How CDM and CMC Support Local Deacons
On the OPC Committee on Diaconal Ministries podcast, I spoke with several brothers about the OPC CDM and Committee on Ministerial Care about these committees and how they serve our church.
Transcript
David Nakla: The Presbytery Diaconal Committee serves as a connection point between the denominational Committee on Ministerial Care, Committee on Diaconal Ministries, and the local deacons. Welcome to the Reformed Deacon, a casual conversation with topics specifically designed to help local Reformed deacons. There are nearly 1,000 deacons in the OPC alone, so let’s take this opportunity to learn from and encourage one another. We’re so glad you could join us. Let’s jump into our next episode.
Chris Kasson: Welcome to another episode of the Reformed Deacon Podcast. My name is Chris Kasson. I’m hosting this episode with Tim Hopper. Tim serves as a deacon at the only Shiloh Presbyterian Church in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. That’s in Raleigh, North Carolina, and is a member of the OPC’s Committee on Diaconal Ministries. I also serve with Tim on that committee. And pastor of Trinity Reformed OPC in Lanham, Maryland.
Tim Hopper: We’re joined today by John Fickert and David Nakla. John is the director of the OPC’s Committee on Ministerial Care, and David is the administrator of the OPC’s Committee on Diaconal Ministries. I’d like to just briefly introduce these guests and, and share who they are, and so you, you have better understanding and context. Um, John, uh, serves, as I said, as the director of the Committee on Ministerial Care. He’s an ordained minister in the OPC, and he served for many years on the pastoral staff at Bethel OPC in Wheaton, Illinois. More recently, he’s worked as a full-time counselor until in 2020 the Committee on Ministerial Care called him to serve as their director. He lives in Pella, Iowa with his wife Lindsay and their two teenage children. Welcome to the podcast, John.
John Fickert: Thank you.
Chris Kasson: And David Nakula, uh, really doesn’t need an introduction, but I think we should give him one anyway. David grew up in the OPC in Southern California where he was ordained both as a deacon in 1997 and then as a ruling elder in 2002. In 1995, he was married to Faith, and they have 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys, ranging in age from 12 to 24. After working 15 years as an electrical engineer, the Lord called David in 2010 to full-time service in the church. The OPC’s Committee on Diaconal Ministries appointed him to serve as its first full-time administrator and as well as his— the first, uh, short-term missions and disaster response coordinator. David is also a member of the Diaconal Committee of the International Conference of Reformed Churches, which is actually a separate podcast which we need to do, and serves as an elder at his local church in Calvary OPC at Glenside. David also enjoys working on his home and certainly being with his family. Welcome, David.
David Nakla: Thanks. Great to be here on this side of the mic.
Chris Kasson: Well, thank you both for joining us today. Uh, today John, David, Tim, and I will be discussing in really broad brush fashion two standing committees of the OPC’s General Assembly: the Committee on Diakonal Ministries and then the Committee on Ministerial Care. Tim, you’ve been serving as a deacon in the OPC for many years. As we begin, just let me ask a really broad question. Do you think the work of these committees has any intersection with the ministry of a local deacon?
Tim Hopper: I think the answer is certainly yes, and particularly the answer is that it’s being more and more true as time goes on. Not that these committees are, you know, we’re not trying to change diaconal ministry and the OPC to be top-down and controlled by these committees, but instead these committees are being servants to our local diaconates, and I think our local diaconates are experiencing that more. Uh, you know, I think in— over the last 15 years, we can particularly point to the impact of the National Diaconal Summits that have been happening and, and have been a huge blessing to so many deacons and diaconates. I think the work of this podcast, we’ve been thankful and encouraged to see the, the way the local diaconates are using it. And now we’re hearing more and more churches are using it as part of their training for deacons, to have them go and listen to the podcast. I think probably the Committee on Ministerial Care is still a little bit more of a mystery to our deacons as to how it impacts them. I think it does, but maybe a little less directly, and part of our hope today is to try to share about that committee and help our local diaconates understand it and how it impacts them. We want to start maybe with a— just a little bit of a background on these two committees and help folks understand where they come from and how these men have gotten involved with them. So David, maybe could, could you give us a brief history of the the Committee on Diaconal Ministry?
David Nakla: Yeah, sure. I trust that, of course, many of our listeners have some familiarity with the Committee on Diaconal Ministries through this podcast and other means, but these are actually recent developments in the work of the CDM. Uh, the fact is that the OPC is, is blessed to have a deep history of a denominational committee on diaconal ministries. It’s been fun to, to study the history a little bit and It actually goes back to 1947 when the OPC was only 11 years old that the General Assembly established what at that time it called the Committee on General Benevolence, and its mandate was to be concerned for those, those diaconal needs that were beyond the purview, beyond the reach of the local deacons. And so the CDM in many of those early years served the OPC and assisting pastors who had little retirement. As you know, in the OBC, many of our original pastors walked away from pensions to be a part of this, this fledgling body, and so the, the CDM was able to help pastors with little retirement. It came alongside school-age children living in dangerous inner-city environments with scholarships for Christian schools that was predominantly in the city of Philadelphia. It has a long history of helping refugees from various parts of the world over the years, different seasons, different times. It has provided significant funding for our clinic on our foreign mission fields, and then it has— we have a long history of responding to disasters around the world with generous giving. And a lot of that really reflects a lot of the years of the Committee on Diakonon Ministries But about 15 years ago, the CDM increased its size from 7 officers to 9 officers, added a couple more deacons, and it sought ways to aid and encourage local deacons. It became a new focus for the committee, and that was, as you mentioned, Tim, the, the national summit, the National Conference for Deacons. We’ve done 4 of those now. Of course, creation of this podcast is for local deacons, and then we’ve— the committee’s done a lot of work on thinking about other training material for deacons. The CDM has significantly increased its organization in the area of disaster response. More and more, every disaster since Hurricane Katrina, which was in 2005— we’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina— and then I would also say that the CDM has really grown in its relationship with the OPC’s Foreign Missions Committee, seeking to come alongside it more and more as our foreign field seek to minister both in word indeed. In those ways, the CDM has helped to fund missionary deacons and missionary doctors, uh, and has provided ample diaconal funds for use by our missionaries in their labors. And then finally, I’d say that the CDM, appreciating the important and particular needs of ministers, played a role in the creation of the OPC’s newest denominational committee, the CMC, which is wonderful for everybody to hear more about the CMC, but it was— CDM had responsibility for the diaconal needs and ministers. For a lot of years, that was a, a role of the CDM, and we’ve been thankful to transfer that responsibility to this new committee in its work.
Tim Hopper: Excellent. And can you just share briefly your route to involvement with the, the CDM? Kind of an interesting story.
David Nakla: Yeah, so my involvement with the CDM— I came to my first General Assembly in 2007. I was very interested in serving the church in some sort of full-time capacity, and I had actually had no idea it would be stateside. I aspired to be a missionary deacon is what my wife and I and our family was hoping to do. Came to my first General Assembly in 2007, there was a spot for a ruling elder, my name was put forward, and my name was the only name put forward, and thus I ended up elected to the Committee on Diakonía Ministry. I grew up as a son of a deacon, served as a deacon, have always loved the diaconate, and was excited actually in reading that GA report that year about the new things that were happening on the Committee on Diaconal Ministries, and was very, very thankful for the opportunity to be a part of that. In those next coming years, the committee, and particularly David Haney who was on the committee at the time, knew of my interest to shift into full-time for the church, and he also knew that the committee, for it to take back the responsibility of disaster response from Home Missions that had kind of— Home Missions had kind of taken the lead on that at Hurricane Katrina. He knew that for the Committee on Diakonies to take back that responsibility, it would really need somebody full-time who was at the ready to lead in the area of disaster response, even as there’s As we’re recording this, there’s a hurricane coming up through, through the South. So that was in his mind was that really for the ball to move forward in the area of diaconal ministries and with the Committee on Diaconal Ministries, it would really need to be staffed. I’ll oftentimes quote him in saying that, he says, “Committees don’t do things, people do.” And if you really want to move things forward, you really do need staff. And so, yes, he was able to present the concept of a short-term missions coordinator to foreign missions and home missions committees, and they agreed. That that’s something that they would fund, that they could use. And so with part-time working for the Committee on Diakonies, part-time for foreign missions, part-time for home missions, there was enough there to create a full-time position. And I was presented with that opportunity and thankful to say yes to that and considered a privilege to serve the OPC. And so I began that work in 2010, really took on the full work of the administrator of the— for the committee in 2014. And yeah, I guess here we are 10 years later from that, so it’s been a privilege.
Chris Kasson: That’s great. Thank you, David. John, understanding that the Committee on Ministerial Care is fairly new, even as described by David, can you tell us why it was established and, uh, certainly established as a standing committee of the General Assembly?
John Fickert: Yeah, I’d be happy to, and perhaps the place to start with The story goes back to the 1960s, I believe, is when the OPC formed a committee on pensions. And the committee on pensions was focused on providing, uh, retirement plans for ministers of the OPC. And over time, there was just a growing recognition that more would need to be done to care for ministers than just making sure they have a retirement plan at the end. And that really came to a head in the 2010s where there was just a full evaluation of what is the care that we want to be providing to ministers. So that came to fruition in 2017 when the Committee on Ministerial Care was formed by the General Assembly. And I believe, uh, David Knocklow was an original member, a charter member of the Committee on Ministerial Care when it was formed. And then at, at some point later transitioned out. But if it’s okay, I’d go on to describe just a bit of what the Committee on Ministerial Care, how we view what the GA has asked us to do. And if you go to our website, opccmc.org, you’ll see there that we’ve divided our work into 4 categories: uh, financial health, compensation, and then as a third category, soul care, and then fourthly, rest. And just to walk through those four briefly, financial health has everything to do with what we originally were assigned to do, which is the retirement planning for ministers, but it also includes more broadly financial planning for ministers, everything from budgeting to working through a loan repayment or other financial needs that they need help with. And then also insurance advice, information, and Newest to CMC, we also have health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, eye and vision insurance that we can offer to ministers as well. The second category, compensation, we work with presbyteries in sessions and talk about compensation for ministers with them as we are consulted, but we also have an online compensation tool that we believe can provide a target or an idea of what a minister might need to be compensated. And the— what we view as the advantage of that tool is within 10 minutes you can get a, at least a ballpark idea of what a minister should be paid. Uh, fourth, soul care. That really starts to get at the heart of why CMC was formed, where attend to more of the emotional and other needs of ministers. And so, uh, we try to provide different counseling and other resources, uh, connecting people with mentors or whatever they might need so they are not on an island as a minister or a minister’s wife. And then fourthly, we’ve really been trying to focus on rest, providing appropriate periods of rest for ministers through sabbaticals, retreats, and the like. So those are really the four categories, but perhaps of interest to Listeners of the Reform Deacon, uh, part of that component of what CMC has been asked to do is to provide a, a level of care, diaconal care to ministers and their families. And so, uh, I’m sure we’ll talk about that more in a bit.
Chris Kasson: Great, thank you. Um, John, could you just give us a, a brief overview of, of your involvement with the committee as director?
John Fickert: Yes, so I am the one full-time employee of the Committee on Ministerial Care, so that means perhaps much like how David serves CDM, I handle a lot of the correspondence and am connecting whoever’s inquiring, whether it’s a minister, an elder, or a deacon, or a church member, trying to connect them with the right resource or answer a question they might have. And so That also means planning out new projects or overseeing initiatives that, that we’ve begun. So essentially, I am the full-time employee of the CMC.
David Nakla: Very good. Thank you.
Tim Hopper: David, could you share with us how the CDM is organized similarly and how it breaks down into two different components?
David Nakla: Sure. Yeah. Well, first of all, I’d say that as I was just talking about, I serve full-time as an employee of the committee. But I’m really, really blessed to have, uh, help, and Trish Dugan, who is kind of running even this podcast right now, is a significant component to enabling the work to go forward. Just very competent and helpful. She’s our communications coordinator, so she makes sure that all our publications are, are happening and helpful. And then we also have the help of Allison Groot, who also works part-time for us and helps with so much of the administrative tasks and keeps us running well. So we work together, the three of us, and that’s been really, really great to have a team in that way, and, and a team that’s for those who want to contact us. We’re more available that way. The CDM— I remember when I first came on the CDM, there were no subcommittees, and so everybody did everything. And oh, those committee meetings were so exhausting ‘cause it was a deep dive into one topic and then we come up for air and take a total deep dive into another topic and total different topic and I think we quickly realized that it was just too much and we were— hard for us to serve well. And so it was not too long into that that we realized the need to— the committee realized the need to create subcommittees and divide the work. And so now we really have the work divided by subcommittees in 5 different areas. And the first is the Aid Request Subcommittee. They, they receive requests that come to the committee, whether it’s requests bubbling up through the presbyteries or requests coming from sister churches around the world or requests coming from our sister committees of the OPC, Foreign Missions Committee, and maybe even CMC and others. So that’s the Aid Request Subcommittee. The Diaconal Training Subcommittee is focused on, as it says, the training of deacons. So that, that committee is, is working on the summits, working on training material, making sure that we’re providing articles for publication in New Horizons, Ordained Servant, those type of things, and just open to thinking of new ways to come alongside our deacons locally, which is where the main area for diaconal work is local. And then disaster response, again, a total different area, but important area of the work of the Committee on Diaconal Ministries. We have a subcommittee who’s just focused on that. When a disaster happens, what does that look like? How do we get organized? What is our relationship with the local church that’s impacted? What roles do we need to have people fill to serve in those capacities? How do we raise funds for a— disaster response, those type of things, and get the word out, raising up volunteers. That’s the Disaster Response Subcommittee. We have a Missionary Deacons Subcommittee. This is just focused on coming alongside missionary deacons, visiting them, encouraging them, recruiting them, whatever we can to assist them in their work. That’s one of our subcommittees. And our final one is the Refugee Ministry Subcommittee. Again, another whole different realm of work, but this is probably one of our committees that has had a lot of work to do in recent years. When the Ukraine crisis happened, we realized that was significantly a refugee event, and so the Ukraine Crisis Fund was put under the Refugee Ministry Subcommittee, and that’s been a lot of work. But also domestically, the, the Ministry to Refugees in Clarkston, Georgia under the Presbytery of the Southeast’s big interest that subcommittee has in it. So that’s the subcommittees, and we don’t know what the future holds as other areas of diaconal ministry rise to the point of our involvement, we’ll probably have another subcommittee that’s focused on that.
Tim Hopper: Very good, thank you.
Chris Kasson: So now we want to drill down a little bit. We’ve got a broad overview of both committees. John, uh, I, I think one of the things that the Committee on Ministerial Care now takes care of or is overseeing is the Obadiah Fund. Can you just give us an explanation of what that is, uh, and then maybe touch upon how, if at all, it relates to the CDM?
John Fickert: Yes. So to start, the, the Obadiah Fund began in the mid-2000s really with a concerned couple that was seeing, uh, retired ministers and their wives retiring with not very much money, and they were concerned that it would be difficult for many OP ministers to make ends meet. So in a conversation with the various people in the OPC, the, the Obadiah Fund was set up and administered by CDM. Originally, Committee on Diaconal Ministries, and that Obadiah Fund continues to this day. It’s— it has now, I would say, many donors and continues to play a critical role in the care of retired ministers and their wives and widows. And there’s two primary ways that that Obadiah Fund works at this time. One is that we send an annual love gift regardless of need, just as a way to say, hey, we’re thinking of you, and this is just an encouragement to you. But with that gift, we also say, if you have additional needs or ways that you need help, please let us know. And so that hopefully helps create the conversations we need to meet actual needs of retired ministers and their wives or widows. Another component to the Obadiah Fund is how do we make sure we’re talking to all of the Obadiah recipients that are in the OPC? And there are certainly ways that, uh, either myself or members of CMC talk to those retired ministers and widows, but our— part of our goal is for the presbytery, uh, on whose, uh, these mem— many of these ministerial members, they’re members of presbytery. So we’re hoping to create closer ties between ministers and their presbyteries, and also for the presbyteries to be aware of the needs of, of widows of retired ministers as well. So the way that we try to help ensure and create good connections with the presbyteries is through the Presbytery Diaconal Committee. And so before we send out our annual love gift to everybody, we send out a letter to the Presbytery Diaconal Committees. Reminding them of the Obadiah recipients in their presbytery and asking them to contact them and check in with them at that time. And we’ve developed— with all 17 OPC presbyteries, we’ve developed very good relationships with those presbytery committees on caring for our Obadiah recipients.
Chris Kasson: John, thank you for talking about the, uh, presbytery diaconal committees, bringing them into the conversation. David, what are they? What are presbytery diaconal committees for the local deacon to understand, and then how do they relate to the CDM?
David Nakla: I like to say that the Committee on Diaconal Ministries, despite diaconal being in the name, does not do a lot of diaconal work. Most of the diaconal work of the church is done by local deacons. Diaconal work is very face-to-face. It’s very personal. And so the deacons are the main source of diaconal ministry in our churches, and even as John was talking about the ministry to the retired ministers. You know, the CMC and, and John are just a small entity compared to the number of retired ministers. Actually, John, how many retired ministers and widows are there now?
John Fickert: In rough numbers, there’s about 130 retired ministers and about 35 widows of retired ministers.
David Nakla: Yeah, so that’s a huge body of the church spread out across the denomination, across the US, and predominantly the ministers should be ministered to by their presbytery. That’s where their membership is. That’s where the presbytery serves them. And so I don’t know the history. It’s something I’m very interested in learning, but I don’t know the history of presbytery diaconal committees in the OPC, but all of our 17 presbyteries have a diaconal committee. It’s in the ethos of the OPC. Again, I don’t know how that developed because actually some of our sister denominations don’t have presbytery diaconal committees. And so, but I’m very thankful to have that because what that— the presbytery diaconal committee serves as a connection point between the denominational Committee on Ministerial Care, Committee on Diakonies, and the local deacons. I like to say that, uh, we describe it as the network of deacons, deacons serving locally deacons serving regionally, and deacons serving denominationally. And so sometimes there’s an occasion where you deacons in your local church, you have a significant need and you say, this is a great need, something we really should minister to, but we, we’re just tapped out. I mean, there’s— we only have so much resources here locally. Well, the blessing of being a connected church is that doesn’t end with you. We’re not congregational. We’re actually part of, part of a bigger body. And so local deacons, if you are not aware of this, you have the ability— each of you in your local church have the ability to reach out to the diaconal committee, the presbytery-level diaconal committee, and make an appeal to them for additional resources. And, um, they’re going to want to see that, that you’ve done your work in considering that request and considering that need, and you were actually responding to it, and you’re passing along to them some of the gap between what the need is and what you think you— the church should be supplying, but what you’re able to. And that committee then can consider that request and can participate. And sometimes there’s occasions where that need actually exceeds the capacity of the presbytery, and those needs can be bubbled up to the Committee on Diakonies Ministries, and that— and in that way, you can see that the whole church, whole denomination, all— whole OPC is coming alongside one need in, in one presbytery, in one church, maybe even one family, maybe even one individual. The whole church ministering in that way, and again, I just always think that’s just a beautiful expression of the body of Christ ministering one to another. Even as one part suffers, we suffer together. And so that’s the Presbytery Diaconal Committee. They’ve got various responsibilities. They’re very concerned about the ministers and the care of ministers and we’ll let John talk about that a little bit, but if you deacons have a need in your local church, not involving the minister, but just a need in one of your families, you should know that you have a resource that’s beyond the local church, and that’s the Presbytery Diaconal Committee. If you need contact info for that, you can find that contact info on our website, opctdm.org. You can talk to your pastor who’s a member of the presbytery. He should have that contact info as well. But avail yourself of that super important and valuable resource in the OPC.
Tim Hopper: One thing I don’t think we’ve mentioned is that the Committee on Diaconal Ministries is made up of church officers, 4 of whom must be deacons. And the Committee on Ministerial Care doesn’t have to have deacons, um, but can have, I believe, as many as 3. John, has the CMC ever had a deacon on it?
David Nakla: Yet?
John Fickert: We did. We actually had a deacon who served really well but then had to step away. So, okay, would love to add a deacon again in the future.
Tim Hopper: Yeah, and the presbytery diaconal committees predominantly are, um, composed of a variety of officers, some of which— in most presbyteries, I think, have to be deacons. But I think it’s, uh, something for our brothers to think about serving. I, I would love to see some deacons on the CMC. I just think it would, it would improve our partnership and just a good, uh, perspective to bring to that committee, um, partnership with the Committee on Diaconal Ministries, I mean. But, you know, I think these things can sometimes be missed by deacons because deacons aren’t at presbytery and General Assembly meetings where these types of things are discussed. So, you know, I think if this is something that would be interesting to you, you do have to be voted in typically, and that requires there would be an opening and various things. But, um, you know, share with your pastor and share your interest, uh, or an elder, and talk to them, or speak to one of us and try to find out more. We’d be happy to share what involvement looks like.
David Nakla: And who better to speak to that than Deacon Tim Hopper, who serves faithfully locally, regionally, and denominationally? I think the, the only guy in the— only deacon in the history of OPC who has served simultaneously at all, all three levels, and maybe ever who served at all three levels. So I thought you set a great example, Tim, in that— talk to the
Tim Hopper: guy who doesn’t know how to say no.
David Nakla: Yeah, we need more of those.
Tim Hopper: I know, I’d be happy to talk to folks about it. It’s something that to think about potentially years in advance because, you know, it depends on when these seats become available. Um, but, you know, many times the nominations might come up at presidetary or general assembly and pastors might be scrambling to think who, who to nominate, but if, if you’ve spoken of, you know, shared interest, just makes that an easier decision or an easier thing to consider. So, um, certainly consider it.
David Nakla: So Tim, I think that one of the things that the Committee on Diakonon Ministries and even this particular episode of the podcast hopes to do is for— to give deacons a larger vision of the church and what that service in the church can look like. And our elders, our pastors and elders are very accustomed to, you know, serving at presbytery level on different committees and maybe even denominational, but deacons are predominantly— most of their work is local, as it should be, and it’s great and important for them to have a local focus. But, you know, the OPC is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, We’re not churches, we are one church. And so, yeah, we need deacons who are serving regionally. We need deacons who are serving denominationally. And maybe it doesn’t mean serving on a committee. It could mean being engaged when a disaster happens and coming alongside, uh, brothers and sisters in our church who are suffering by sending a group, by being part of a group, maybe being a coordinator. You don’t always have to be in the region to be— like our volunteer coordinators are oftentimes somebody from outside the region. So there’s lots of ways that we can work together diagonally beyond local church, and, uh, that’s one of the things we really hope you deacons locally get a vision for. Amen.
Tim Hopper: Absolutely. We want to think about a few kind of case study type things just to, to understand practically how these committees work with our local deacons. First one is a pastor of First OPC in Anytown, USA is training up several men who think they may be called to the office of deacon. He has called you— it could be David or John— to ask for help. What would you want Pastor Tom to tell these deacon candidates about the resources that the CMC or the CDM offer to those diaconates? Maybe John, you can go first and then David.
John Fickert: Yes, I’m gonna actually highlight some things that I think were just said that I think are really important. So if I’m that pastor training a deacon, I would just highlight the great benefit of being a deacon in the OPC is that you’re part of a connected church in which there are presbytery and denominational resources for you, and you are not on an island trying to figure this out on your own. So what that practically might look like is if I’m a pastor training a deacon, I’m gonna give him the contact information for the presbytery diaconal committee. I’m gonna make sure they know how to talk to them. And then I’m also going to introduce them to the websites for CMC and CDM, the OPCCMC.org, OPCCDM.org, and have them look at them and refresh themselves on— and learn what those resources are. And perhaps they would want to talk about— there’s a lot of really excellent training resources for deacons on CDM’s website.
David Nakla: Yeah, thank you, John. I mean, that’s— I think that I too would point them to opccdm.org. Trish has served as kind of the mastermind behind the website and has really built out our resources section. If you go to opccdm.org, you click on— there’s a training tab, but if you click on resources, there’s a resources by topic. And if you click on that, you’re going to find There’s more content there than I’ve even read or had the opportunity to read, organized by topic: church officers, church safety, diaconal wisdom, disaster response, elderly, financial assistance, loneliness, poor, etc., etc., the stranger, visiting, Westminster Standards. There’s just so much stuff there, and so that’s super helpful. If you click on the training tab, You can find case studies, you can find video and audio for previous summits if that’s interesting to you to hear those summits that you were not able to be part of. Our first summit was— the speaker at that first summit was Brian Fickert, When Helping Hurts, the author of When Helping Hurts, which has become a must-read for anybody in charitable work. And then the second summit was his co-author. So those are there. There’s just lots of material. The training material is an area that we specifically— training of deacons is something that we are, are working on. It’s a recurring question, but there really is a lot of material on the website. That’s where I’d be pointing Tom, at first OPC in any town USA.
Chris Kasson: Good advice. So John, deacon Rick He’s noted that his pastor is looking a bit worn out. He’s a solo pastor with only one ruling elder on the session. He carries a heavy load of preaching and spiritual oversight. Rick has spoken to the elder, and the elder has noticed it also but doesn’t have any ideas to help the pastor. Considering this to be an opportunity to serve his pastor, Rick picks up the phone but struggles with knowing the right number to enter. Do you have any direction for Deacon Rick?
John Fickert: Yeah, he would be welcome to contact the Committee on Ministerial Care to discuss resources, and we could talk through different rest opportunities for this minister, whether, um, some sort of a retreat or sabbatical might be appropriate. For him like a period of rest. But in addition to thinking through denominational resources, I, I also think it’d be important to remind that deacon that his minister, in addition to serving at the local church, is a member of presbytery, and it might be worth figuring out someone to contact in the presbytery, a trusted friend of that minister, or if he’s not sure who to contact in that presbytery, he can contact me. But most presbyteries will have a ministerial care committee or a visitation committee or somebody that’s concerned for the welfare of ministers. And so I would want that deacon to be thinking about what are the presbytery resources I might have as well as ways that CMC might have a resource to care diaconally for that minister.
Chris Kasson: Very good. Thank you.
David Nakla: What, what number was that again, John? I didn’t hear it. 1, 1-800-I-NEED-HELP?
John Fickert: If you go to our website, there’s, uh, contact information for me and for our part-time administrators, and my email and phone number is there. My number, it’s 641-651-0346, and a deacon or minister or elder would be welcome to call me at that number, and we can talk through the situation. I would also add to my previous answer that there are counseling resources that CMC tries to connect for ministers, and that would mean, uh, either somebody in the presbytery or locally as a counselor. If the pastor would be interested in a counselor, if they’re really needing somebody to talk to, we’ll try to figure out a resource for them to talk to, or if it’s somebody in their family that’s struggling, we’ll connect them with that resource. We try to help with referrals, but then we also— not every health insurance plan for ministers pays for counseling, so CMC also helps to pay for the counseling if that becomes a need as well. Great.
Tim Hopper: I, I’ve talked to John about a number of different things over the years, and it’s always been helpful. So he, he does really make himself accessible to us. Let’s move on to another scenario. We’re back with Pastor Tom in Anytown. He has 4 children and a wife who has been chronically ill. Investigation has been done and found a serious mold problem in his home, which has caused health issues. To remove the mold, the family is required to move out and have significant months-long remediation work done in the home. Insurance will not cover the rental, the work, nor the pastor’s absence from the pulpit for a time if he relocates out of the area. The local diaconal fund is not sufficient to help with this need. Who can help deacon Rick as he loves his pastor and wants to care for him. David, would you like to take that one?
David Nakla: Yeah, this is, I think, a helpful distinction for deacons to know, although we’re happy to unwind it at our end, but when you have a need that’s diaconal in nature that pertains to your pastor, you would go to the Committee on Ministerial Care. All ministerial-related stuff diakonal and/or otherwise go to them. And then anything else, if it’s— if this was the home of somebody, one of the church members, it would come to the Committee on Diakonal Ministries. That said, I guess I’m kind of skipping a step, uh, both of those would be routed through the Presbytery Diakonal Committee. And so either way, local deacon, you find needs that are significant like this in your pastor situation and/or somebody else in the congregation, and this exceeds the capacity of your local church local diaconal fund, you should feel ready to go to the Presbytery Diaconal Committee. I already talked about that, but that is a huge resource that is available to you. That Presbytery Diaconal Committee may seek to respond to it directly, and— but if, if it’s again beyond their capacity, uh, then they will know if it’s a ministerial thing, they’re going to go to the committee, committee of ministerial care. If it’s not ministerial, then they’ll come to my committee, Committee on Diaconal Ministries. But yeah, you should not hesitate to involve your presbytery diaconal committee on matters such as this, and this situation sounds pretty significant and should not be overlooked as I hear the scenario associated with health issues for the pastor and his family.
Tim Hopper: Yeah, it was actually based on a true story and, um, was able to be handled in our presbytery, and the churches came together and were able to meet this need. Together without needing to raise it to the Committee on Ministerial Care.
John Fickert: Mm-hmm.
Tim Hopper: But certainly knowing that, uh, is an option for us as well. And I think, you know, with all of this, folks don’t need to necessarily feel like they need to memorize the procedure or protocol for any of this thing. You can just pick up the phone or send an email to Tim, whoever
David Nakla: you need to, and reach out to Tim.
Tim Hopper: John gave his number, so, uh, but you know, that’s true.
David Nakla: That’s true though. We will re— we will reroute things. I mean, yeah, you know, if somebody reaches out with something, we’re doing that all the time. Yes, but reaching out is key, as you say, Tim, and don’t hesitate to reach out. It’s okay if you go the wrong direction, we’ll get it in the right direction. But yeah, raise the flag for sure.
Tim Hopper: Yeah, let’s talk briefly about our summits that we have. We have two different events, one called the Presbytery Diaconal Summit and the National Diaconal Summit. And I think the Presbytery Diaconal Summit is sometimes a little bit of a source of confusion, maybe from the name, but we’re planning a Presbytery Diaconal Summit for 2025, and, and that’s really we in that the CDM and the CMC are trying to work together on that as we serve together. But David, can you tell us what is a Presbytery Diaconal Summit and why should a member of the Presbytery Diaconal Committee attend?
David Nakla: Maybe I’ll start a little bit with the history of that. I remember actually in my early years associated with the Committee on Diaconal Ministry, there were lots of discussions within the Committee on Diaconal Ministry talking about the presbytery diaconal committees and what they do, and they do this and they do that. And we were actually not so sure that they did this and they did that, and they— we talked about them as a homogeneous unit, but we weren’t so sure that they were all so similar. And so we, we reached out to all of them, got a hold of their bylaws and organization and contact info and all that type of stuff, and we actually found them to be all quite different. There was really not an occasion for them to even know what the other diagonal committees were doing in the other presbyteries, and we denominationally Committee on Diaconal Ministries actually had an interest in them looking more alike so that we could know what to expect with them. And so actually, out of that effort, we created a document called the Proposed PDC Mandate. You can find that on our website, and slowly by slowly, the presbytery diagonal committees of our 17 presbyteries began to adopt that mandate as their mandate and became more organized as committees, getting the right guys on the committees, growing their committees to have ministers, presbyters, but also deacons. And a lot of that was a fruit of the Presbytery Diaconal Summit. So the Presbytery Diaconal Summit is something we’re trying to do it now every 2 years where we actually invite members of the presbytery diaconal committees not the local deacons, but presbytery diaconal committees to come together, and at those summits, we seek to encourage them in their labors, but really help cast a vision for what that work can look like. There’s so much work that a presbytery diaconal committee can do. I serve on the presbytery diaconal committee for the Presbytery of Philadelphia, where I reside, and every meeting as we’re working through our mandate, we think of a whole new area of work that we— could be focused on. And so we meet quarterly discussing, going through our mandate and seeking to hit those different areas of the mandate. So, but we also realize that the CDM is not the only one who has an interest in the Presbytery Diaconal Committees, but also the, the CMC has a significant interest in the Presbytery Diaconal Committees and their effective work. And so we’ve invited the CMC to partner with us in hosting the Presbytery Diaconal Summits, and so they were at the last couple they’ve been there, and John plans to be in attendance and presenting at our next one, which is in the fall of 2025, a little more than a year from now. We’ll be holding that, and the Presbytery Diaconal Summit, we pretty much will cover almost all the expenses of those who attend. So if you are serving on a Presbyterian Diaconal Committee. We encourage you to really consider this 3-day event. Uh, you fly in on Thursday, we begin on Thursday night, all day Friday, send you home on Saturday. We have it located in central— in Chicago area so that guys from both coasts can get there in a day and get home in a day. And we’re going to cover your flight, we’re going to cover the cost of expenses, but we really want you to be there and really get a sense of what that work can be. Uh, the better our presbytery diaconal committees serve our ministers, serve our local deacons, then that whole network of deacons becomes so much more robust. And to quote Lyndall Smith, the presbytery diaconal committee is the linchpin of our diaconal network. And so we’re very interested in, in the work of diaconal committees at the presbytery level. Jon, anything to add to that?
John Fickert: Yeah, I, I actually— hopefully this is a helpful comment. If you’re a listener and perhaps a deacon listening, you’re like, all right, this Presbytery Diaconal Committee, it sounds really important. We’ve talked a lot about it. I have no clue who’s on my Presbytery Diaconal Committee. Uh, the way to figure that out is actually through CDM’s website. If you go to opccdm.org, one of the top tabs on the menu bar says PDC, and that will take you right to information for your presbytery for who you might want to talk to at the presbytery level. And it’ll also tell you who’s likely going to be at this Presbytery Diaconal Summit that David was just talking about. But that’ll help, I believe, give some of the structure for who’s on the presbytery diaconal committees. And then on CMC’s website, I know it shares who are the members of CMC, uh, so you can learn more about who’s on the denominational committee. And I believe CDM has something similar on their website. For who all the members of CDM are and their subcommittees as well.
David Nakla: That’s right. Yep. Again, if that’s opccdm.org, if you click on the About, you can definitely find who’s on the Committee on Diaconal Ministries. Thanks for that, John.
Tim Hopper: We also have, uh, on the website opccdm.org, from the last two Presbytery Diaconal Summits, we’ve recorded most of the material of those. So this is not some big secret thing that the, the CDM and Presbytery Diaconal Committees are doing., and a lot of those resources would be interesting and potentially helpful for local diaconates as well. So you can go check that out.
David Nakla: If I can add to that, Tim, I mean, if this rings your bell, you know, which we hope it does, if you as a local deacon say, wow, I’d love to serve at the presbytery level on a diaconal committee, it’s hard oftentimes to find a deacon who’s not totally entirely tapped out and who’s willing to to make himself available to serve beyond the local church. So if that’s of interest to you, and I encourage you to talk to your pastor about that, and he can— or, or maybe the, the elder or elders who go to presbytery, and next time there’s an opening, they can put forth your name. But we, we’re always needing deacons who are willing to serve the presbytery level. So make yourself, make yourself known.
Chris Kasson: Absolutely.
John Fickert: Can I throw an additional idea out there? If there’s a listener that’s a deacon saying, I, I might eventually feel an interest or a calling to serve on a denominational committee, probably the best way to introduce yourself to what that might look like would be to serve on a presbytery committee first, and then that helps people get to know you as well. So if you have any sense of calling or interest in serving beyond your local church, a presbytery committee would be a great way to start.
Tim Hopper: Absolutely. David, let’s talk quickly so we can wrap up here about the National Diaconal Summit. That’s for all deacons and, and a few years off, but tell us briefly about those.
David Nakla: Yeah, so we began having National Diaconal Summits in 2010— 2010, 2012, 2017, 2022, and our next one is in 2026. That is a wonderful event You gotta come. If you’re a local deacon, you gotta come. It is, again, you’ll fly on Thursday, you get there on Thursday for dinner, and it begins on Thursday night, spend the day together, all on Friday, and then fly home on Saturday. These are once every 4 years. Put a ton of work into putting it together. For those, if you haven’t been, talk to somebody who has been. You can actually, again, find all the previous summit material on our website. But yeah, it’s, uh, to me there’s great training, but it’s not about the training. Some guys say, hey, can we, can we livestream it? Can we, you know, can I just stay home? And no, it’s not about— it’s about being together. It’s about building relationships. It’s a networking. That’s what we call summit. It’s really about gathering together with like-minded men and brothers from across the US, across the denomination, and even— we even have some deacons come from sister denominations and join us in this as well. So plans are underway for 2026, and you will need to cover your travel costs. Once you get there, we’ll cover the costs. I’d like to say that I think that you can talk to your elders if you, if you need to, but I think it’s a legitimate and useful use of diaconal funds to build up the deacons in their work. But whatever you need to do, get there and you won’t be disappointed. You won’t feel like it was a waste of your time. It will be hopefully a highlight in that year, in that 4-year period.
Chris Kasson: Brothers, this has been wonderful, but, uh, Deacon Rick is still on the line with you. Before you go, I want you to plant one last seed into his mind. So you’re finishing your conversation, you have this moment How would you fill in this blank in this unfinished statement? Deacon Rick, please think of the Committee on Ministerial Care when— you got a blank there, John, you need to fill that in for us. What, what do you want Deacon Rick to know just this one time?
John Fickert: When you’re thinking about the care of ministers and their family members, or if you’re aware of retired ministers or widows that are either in your local church or nearby. Please think of the Committee on Ministerial Care for diaconal needs.
Chris Kasson: Excellent, excellent. David, same question. Deacon Rick is there. You got this one moment. What do you want to plant in his mind before he goes?
David Nakla: When you’re thinking about how to get that beautiful— the Reformed Deacon Podcast t-shirt that everybody loves to wear and you don’t have one, you need to be thinking about the Committee on Diaconal Ministries. That’s not the answer you’re looking for, Chris. Sorry about that. No, no, no, actually, yeah, when you— when there are needs beyond the capacity of the local church, I like to say that you cannot come to the conclusion that we can’t meet this need until you’ve plumbed the depths of the diaconal resources of the OPC. And so if it’s really legitimate need that you need to meet but you don’t have the resources you need to move forward with reaching out to the Presbytery Diaconal Committee, and that could eventually come to the Committee on Diaconal Ministries denominationally. So there you go.
Chris Kasson: Brothers, thank you so much. This has been very informative for me, and certainly I’m hoping for our local deacons. Thank you for taking the time to discuss your respective committees with us today. Uh, deacons, we hope that this episode has been helpful and will certainly be an encouragement to you and your labors for the Lord.
David Nakla: Thanks for joining us. Go to our website, thereformeddeacon.net. Reformeddeacon.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 Reformed Deacon Podcast.