All right, everybody, we're gonna go ahead and start Sunday school here this morning. I would encourage anybody in the audience, feel free to move closer to the front of the class and yeah, the deacons won't bite. Charlie, would you mind opening us in a word of prayer? Father Creator of Heaven and Earth, we thank you for this special day that you have given us. When we can come, worship you, be edified, you can be glorified. We thank you for the brotherhood and the sisterhood. We thank you for Grace Church. and what it means to the family members. And we ask you, Lord, that you continue to bless Grace Church, bless us, that we would be more like Christ in all that we would do. In Christ's name, amen. I think maybe first we'll just start with quick introductions and you can give a rough estimate of how long you've been a deacon for and then we'll kind of get right into the questions. I'm Charlie Ardovino. I'm married to Leah Ardovino. I've been a deacon for now 10 years, which seems impossible, but that's who I am. Stephen Wise, been a deacon for probably four years now. I think I'm the youngest one here. Archer, I've been a deacon 44 years, three years. Andrew Stafford and were ordained in 2014, so 10 years. My name is Bob Keyes, and I've been a deacon for 43 years. And again, what you don't see up here is all the other deacons that have served and ministered in our church for decades. Many of them moved on, but you gotta know that. These are just the five that are currently serving now, but we've had many others. And I think you need to remember God's faithfulness in all these ways to provide deacons to the church. So we have a list of questions here prepared, but just encourage you to think of any questions if there's anything you want to ask in the midst of the discussion. Please raise your hand, we'll give opportunity. To start us off, a question for Bob Keyes. What are some real life stories you can share as deacons in your ministry at Grace? And if anybody else wants to join in, please do. One of the first times I got to serve on disaster relief was really a blessing to me. Katrina happened in 2005. And I asked the church if anybody would like to come with me. It was a compelling issue. I just had to go. There was nobody in the OPC that was serving at the time. We didn't do it. There was no disaster relief. And I went with the PCA, but I asked the church, who would like to come with me? Peter Stafford, now a medical missionary in Congo, went with me. What a blessing. We both slept outside, we cut trees, and we served. And we went with the PCA. The PCA was in Nashville. We stayed with a family there. That church had a mass shooting just three or four years ago. Remember the Nashville shooting? That was the church that we went with and we served together, Peter and I. We were able to serve down in Picayune, Louisiana, with a church down there. We served the neighbors. We cut trees off the limbs, off the houses, we patched the roofs with tarps that we took, and generators. Peter and I took generators and saws, two chain saws, and we worked for a week. And what a blessing that was. And then in that same year, I think 2006, we took four guys, we went down to Key West, Florida. And we served down there for a week putting in new tile flooring that had been destroyed by their hurricane that came through that year. That was a big year for hurricanes. And we were able to minister and serve at Key West Church with Jerry Lamb, who became a deacon later. Dave Shacklin, who was a deacon with me and with us. David Metzl, his family was involved in the church at the very beginning. And this young man came down and served as well. And then I joined the Keys Evangelistic Ministry down there, after that they asked me to join them on the board. I was with them for 15 years and did diaconal ministry in Key West for many, many years, serving back and forth from here down there. What a blessing that was as well. when there's many other stories. I remember I took. another, John Stafford with me, to a lady's house. There was a lady that needed diaconal ministry. And so we went there and we ministered to her. And what a blessing that was, to serve together. She was not telling us the truth, and so we weren't able to help her, but we did share the Gospel, and we did pray with her. I mean, the number one thing you do is you pray, you encourage, and the Gospel is always presented. You always talk about Jesus Christ. And then you can talk to George and Jeremy, they both are here today. They went down and served in NEON just recently. Let them tell you their stories. But if you want to hear more stories, I mean, all I can tell you is just the instances. I can tell you stories about each one. And what a blessing to know and to see God's work in these lives of these men and me through these kind of ministries. And these are just a few, but God has blessed the church. Churches with churches serving, ministering the gospel of Christ to a needy world. Keep track of the needs. This was a question that was submitted to us after our last Sunday school about a month ago. Several ways. One is we have what I'll call a rolling agenda every month that has names that over time have made it onto our list. And so we keep that as a rolling agenda. ledger of sorts that we talk through those names. Some months there's no update. They're doing well. Maybe it was an employment issue. Maybe it was somebody that's lost a close family member. So we keep that list and we talk through that list each month, add to it as needed. And then we also use the shepherding groups slash care groups as a way to talk through those names within our group. Who's in our group? How are they doing? Are there any diaconal needs? Are there any ways in which we can be ministering to them? So it's not, it's probably not perfect, but that's what our practice is using that, using our monthly agenda and then also the shepherding group list. Okay. Is this on? I can't tell if it's on. I've got some verses. Does that work? Is it working? Kathy? All right. Okay. So some other verses, you know, obviously all of scripture speaks about Christ, and Christ is our example. So there's a lot of places I could look to, but I came to Philippians 2, or chapter 2, verse 3 and 4. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you not look only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. That's a reflection of someone who's serving and loving one another, just as Christ has served and loved us. So we get our example from Christ. We can't be Christ. It's obviously more than we can be. But that's our example. Live for others, serve others, and not ourselves. Another verse would be 1 John 3.16. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, that we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. And that's always a reminder that we're serving others. Titus 3, let's see, I wrote that down here somewhere. Titus 3, verses 4 and 5, but when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. And our men's study on Saturday mornings, I was talking about kindness just yesterday, and that just impressed upon me that, you know, God or Christ when he came was kindness incarnate. And when you think about it in that way, we talk about Christ being love incarnate, but also kindness incarnate. And again, his example of kindness throughout his life and the way he ministered to people is an example to us in how we should minister to people. and care for one another. Let's switch over. Can I give one more verse? One of my favorites that was missed is Matthew 25. For I was hungry. This is Christ after he spoke many of the parables. He said, for I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Truly, I tell you, whatever you did to the least of one of these brothers and sisters, you did good to me. That's what we do. Thanks, gentlemen. Yeah, Haste, that's a... A bit of a complicated question, right? So I don't think there's an age limit. When I look through our tertiary source, which is the Book of Church Order, when I look through the biblical sources, there's no verse or point in our OPC documents that say you have to be 18 or you have to be 16. The limitation in the Book of Church Order is that you have to be a member in good standing of the church. And it recommends that you've been a member for at least a year. So to me, that would say that you have to be a communicate member. So that puts a certain age restriction, I think, on it. And then a year beyond that. Now, I would say as a practical matter, it would be difficult for someone under the age of 18, I think, to serve as a deacon just because there's legal requirements, documents you need to sign here and there on behalf of the church. And certainly, I think under 18 would be difficult for some of that. I also think there's a certain amount of wisdom required for the role. The requirements listed in the Bible sort of indicate someone of more of an adult age, I would say. But I don't believe there is a specific age restriction listed. And someone young, you know, if they had particular talents and gifts that came out very early, I'm sure the session would be willing to interview them for the role. What was the other part of that question? Oh, unmarried man. Hey, so the First Timothy does say married to one woman. Let me couch this by saying this is my opinion, not necessarily the doctrine of the Church. I'm sure the pastors would speak to this as well. I don't think it's a requirement that you're married to be a deacon. The requirements speak to morality and sexual purity. And so certainly I think a single person could serve as a deacon if they had the correct gifts. Paul himself was a single person. So as we spoke about in sermon a few weeks ago, clearly I don't think Paul was excluding himself from officer positions in the church when those things were written. But I don't think you have to be married, but you certainly can't be living in sin, I think is what that speaks to. What do you look for in keeping with this idea of wisdom in choosing your deacons? What do you look for to know when to pray, when to lend a hand, and when to serve in other ways? Can you repeat that? What do you look for as a deacon to know when to pray, when to lend a hand, and to minister in different ways? When looking for a deacon. Not when looking for a deacon, when looking to serve. Thank you. That was not my original question to answer, so he's thrown me a curb. Well. Not when choosing a deacon, but when. Yeah. We We meet every month and during that time concerns come up. We have an outline of members and non-members and what we try to do as a committee is to pinpoint the issue or the problem and then try to come up with a strategy that will benefit that person. We try to be very prudent about our finances. And we always pray for that individual or that family. We will reach out to those that are It may not be evident that somebody is going through an issue, but maybe that person comes to Grace Church regularly and they come alone. And you sense that there's a need there, maybe companionship or maybe a financial issue or a counseling issue. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question correctly, but The job of the deacon really is to administer to those that are in need of, well, our job is not spiritual. Our job is really mission work. And so whatever the need may be, we will work together as a group to try to come up with a solution to help that person or that family. Is that correct? It is a difficult, oftentimes, to determine the best way to help without hurting, without contributing to the issue. So there's no one answer to that. But certainly, we need to get to know the person. We need to get to know truly what's the need. Because oftentimes, the perception of a need is not the same as the real need. So if we're going to help somebody who's coming from outside the church that we don't know very well, we have to spend time, we have to find out what's going on. And we will typically refuse to help people from outside the church if we haven't if they're not going to become part of the body and come to the worship service so that we can get to know what's the true need. Now, inside the church, we know people better, so that's a little easier. But we'll, of course, talk with people who might know these individuals better than us. That's one thing. But I think the other thing is, For people outside the church that may have a need, or people within the church, we want to err on the side of compassion. We'd rather be guilty of being too compassionate and too kind than than turning away and looking away from that need. So Bob Keys has said, deacons are like firemen. They run to the need, not away from the need. And so that has to be our outlook. I think I'm just going to say something about when Steve, going back to the last question about age, There's the deacon with a capital D, there's ordained deacons, and then there's others who are deacons. And all of you have a role as a deacon in serving one another, because that's what a deacon does. It serves the members of the church, serves the community around. We don't have all the answers and we're not, we're not here to, um, to do everything by far. So we're, we're here to set, you know, to lead and encourage, um, uh, encourage you to serve, serve one another because that's, that's what it's all about. Good question. And kind of what Paul was saying. So a non-member that comes to Grace, comes to church regularly, in many ways we will If they have needs, we will work with them pretty much like a community member. They come, they're faithful. they come to worship, maybe they go to a Bible study, we'll often really try to assist them in whatever need. Now, we always encourage membership, of course, but that takes time. People need to know what our doctrines, what doctrines we hold to, and that takes time. But often enough, we will assist in somebody's needs who isn't a nonmember. Certainly the Women of Grace are extremely helpful. I want to give them a shout out. They're always willing to help provide meals, companionship, you know, with women who are lonely, let's say, and the Women of Grace are there to to sidle up and be friends or to help in a way that is good on a female-to-female kind of connection. If a non-member shows up, let's say, and we've run into this from time to time, somebody will come up and drive up the driveway and say, hey, I can't make my rent and you're a church, can you help me out? You know that's, we've run into that often enough, well from time to time, and our response typically is, well why don't you come in and we'll talk, and you know get more specific on what you're dealing with, and we encourage them to be a part of the Church. Ten out of ten times that's not their interest. They need some cash or maybe food. And we have to turn them away because I think really our mission is to bring them in so they'll hear their gospel. So if they're coming in and saying, hey, you know, you're a church, you're supposed to help me out. There's a lot of other resources out there that will help that individual. I do not believe it is the job of the church to hand out finances to people that are not willing to be a participant or partake in the fellowship that we offer here. Anybody else on that? telephone calls, too, often to the church office and, you know, some pretty elaborate stories about how they're in dire financial needs and whether it's food or a family situation. And we'll call them back and invite them to church the following Sunday and extend an offer to assist and help. I'm not aware of very many, if any, in at least the last, say, eight, ten years where that person has then come on Sunday. The other thing I might add is that we've had, they, sometimes they'll say, oh, I've been helped by the church up the road or I've been helped by, we had one recently where I think there was a individual who said, called in and said they had been helped or they were part of Providence OPC out in Pataskala. And so we know they're deacons and so Bob or I don't remember which one, somebody called and said, what's the situation with this person? And they said, well, it was somebody from years ago that we had helped a time or two. So we have to exercise caution, prudence, wisdom in dealing with these outside requests that we get. On the few occasions where we might give some help, it's never cash. That's just a rule we have. We don't hand out cash. If we think there's a legitimate need, we might go with them to get gas for their car, and we will pay for the gas and food. Sometimes we've gotten food for individuals, but never cash because that doesn't turn out well. Thank you. I really appreciate the wisdom that you have developed over the past decades. And it's really encouraging to hear how you want to make sure that we meet people's needs. We'd rather be ripped off than have a hard heart. I appreciate it. But we also want to make sure you don't get ripped off. I really appreciate that balance. From my perspective, we must have addressed this issue of people on the side of the road who will have to hold signs up and say unemployed. You know, you pull off the freeway exit and there's somebody standing there. And, you know, I don't want to have a hard heart. My van is full of tools to help people. If anybody's looked at my van, they know that. But I carry two other tools with me. And the first one is called deed. This is a deed. This is what you do to serve people. You need a cup of cold water? Again, Matthew 25. Did I read it? Serve them a cup of cold water. But that's not the only thing you serve. You carry a Bible, and you pray with it. These are the two greatest things you can give. Give them a cup of cold water, love them, but show them the most important thing in their lives, the Word of God. They don't usually want this, but you've got to share it with them. Diaconal Ministries is never separated from the gospel, never. Word and deed go together. Elders and deacons serve together. Word and deed. You don't ever separate them. Remember that. If you don't get anything else, it's the word and deed. You always carry something with you that's the most important thing. And if you want these, we've got lots of them for you to give out. It's about your service for the kingdom. And these are two of your greatest opportunities to give and serve those people alongside the road. I'm not saying this is hell. This is true hell. I had to bring those as my tools, but anyway. I love these questions. Diaconal Ministries is about you. Not about us. It's about you serving, ministering. Let me give you a few examples of ministry that you can be involved in. How about widows and orphans? Is it mentioned in scripture? Absolutely. What about orphans? And think about an orphan as being one that maybe didn't lose a parent, but never had anyone to love them or abused. Hurting. Strangers. Those people that walk in this door are strangers. Are you ministering to them? Are you loving them? You have people that are able to minister by their hands and their tools, make sure they're involved, and make sure they have Bibles to serve as well. What about aliens? What about the alien? Talk to Mike McCabe. Get involved in international friendships. What about ESL at Dublin Baptist Church and Northwest Presbyterian? Get involved. What about the lonely? How many lonely people do we have in our pews? Get involved in ministering to them. Love them. One of the greatest things I can think of for women is to teach their daughters to cook. Hospitality is a real ministry. The poor, the hungry, the brokenhearted, the sick, the deaf, the handicapped, the abused, the hurt. These are the ministries we have, you have, for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I'm passionate about all this because it's really what Diaconal Ministries is all about. It's about you. Serving, ministering, giving, loving, caring, encouraging. Why do we call it care groups? because it's about you. It's about the caring for one another in groups. And this is diaconal ministries at the very, very heart, loving one another, and serving and ministering each of us in the gifts that God's given us. I talk too much, but it's my passion. Yeah, I was just going to add, Jared, to answer your question about, you know, do we keep a list? We've tried in the past, and it's something that we ought to strive to do better about because there are so many gifts within the congregation. Those that are willing to provide rides to people, those that are tradesmen, electricians, or plumbers. So that when needs arise, we have a list of resources that we can call upon. So we have, I don't know that we have a formal list anywhere, but it's something that we ought to work towards. Hey, this might get mentioned this afternoon. Maybe John Shaw could tell us for sure. But I think there is a software that we're working on that will allow us to capture some of those things in more of a database form. We know who we know. And amongst the five of us, I think we know most people pretty well in the congregation and have some idea where people have particular skills or gifts. But yeah, maybe a little more formality would be even more helpful. So we're working towards that. We want to know about you. It's about you. Tell us about what you want to do. Tell us about how you want to serve. You've got a care group. Your deacon will help you to serve. Communicate. Don't be shy. This is about one anothering, and you can be a part of that. If you've got a gift that you want to serve with, talk to us. Don't be silent. This is what it's all about, is communicate how you want to serve and let us help you. That's what we do. We help you serve. On that topic, Dan, could you speak to the best ways that you can communicate to the Carthaginian public Okay, the question is, what's the best way for the deacons to communicate to congregation ways to serve? And I just want to turn that around and ask the congregation, what's the best way? What's, from the congregation's perspective, what's the best way for the deacons to let you know? So, you know, we'd like to hear your ideas on how, on, you know, obviously we can do it through emails, you know, things that come out during the week, prayer requests made Sunday evenings, those kinds of things, but, and just personal communication. But how does it work for the congregation? How would, how could we do better? Here's the mic. Yeah, let us know. We've got needs this week. I mean, let's be real specific. A woman that's going to be moving into assisted living that we've known her brother for years needs us to move her. I mean, this is how specific it gets in diaconal ministries. We can talk all day, but the reality is there are needs. Every week there are needs. Are you ready to serve? Talk to me. We're going to be moving a woman this week. There's a family, a man that needs food. Talk to him in grace. have your daughters make some food, or just use the extra that you have, put it in a jar. We need some food. It doesn't get any more complex than this. It's about ministering. And you can minister to people in our church. You can do it. Just ask. There's always things to do. And this is the way in which you can serve your Savior, Jesus Christ. That's as simple as it gets. So as a follow-up to this dialogue between the congregation and the deacons, if there's a real and pressing need that the congregation to alert the deacons? What sort of constraints do they put on that? How do they communicate that need to the deacon? Every situation will be different, of course, but just personally talk to us. You can communicate with us by text or email if you want. Earlier is better than later. If you suspect there's a need, there's a concern, certainly speak to us as soon as possible. Oftentimes, sometimes things need to be kept private. Oftentimes they do, but not always. I mean, sometimes needs are publicly made known. But if it needs to be kept private, we certainly want to do that. at least at first, you know, keeping things private. So I, yeah, I think like Bob said, just let us just talk to us in any way, any way that you can. It doesn't have to, you don't have to come to a deacons meeting. That's for sure. Happy to answer any questions about that. Any further questions follow on. Well, first and foremost, you know, the office of deacon is a, is a ministry of mercy and compassion. And so that's our primary, primary focus. But the, if you think back to, Acts chapter 6, when the office was instituted in the early church, it was so that the apostles could be freed to focus or devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and to prayer. As deacons we, and I think it's a long tradition in this church, the deacons have been tasked with other aspects of mercy ministry, in addition to the mercy ministry, aspects of facilities and building the annual budget finances of the church. as a way to serve and help and, and, uh, allow the elders to focus on and devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. And so, um, first and foremost, it's, it's, it's, it's mercy ministry. Um, I think interestingly enough, our book of church order, when it talks about the office of deacons, uh, it talks about, um, um, other forms of service in the church may also be committed to the deacons. And so I think what you see there with your question about, you know, well, how do you, you know, should you spend time on building or facilities or finances? Um, I think, you know, uh, the, uh, the office of deacon in many cases can be tasked with other forms of, of, um, um, service. I might also add that that's why a plurality of deacons, a board of deacons, as the Book of Church Order refers to it, the board of deacons, a plurality is helpful because there's varying gifts across this table. I can't fix things like Bob can. And everybody has their different gifts. And so when you work together as a body of men, And then to go back to earlier comment about all the gifts that we have within the congregation, you can do a lot. I keep talking about you, but that's important because that's what it's all about. And again, I think that The deacons, as the elders in Act 6, the deacons took over the responsibility of serving. I would love to see more people serving in terms of the facilities and the outside. There are so many things to be done that the deacons don't really need to be doing. And so I encourage you again, you as the church, be a part of that. Minister to the church by serving in the facilities in other ways that the deacons really don't need to be doing. It's important. It's good. And it's really your job and to serve and minister in the church. So again, I just encourage others. So there'll be a town hall meeting after the service this morning, and we're not going to solicit help at that town hall meeting. So I don't want to scare you away from coming to the town hall meeting. I want you to stay for the town hall meeting. But we'll be talking about a lot of things about the church, the facility, just what's going on. And there'll be things will come to mind certainly in the town hall meeting about, I didn't know that was going on. Here's an opportunity. There'll be ways you'll certainly see opportunities. You can get involved and help where we need help. So that's my pitch for the town hall meeting. Stick around. I would love to see, I mean this is a question, what would you like to see? I would like to see more mentorship. I believe that we need men teaching men, women teaching women. I would love to see mentorship, discipleship, however you want to call it. It doesn't have to be an older man with a younger man, equal age, even a younger man teaching an older man if he's got gifts of service and ministry. This is the way you grow the church. This is the way you grow the church. helping another learn and grow in the Christian life. Loving, encouraging, blessing, serving. Real simple. It has nothing to do with money. In fact, diaconal ministry has very little to do with money, usually. Not always, but usually. It has to do with serving, ministering of one-on-one. And again, I can't encourage you enough to want to get involved in that one-on-one with one another, women to women, men to men. I can't think of a better way to serve the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Christ for the kingdom than this one-on-one stuff. It works because you're learning to train other men and other women to do what God calls Another question for Steve. Going back to qualifications for deacons to say, young men become deacons. What is said that a deacon is expected to subscribe to Western theaters? Are they permitted to make exceptions? Any doctrinal or theological points of distinction? Yeah. So going back again to the standards here, when you join the church, you do not get a question, I believe, about the standards. You're not required to subscribe to the standards to be a member of the church. However, when elders and deacons are ordained, they are asked a question like that. The second question they're asked is, do you sincerely receive and adopt the confession of faith and the catechisms of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures? I think that's a fairly straightforward answer to the question. So, in general, yes. Now, the session has the responsibility of reviewing candidates for office, and I'm sure there are examples where someone took exception to something that was maybe a little bit more open to interpretation, and the session could use their judgment as to whether that's a problem or not. But in general, officers of the church should follow and believe in the doctrine that the church prescribes to you. I think it would be very, very dangerous if that wasn't the case. You'd start to undermine your, um, your doctrine, I think. Um, yeah, so that, I think that's a straightforward answer to that question. probably not off the top of my head. I can give an example where it would be bad, like if you said, if you denied the virgin birth, if you denied that Christ was the headship of the church, I think those things would disqualify you quite quickly for an officer position unless you changed your position. I know there's some very subtle things in there that people have taken exception to, a word here or there. And those, again, would be up to, I think, the wisdom of the session to decide whether those are disqualifying or not. Even pastors, I think, have at times taken exception to smaller things. All right, that's a good question. Let's see, what did I jot down for notes here? Because I thought about this a little bit ahead of time. I think you have to discern your gifts, and it's difficult sometimes for individuals to discern their own gifts because we just don't see ourselves clearly. So I would encourage members individuals to talk to others that would could help you to determine whether these you know these are which gifts what gifts you have and where this might be best used. Also obviously talk to the deacons, talk to the elders, just understand their roles and what they're doing and then see what's more attractive to you from that standpoint or interesting to you or just seems to meet your needs. Clearly, seeking the Lord in prayer, that's just the obvious. You want to serve when the Lord wants you to serve. So I would encourage you to talk to other men and determine where you think you fit. I would just add, don't underestimate yourself. None of us are perfect up here. And I think people over, um, overthink the qualifications for Deakin and, and, um, don't, don't be afraid to serve. I certainly second that. We fail regularly. Well, I speak for myself. I fail regularly. And the question about how old does a person have to be to be a deacon or that. You know, when Bob and I became deacons, the church was, it was a small church and it was also a very young church. Our pastors, Bob and I were in our twenties, our pastors were in their early thirties. So we had some elder, you know, had some elderly couples, some older people in the church, but it was a very young church and a very small church and there were needs, as there always are. And Bob and I were elected to the office of deacon at that point. We had young families. We had jobs. But the need was there. And so it didn't matter what our age was and what point of maturity we had reached. We had reached a maturity that we were able to be ordained. We've continued to learn a lot ever since. Bob and I made lots of mistakes. We could spend time talking about that if you wanted to. I was just going to add, I was going to say, don't underestimate yourself. God is working for you. And so don't underestimate your gifts. And secondly, I was going to say, if you're questioning gifts or qualifications, ask your wife. We thank you, Lord, for this time together talking about the service. We think of the verse that you came. Not to be served, but to serve. Give us hearts to serve the Lord Jesus Christ each day. Give us strength, give us wisdom, give us discernment. Help us, O Lord, to serve together in the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Christ's name we pray.