Reforming the Diaconate

William Shishko wrote this three-part series for Ordained Servant out of more than a decade spent reforming a barely functioning board of deacons at his congregation, the OPC in Franklin Square, New York. The first part makes the case: reading Acts 6, he treats mercy ministry as only one specimen of the diaconal task and argues that deacons serve the congregation in whatever ways free the elders for prayer, rule, and teaching.

He recounts how the reform began with a sermon series on church office and ran through an eighteen-month rewrite of the church’s constitution that handed the former trustees’ work to the deacons.

The second part lays out his six-week training course, applying the Westminster Standards to diaconal work through a set of doctrinal propositions before turning to the qualifications of Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 3 and the deacon’s four tables.

The third part shows the reformed board in operation: monthly meetings under a session representative, authority exercised in parliamentary order, a liaison system that places every physical detail of church life under diaconal care, and financial counsel offered alongside aid so the board never becomes a welfare agency. An appendix reprints the training syllabus and reading list that a session could adapt directly.