years, a year, two years ago, you know. And we had a policy that was, we had the no-cash policy.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

And that was so helpful when we had people walk in and were like, we want to serve you, we're gonna serve you.

SPEAKER_09 49:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Uh but we just have a no-cash policy.

SPEAKER_09 50:01

What? You know, trust me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, this isn't about you.

David Nakhla 50:04

This is just our janitor's standard policy. And we had people walk out of the meeting, walk in, walk out of the meeting, and it's like, okay, I guess they really didn't really need to help as much as we thought.

SPEAKER_09 50:13

But it was very helpful for us to have a policy with regards to that particular matter.

David Nakhla 50:18

Uh and I'm not saying that you have to have the policy, uh, but for us to all be on one page with that type of thing, established beforehand, we're not trying to figure out what person's in the room, right? We've already established how we operate, what we think is difficult, what we agree on, such that when we're apart from another, one another, we're ministering, we know this is how, when I operate this way, I'm gonna be operating in a way that's consistent with what the president does.

SPEAKER_09 50:47

When I make this decision, in a sense, presuming upon my brothers, and I go, okay, I met with this person, who was kind of an emergency situation, this is what I this is the decision I made, I know that they're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's that's right, that's what we would bother.

David Nakhla 51:00

Yep, we agree. You don't want to come back and go, like you did. You know. We would never have done that, you know, that type of thing. So that's where the policy procedures, rhythm, and then, and this actually was a big thing when I first came onto the Committee on Diacritic, we didn't have RG policies meetings as a diagonal, as a denominational committee. And I would come into these meetings and we would do, I literally, it felt like we would do a deep dive into a particular, very specific situation, which you know is exhausting. And then you come out of that and we go into a total different topic on it and doing a deep dive because we hadn't worked on like this is how we deal with these things, this is how we deal with these things, such that when we establish those, then we were able to actually create subcommittees because we said, guys, when you face this kind of situation, this is how we all agree we're gonna handle it. We got it into the policy, we wrote it down, and then we can delegate that to a subcommittee for you for the deacons who are very large, delegate that, and then those guys operate along the policies and procedures that the whole body can agree is how we do things. And in that way, you are all part of the decisions that that one subcommittee is making, but they're making those decisions based, because they're making those decisions based on what you've all agreed, how you'll operate. Such that if you were in the room, we probably would give you some conclusion. And and it really, it enables you then to use your creative juices to like what's a proactive industry? How do we not just be a reactive boxer? How do we actually look for how to serve the plush block better? And that's what, well, for our denominational committee, that's what's enabled us to do a lot of things we're doing because we're not getting caught in all the uh leads.

SPEAKER_14 52:53

Is there a way for the committee to help deliberate best practices or some of these things?

David Nakhla 53:01

That's a good question. I think we've been asked a number of times, you know, can you just stand your Deacon's handbook or something like that? And we have some different things. Franklin Square, you know, Bill Shishko, you saw last night, right? He's he's written lots of things down. It's super helpful. So they have something that's been shared. Um, and there's there's other, there are some things around, but uh I think that's an area that I think we've been asked so many times that it's probably overdue. Although I think it's also good for local diagnostics to work through some of those things.

SPEAKER_09 53:36

So it's hard to make a boilerplate standard thing that fits all. So but maybe some of those we could buy some common ground. I'm sure Harvest, you could probably have something.

SPEAKER_05 53:46

We have a we have a kind of a written policy and procedures on how we do things. Yeah. But my suggestion wouldn't be for the CDM to create a boilerplate. My suggestion would be for the CDM to create list of questions. This is what we'd get, and it's this is what we actually discussed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 54:06

It's something it's point well taken.

David Nakhla 54:09

Um I do, I would love to. I just think that as I and some of this, hopefully you get the sense that the real ministry, the real work is what you guys do face to face.

SPEAKER_09 54:24

And so it's so we can try to pick up some of that, but honestly, it's been a long time since I've it's been a long time since I've actually been sort of actively designed deacon.

SPEAKER_05 54:34

Or you should say PM and multiple the actings. Yeah.

David Nakhla 54:40

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we can try to pull some stuff and I'll show you what we've done with that with regards to weather theory.

SPEAKER_09 54:47

So, yes, that's it. So we'll put that on the to-do list.

David Nakhla 54:55

Okay. Oops. Brothers, if you have contention and strife, and I know that not every diagonal is just a love test.

unknown 55:06

Okay?

SPEAKER_09 55:07

Right? Okay, carefully.

David Nakhla 55:13

Uh there's contention and strife, uh, and I and I know that that can happen. I would encourage you to seek the assistance of your session to help bring order if you need to. Sometimes that's not the most helpful thing.

SPEAKER_09 55:27

Um but it can be sometimes you might consider having, again, depending on the circumstances, but maybe the pastor or maybe an elder sitting in on the meetings for a time to mediate, maybe, and this to move them towards one another level.

David Nakhla 55:43

So I just want to put that one out there as well. And then this is where we were just talking about uh the importance of a liaison from the session. Um I think it's a very good practice. Uh this one who serves to connect the deacons and the session. It really is a two-way street. It's not just the deacons bringing a report to the session saying, okay, that's what we did, great. No, you want to know what's what's the session thinking about? What are the are there are there families that they're working with? You ever notice how the spiritual and physical things oftentimes go together?

SPEAKER_09 56:23

Right? You're dealing with a situation and you may know it's just a physical thing, right?

David Nakhla 56:27

And maybe they're over there dealing with spiritual at this point. Wouldn't it be good for you to be talking? And not have you know, having a sense the left hand knows the right hand does in a helpful way, towards maybe you're getting played against each other. Maybe you're getting pitted against each other.

SPEAKER_13 56:43

Um so yes, one of the lessons we have if you have the action is that one of the elders used to be a deacon. So we call him L Deacon. And um so that works very well for us. So and sometimes he sits in on our meetings and he reports to the session, and and there are cases where we have the uh physical part, the outward part, and there may be a spiritual problem which he's aware of, and so there's a good communication.

SPEAKER_02 57:22

How have you seen that done in the past? Like what who goes first? And you're sharing counseling, so we have quarterly meetings with our session, and we typically share the meetings that we're addressing physically. And if there's a spiritual thing associated with it, like we've discussed that as well, but it's not normal, it's it's not normally the session that comes and says, these are all the spiritual means we're discussing. Right. So there's not, yeah. I would typically say that in our case, it's a yak and share is a physical, and then if there's spiritual accompanying it, have you seen it done?

SPEAKER_09 57:58

I think that that's most common.

David Nakhla 58:00

Um I do think that every situation's different. The capacity of men to serve, you know, like some sessions say, you can send a deacon to every session meeting. Or some sessions say, the deacons are welcome at all our session meetings, right? But there's capacities for that. Like we get meeting out, right? Or I can't go to one meeting another. I was doing that for a while. I was actually going to, I was serving as the liaison tour deacons. And I was like the board of trustees, and it was like, that was every Tuesday night I had something, you know, some meeting to go to go, this is too much. Um, but I would hope that there would be a trust that grows that you'd be welcome. It would be welcome both ways. Um I think that more often it is it's helpful for the session to know. And a lot of times we don't actually have to know all the details both ways, but there are certain cases and certain situations where it's really important for us to be linking, and that's and basically starting to develop the communication so that we get to the point where you know you're working on it, the deacons are working on a case of like, oh, there's some spiritual elements here. I mean, it was alluded to, right? Um this morning.

SPEAKER_09 59:20

What do we do? This this widow could take your people.

SPEAKER_02 59:23

Well, that kind of gets into the more spiritual realm, possibly, again, you may need some you know elders to to to in their inner being and help with that, but it's just building trust. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

I really feel compelled. So I'm an elder um in a church. We have um three elders and four deacons, and they meet with us every single month. Okay, and I'm not saying there's one way to do it, but I will tell you this, I wouldn't have it any other way. Um it is, no, they don't get to vote, you know, on sexual matters. Um, and we have a, as elders, we have a separate meeting for prior shepherding type matters. Okay. Um, but as far as the everything else on the agenda, they're in there for the whole meeting. We actually, I mean, they have the privilege of speaking, we go back and forth. Um, they're a part of all the conversations because of exactly what we're talking about now. And it is so, so valuable. We're always on the same page, and whether they agree with what we do or not, there is certainly an understanding and a respect. Um now, how you go about doing something like that, I'd probably say the truth and grace and some patience, but it's invaluable.

David Nakhla 1:00:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:41

So we are getting into probably topics that are going to be much more focused on than some of the other workshops. I kind of was touching on them, but I've gone pretty deep into them. And I do want to kind of like rise out of the local because I want you to see the, I want you to see the broader diagonal structure.

David Nakhla 1:01:00

So if we can keep moving, that'd be good. Um these are all very good things, and and um and again, hopefully you'll you'll be covering those topics more, I think, in some of the other workshops. Okay, uh I did want to talk about a special case here with regards to church plans. Um this is a segment of the church that I only recently began to think about literally the last time I'm on our Presbyterian Diagnose committee, and it was in the context of that that having thought about the church plan. Uh, how many of you are part of a church plan? Zero. That's a that's interesting. That's part of my point. Part of it or part of the church plan, part of the church plan.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:45

Because we have the three deacons that are part of the church. Okay, in the church plan.

David Nakhla 1:01:51

So, how many of you are part of a church that oversees a church plan? How many of you have some familiar with church plans in your religion? Okay. So it was um. I found that most diagonal needs arise from one of three places in the church. This is something that I just kind of recently began, kind of, and you could disagree with me maybe, but I think there's three areas where um common sources of diagonal need.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:27

One, people hit by an unexpected calamity, disease, death, or disaster. People are like, bring them along life, and boom. Also, they've got cancer, or their child has cancer, or they've been in a car accident, or they lost their job, or some unexpected calamity, unexpected, boom, um, diagonal need.

David Nakhla 1:02:47

Second one is chronic situations of abject poverty and or situations of bad habits and addiction just a chronic long-term diagonal case. And third is basically people in transition. I would I would guess, maybe I'm not thinking of others you can help me with that much, that most case, diagonal cases come out of one of these three situations. If I'm right about that, and when I say people in transition, I'm talking about they moved recently. Expensive. And we move, I mean that's that's an expensive proposition. Um, change jobs, new to the faith, maybe. Um you think about travel costs. When you're traveling, man, life you just travel to get here. Life, you're you're you're paying everywhere you're going. But physical stability often translates to financial and mental stability. Like, somebody can't serve in the church when they're, you know, until they hit stability, that's when it's called ordering your house well, that whole concept. So statistically, it's more like the church plants attract folks in either of these last two situations, chronic situations of academic poverty and situations of bad habits, and fictions for people in transition, statistically, than our established congregations. People come to a church plant because they're in transition. Uh, they're new to the area, they're new to the reformed faith, they're new believers. Um possibly they come out of a poverty situation, and you have yet to receive the ministry and care of a loving body that will assist them in growing out of that. Um it's not to say that established congregations will not see these types of needs, but statistically, they're more like I would argue that they're more likely in a church plant where a church plant or an evangelist is eagerly casting the net for new folks to come into the church. If my hypothesis is true, then this would argue for more diagonal need or more diagonal focus in our church plants.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

Some of you are in churches who are like totally stable and you're like, we're deacon, but we really don't do that much. We don't see that many cases, right? But you've got a church plant that's like the church plant is drowning.

David Nakhla 1:05:10

And yet, when planting churches, we talk about overseeing sessions, but I have yet to hear about overseeing diagonals. Have you ever heard of an overseen diagonal? I'm not. Maybe they've talked about somewhere, but I've yet to hear about it. Now, in fairness, our BCO is that where there's no diaconate, right? In those churches, where there's no diaconate, what devolves upon the cell. It devolves upon the setting. Okay, so hey, we've got our way to go. Um yeah, but I would also, we would also agree that the division of labor, seen in Acts 6, dividing the ministry of the work and the ministry of mercy, resulting in the ordination of the first deacon, was good for those being served. The division of labor was good.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

I think it's good. In our church, we have we have elders and we have deacons. We have those who are ruled and those who are nurturing and caring for the needs of the flock.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:10

That division took place because there was a suspending number of beliefs and kids. That's right. That's right. Yep. And the needs were not being met. And they said, we don't want to let this one go, but we don't want to let that one go either.

David Nakhla 1:06:24

And so they can't say ordination. As such, can I encourage those of you in established congregations to grow in your concern for the church plants in your presbytery? Consider how you might come alongside a church planter in your presbytery. This is connectionalism. This is what I'm trying to present here is the concept of us growing in our awareness of needs and service to one another. A church planter, think about a church planter, the role of responsibility of a church planter.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

Right? They're doing all the minister stuff, right? That Sunday stuff. They're preparing sermons, they're preparing Bible studies, they're maybe teaching Sunday school.

David Nakhla 1:07:09

And oh, by the way, you actually need to find a place to meet. Oh, you probably have to get the chairs all set up. And you have to take down and all that type of stuff, right? Oh, by the way, you're supposed to be out there casting the net and bringing in the. You think about what's on a church planter's plate. It's huge.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:27

And to actually expect them also to do the Ministry of Mercy on top of that, wow, can you imagine having a deacon come alongside and saying, can I, can I, can I, can you point the diaconal cases down and to our deacons, and we're willing to work with you? It'd be huge for them.

David Nakhla 1:07:46

So this is just another kind of special case. And again, one regiment of the army augmenting another to the happy go into our analogy. Okay, we talked about the local church. If you're most familiar with that, that's where you live. But let's shift to the regional church. First of all, the good news is that you are not in a local congregational church. We are not a congregational church. You're in a Presbyterian church and that impacts how we operate as deacons. I like to say that in the OpenC, if you as a deacon meet a need, a truly diagonal need, that if you have the resources, you truly ought to meet that need, then you cannot really say, no, you don't ability to meet that need until you've loaned all the resources available to you.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:54

Got me? If it's a need and you're like, we really should be in this need.

David Nakhla 1:08:59

This is legit. We really need to come alongside this. You cannot say, no, we can't run. We're tapped out. We're abundantly in the big. You can't do that until you plumb all the resources. So what are those resources? Well, in the OPC, as a in a congregation, you're not alone. Go back to my first statement. You're not alone. Your local church is part of a presbytery. Remember, it's not the Orthodox Presbyterian Churches, but rather the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. One church. Each Presbytery, the OPC, I can tell you, every single one, every single OPC Presbytery, all 17 of them, elects a committee to help oversee and carry out its work. As such, in each of these presbyteries, there is a Presbyterian Diaconal Committee. Everybody heard of the Presbyterian Diaconal Committee?

SPEAKER_14 1:09:50

Anybody not heard of the Presbyterian Diacon Committee?

David Nakhla 1:09:53

You just want to say. But you're going to hear about it now. So, truthfully, the Presbyterian Diaconal Committees, they're not all homogenous, they're not all the same. Their mandates are different. Although we're starting to see that coalesce a little bit, then become a little bit more familiar with one another. Regardless of the fact that there exists some variety in the work and makeup of the PDCs, there are important common threads that are relevant to the diagonal. Each PDC either has funds or the ability to raise funds within the presbytery in order to meet a diagonal need. So when you hit the bottom of your barrel, and you say, well, can't really meet this need, no, you actually have an avenue to spread the need further because we're not a congregational church. This is where, you know, the the ecclesiology impacts how we're able to serve one another. So each PVC is able to receive a request coming to it from a local congregation.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:18

What this means is that if you face a significant diagonal in your congregation, you need to have a conversation with the PVC.

David Nakhla 1:11:27

What does that congregation conversation look like? Most presbyteries want the request to come to them in writing. Again, you have often different presbyteries, so it's going to be this is going to be where it differs for each of your situations.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:40

You'll have to find your presbytery diacro committee. Actually, there probably doesn't maybe in our binder.

David Nakhla 1:11:46

Definitely on the definitely on the website on our website. We try to keep that up to date. The chairman of the diagonal committee via contact with them. But I can tell you that generally, whatever form they use, whatever, they're going to want to know this. What's the history of the particular situation? They want you to bring them up to speed. They're not going to just say, you know, what's the amount we need to send to you for whatever it is that you want. They're going to want to know. Like what's what's what's the truth?

SPEAKER_09 1:12:15

They're going to want to know how the situation came about.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:18

Okay. How did this go about?

David Nakhla 1:12:21

They're going to want to know that the continuation of the knee is being measured. This isn't, you know, this isn't the bottomless pit, right? They're going to want to know how much the local diagonal has contributed toward the need. Are you just saying, um, this is a need. Can you guys can you guys put the bill? No, they're going to want to know, well, what's your skin of the thing? How much have you guys put towards it? They're going to want to know how you, the local diagonate, came to the determination that this ought to be met. Right? Like, okay, well, how did you why do you why do you think this should be met? Make the case. And why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_09 1:13:00

Why do you think they're going to want all the information? Accountability.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:04

Accountability? Yep. And also, these are a request from the CEM. We need to have all that information.

David Nakhla 1:13:11

Or if they need to go ask other churches, some of the presbyteries' diacon committees don't actually have funds, but they say, let us know what the needs are, and we're going to share it with all the other churches in the presbytery. Well, then when they make that request to you, to your diaconate, you're going to ask a bunch of questions, right? You're going to say, You want us to send funds? And we haven't told us what this is all about. No. You're going to ask questions as responsible deacons. So, yeah. But it could come up to the committee on the diagonal industry, and we actually have a form. And because we have that form, actually, what a lot of regulatory diacron committees have done is that, well, that's a good form. That's what the CDM is going to be asking for. We'll just adopt that form and we'll have the and we'll have all the answers that the CDM doesn't because we don't want to get those answers in the first place. And again, this is the link where the forms is on the OPC CDM website. So what you see happening here, what I like to call diaconal Presbyterianism. We've got our local diaconists all doing work, most of the work of the diaconists happening locally. But sometimes there's a need that gets that needs to get bubbled up to the Presbyterian Diacon Committee. They're there serving, they're there doing other things. We'll talk about that in a minute. But one of the things they're doing is they're waiting to receive a request that comes to them. And when they receive a request, that request then gets spread across all the different churches because the funds that the Presbyterian Diacones really, they don't have like any way source of funds except for the local churches. That's where they're, I mean, that's where the funds, the funds are ultimately coming from the local church. You guys take your deacons offering, that funds the Presbyterian Diacron Committee. That also funds the Committee on Diacon Ministries. We don't have an offering that we take, it comes from all of your churches.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:00

That's how the Committee on Diacle Ministries has funds to offer to do these conferences and stuff. And so this is kind of diaconal presbyterianism. And I think it's a tunable thing. It doesn't always happen that often. But again, if somebody, if there's a legitimate need, you can't say, well, we really don't need it. We need it again.

David Nakhla 1:15:28

So you basically have on the desk the whole resources of the whole PC before you can say, sorry, we can't read it.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:33

I haven't seen that done yet. Okay.

SPEAKER_10 1:15:38

Typically, don't churches send to that the presbytery date of fund as well as other funds that are in that category quarterly.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:52

With regards to give making contributions to that.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:54

Yeah, I mean, from what you were seeing me, it sounded like they make specific requests, but don't the churches just well.

David Nakhla 1:16:01

It's different for different presbyteries. So some presbyteries, their presbytery diagonal committee doesn't really carry hardly any funds, and they say, when we have a need come up to us, we'll we'll we'll look at it, evaluate it, and when we have that need, we're going to talk to all you churches in the project. Others have a fund, or they make maybe they make a request annually to the local diaconists and say, $10 per member or something like that.

SPEAKER_12 1:16:24

So there's different different avenues. Is it appropriate for a local diaconate to appeal to other local diaconates, or is there a protocol to always go out to the Presbytery?

SPEAKER_09 1:16:39

You know what? That's a really good question.

David Nakhla 1:16:42

I think that's legit. I mean, if you have a relationship, maybe it's a mother-daughter church relationship, or you have a relationship with them, I think you could share these. Yeah. The only thing is trying to think of this the situation there. When you have a church that's gone road, you know, we do we we don't want to facilitate that. But I mean, but if two churches don't want to agree and be together, yeah, there's nothing that should end up.

SPEAKER_13 1:17:15

That's a good thing to do. One other ways that it can be done as well is the yearly budget when it's being drafted. We got the deacon's announcements, we we draft the budget and submit it to the session, but we have uh uh a line item for the presbytery and for CEM. So that's automatic.

David Nakhla 1:17:35

So every church does it differently. Again, some churches take there is the giving that goes to the foundation for the presbytery, diaconal, it comes out of the church offering. Some say um no, let's have that come out of the deacon's fund. Some churches don't have a deacon's fund. They said 10% of all our offerings, that's our deacon fund. Have you remembered that? That happens in some of our churches. That's unusual, but so there's a lot. So how the local church operates is all different. Can I go back to your question about doing something with the second level church? I would just say the one caution I would give is if you sent a communication to your whole presbytery and said, hey, we're meeting this need, we'd like everybody to help. That's where we start to undermine the work of the presbytery because the presbytery, let's say it is a church that's on the road, and they're doing some crazy thing, and the presbytery is not into it, but it's not like really risen to that level, and then they start sending out something to the whole presbytery saying, hey, come along and help us financially with this thing that not the whole presbytery is on board with. That's where it's more helpful for us to utilize the uh diagonal committee to kind of dead that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:48

So, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_14 1:18:49

Yeah, the presbytery Midwest, if the member churches contribute to a regional presbytery, they have a fund and then contribute so much for a member for a euro, and then the presbytery helps the churches or the members of the church help each individual church members in meetings. Yep.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:16

Yeah. And I I probably should also add that uh I need to update this a little bit, but now we have a, now, now the committee on that a new committee has been formed, Committee on Ministerial Care. If you've met John Fickard, one of our big tall guys around.

David Nakhla 1:19:31

John Fickard is the uh director for the Committee on Ministerial Care. And the Committee on Direct Ministries gave a portion of the work of what used to be the CDM's work to the Committee on Ministerial Care, and that was basically needs of the ministers. So if you have a need in your congregation that pertains to your ministry, we'll talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:50

Um but that would not actually get the Presbyterian Diaphone Committee would not send that to us, but they would actually send that to the Committee on Ministerial Care.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:59

That's two things. One is I'm not a Presbyterian Diaphone board. Okay. We had an issue recently. It was a little different. It was a sponsoring church and a church plan, they had their church planner, the pastor, had a significant need. Yep. And they they had the church had the money to meet the need, but just based on the advice of their CPA, they felt that if they send it directly to him, the IRS may see it as salary. So they requested we send the money. The committee voted on it, but sent the money to the Presbyterian chat that was written there.

David Nakhla 1:20:36

Yeah, there are complications about IRS. It's so frustrating because I because I argue diagonal gifts is a gift.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:46

But they viewed as income and just running critics with income earned the other quick thing was I was looking through Einstein, you had that report in there that the uh CDM gave to the uh General Assembly. You had some people that at the committee was paying, I imagine, significant amounts for like 24 months in some constant. Yep. Say something came up either locally or through your presbytery, and how long-term you know, thanks, how much money is the you know, could be the nomination that we have to be able to provide, so I know that you can draw from all the churches, but can we have some guidelines at that point? Yeah, we don't need that, you're gonna be given 30,000 a year for we don't.

David Nakhla 1:21:32

I mean the Lord, um, I would say that the we don't see that many matters get bubbled up as to the, I mean, this looks good on paper, and we're I'd love to see it much more inactive, but it doesn't get inactive too often. That's where I'm talking to you, the local church. If they're a meeting and meeting, they're saying, well, we can't do it. There is avenues. I've got 10 minutes left and a bunch of slides. So if I can buzz through them and then we can we can come back with any other questions. Um because I do want you to get the whole picture, and we're still general. So let's uh keep rolling. I'm not gonna go through the proposed mandate, but this is what this is in your packet. It's also on the website. This came about, we if it was something we put together back in 2012, we canvassed all the bylaws of all the presbyteries, and what is what describes the work of presbytery diagrams because we kind of treated them as a homogeneous group or non-homogenous, and their structures were all different. So we basically put together what we call the proposed mandate, and um again it's seven points, I think it is. Yeah, seven points.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:37

Um we didn't add anything to it. We didn't say, oh, they should be doing this. No, we just kind of came up with the common topic.

David Nakhla 1:22:45

Why does everybody do it? So and a lot of the presenters have moved towards adopting this, have changed their bylaws, and so uh, anyways, that's in your packet, but we won't talk about all those things. Um but let me get you to the committee on diacon industry. So uh, and I think again, in skipping forward, we're uh we're we didn't really talk uh too much about what presbyteries are doing with regards to conferences, uh, how to get your presbyteries together, uh, or deacons, picnics they're doing together, work projects, disaster response, wonderful ways to develop camaraderies and fellowship within the presidents.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:30

At the mealtimes, you guys notice you're it's not really set up exactly right, but there's on the chairs, I guess.

David Nakhla 1:23:36

But you're just encouraged to sit at presbyteries, ways to get to know each other. It's great to meet somebody from across the country and you will, but better yet is for you guys to get to know each other in the presbateries.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:47

This is a committee on active ministries, uh, current current uh suite of guys and suite guys too.

David Nakhla 1:23:54

Uh but these guys represent more than 200 years, more than 200 years of uh years of ministry. And um very thankful for these. Uh oh, I am gonna go back to something on the presbytery diacro committee. I want you to be aware of the presentary diacrum committee, and I want you to consider service on the presentary diacorate committee.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:21

The way that we're gonna get our presbytery diacron committees more and more active in serving you and your local churches is for you to be a part of it and get involved in the presentary diacritic committees.

David Nakhla 1:24:33

And the most important people in the presbytery diacron committees are the deacons. And so I just encourage you to think about service on your preservatory diacritic communities. Um I'll quote my good friend and mentor David Haney, uh, who passed away a few years ago, but he said committees don't do anything right thing to do.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:53

Committees don't do work people do.

David Nakhla 1:24:56

So you could have all sorts of committees, but and and slate, there's a lot of slated people on, but you have to have the right people who are willing to go up through sleeves and to do the work of the committees.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:09

So I really encourage you to think about service on uh the presbytery diagram committees.

David Nakhla 1:25:14

Maybe someday the Lord would open up a door for you to serve on the denominational committee if you would be interested in that. Uh very thankful for active deacons who are very interested in stream mercy beyond just the local church. And uh that's where, again, this whole topic is to catch your, you know, lift your eyes beyond beyond just what's happening locally as we are a very connectional church. Um catch up in my notes here. There we go. In some ways, the CDM served as the diaconate of the OPC. Uh again, yeah, use that very loosely, uh, but that's in the in cases where uh we receive requests from sister churches. Um you remember this picture, right? So sometimes our network actually goes beyond the OPC. And so there are occasions where requests come to us from sister churches, and uh and this is basically uh in what we call NAPARC or ICRC, the National Association of Republican Reformed Churches, or the International Conference of Reformed Churches. Uh, this is North America, and this is throughout the world, ICRC.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:30

There's about 15 or 20 NAPARC churches. There's 30 some ICRC churches, these are like-minded churches. Uh, this ICRC has a diaconal committee. Um, I'm privileged of serving on that diagonal committee, and so I have these connections uh with other sister churches uh we're really seeing this happen in what's going on in Ukraine. I don't know if you guys have seen this little map, uh, but um this map portrays PCA, ARP, RPCC, DE.

David Nakhla 1:27:04

These are all churches who are part of NAPARC or ICRC and where they're ministering. And all kind of coming together in common ministry to this situation.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:17

So that's become a wonderful thing. We seek to promote connectedness. That's what we're doing right here. Connectedness of the deacons. Hopefully, you're getting a sense of that. Um diagonal train is what this whole conference is all about.

David Nakhla 1:27:35

Um that was that was familiar? Arrows Auditorium. That was 2012. No, we didn't have like twice as many people at that summit.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:44

It's just that uh this is actually General Assembly and the Deacons combined uh that year. Anybody's based on this picture?

SPEAKER_10 1:27:51

Who's that?

SPEAKER_09 1:27:53

This is the second one twenty twenty twenty ten, twenty twelve, twenty seventeen, and now twenty.

David Nakhla 1:28:02

2010.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:04

But it was all but they've all been here.

David Nakhla 1:28:06

I've been there somewhere.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:07

You're in there somewhere? I'll send you that two. This is four. Of course, get the Mercy Minute. Everybody gets the Mercy Minute? You will now that you've registered for the summit, you get all the screen.

unknown 1:28:27

We try to keep it sanctified, but that's right.

David Nakhla 1:28:32

Everybody's listening to the podcast, of course. Oh, you don't know where it is, but just look on the back of the t-shirt. And of course, we've got opccm.org. That this has developed since the last summit too, so um, so that's become a great repository for information. By the way, let me just share real quick, uh, this is an encouraging. I I met a pat or I got a message from a pastor from a PCA church, and he said, I stumbled on opccdm.org, and he said, he said, I felt like I was, I felt like I found a continent after living on that island. Right? So I was like, oh, I was really flattered. I'm like, oh. So uh, and actually, along those lines, he said, they actually don't, as far as he knows, and they've got lots of presbyters, they don't have a presbytery diacon committee in any other presentation.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:23

So he's actually working on establishing the first one, uh, and he's gonna adopt a bunch of stuff. But that to me is that's that gets me excited about the opportunity to see even our sister churches like grow in the ministry of personal.

David Nakhla 1:29:41

So uh we seek to sparehead new areas of ministry, some of those disaster response to the whole area that we've been uh growing and building the last couple years, and and the presbyteries are doing good work there as well. Uh, refugee ministry is a new area we've been looking at. Future areas of ministry. Um, you know, we have Stephen Tracy here.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:03

Uh actually his talk was this morning, I think, uh, on disabilities, industry of the disabled.

David Nakhla 1:30:08

It's a whole area that I don't think hardly any of us have given any thought to, uh, but hugely diacritical and really the Ministry of Mercy.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:17

So I think we need to be thinking about that more. But um back to my beginning statement, you are not in the get the sense? Did you get the sense? Um hopefully you agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:36

And uh but where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_09 1:30:47

Absolutely right.

SPEAKER_14 1:30:48

Um but before lunch, the final statement here this is your diagonal, your denomination.

David Nakhla 1:30:55

Um so we do want to hear from you what areas you think the OPC diagon needs to grow and develop in.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:02

Uh, we're interested to hear that from you. And uh see if you have once again help us. Okay? Anybody have any four thoughts?

unknown 1:31:12

I'd like to think about it. All right, so thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_14 1:31:18

Thank you for your uh interaction.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:20

Very helpful lots of a lot of robots.

David Nakhla 1:31:30

Thanks for joining us. Go to our website, thereformdeacon.org. There you will find all our episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And please make plans to join us again for another episode of the Reform Deacon podcast.