A New Way of Serving

I was asked to be a “deaconess” twenty-seven years ago. I remember the occasion vividly. 

Ms. Shirley, an elder, came to my home on a Thursday. My husband and I were renting the Methodist Church parsonage, a little tiny house built in the 30s, on the back road in Alliance. I was working on my graduate degree in literature and was doing a lot of reading.  It was a beautiful breezy day, and I was sitting on the little stupe that faced the church reading Typee by Herman Melville.

Earlier that day, Ms. Shirley had called to ask if she could come visit me. At the time, I did not know the nature of the visit, but I was happy to be having a visitor. The crunch of tires in gravel announced her arrival before I saw the car pulling in. As she walked up the little crooked walk, I gathered my books and opened the house for us to go inside. We visited a while before the reason for the visit became known. My name had been given to the elders as a candidate for the diaconate. I was so honored to be asked to fill this role. Though by the late 90’s  women were beginning to have leadership roles in the church, I grew up in a time when mostly men filled these roles. I was very excited to be asked to be on the diaconate.

Well, twenty-seven years goes by quicker than one would think. Surprisingly, the role of deacon/deaconess and the way we served, had not really changed much over that time. At least, not until 2020. Then it stopped. It literally stopped. A tradition that had been maintained for over 100 years was finished. We didn’t even meet for worship for a while. Then we started doing worship on-line and everyone had communion at home, alone. Then slowly we returned to church but not to serving communion, not to passing the plate. 

Over the last two years, my tenure as chair of the deacons, we have seriously discussed returning to serving, but some are not ready yet. Perhaps we waited too long to try. Maybe the times have changed, and we will not ever be ready to serve as we once did. Still we recognize the need, to “be served.” To satisfy this, over the last three months, we have had two deacons to hold the trays of little jewel toned cups, full of life giving bread and wine, a new way of “serving.” Though we are not certain that we will continue serving in this manner, we will continue through December.

Melissa Watson