Being a Deacon Today

By Deacon Timothy Siburg, Director of Stewardship
The church needs more deacons. Let me say that again. The church needs more deacons!



I’m not saying this because I want more colleagues, though that might be true. I am saying this though, because deacons are a gift to this church, as ministers of word and service. They are partners alongside pastors in leading the formal parts of ministry, raising the questions within communities and where the church shows up in the world, and helping be the duct tape or the bridge between the world around us and the life of the congregation.

It is a holy calling- one where those who are called as deacon, are set apart for the ministry of word and service, a ministry that points to and participates in God’s work in the world. One that bridges the space between pastor and laity. One that is grounded in the baptismal promises, and flows out of a place of lifting and raising up questions about: What might God be up to? What does this mean? And what vocation(s) has God called and entrusted us with, to meet the needs of our neighbor(s)?

Later this summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Assembly, will be considering, discussing, and discerning next steps as they relate to the roster, entrance rite, and constitutional classifications of ministers of word and service. In preparation for these decisions, the Nebraska Synod blog will be sharing space with deacons during July.

We will invite you into some stories and perspectives from deacons in the field. Stories will be shared this month from a few of the ministers of word and service, serving as your partners in ministry across the Nebraska Synod in many and various roles- some in congregations, some on synod staff, and others out in the intersection points of society such as serving in leadership capacity in our serving arm partners of the church.

In sharing these stories, we want to help stoke the imaginative wonder about what God might be up to in your midst. Perhaps you might know someone in your community whom God is calling to ministry, or already doing great ministry through? Perhaps you have never met a deacon, and these stories might raise some curiosity for you about what might be possible within our church?

Whatever the case may be, these stories and perspectives will point to a little bit of the ministry of God in Christ active and up to something within and across the Nebraska Synod. They will point to some of the ministry that you do, support, and participate in. And they might just lead you to wonder, about what might be possible and being made new here in God’s church, through God working in, around, under, and through you.


Deacon Timothy Siburg serves as the Director for Stewardship of the Nebraska Synod. He is married to his wife, Pastor Allison Siburg, pastor at Salem Lutheran in Fontanelle, and they live out in the beautiful country together with their hopeful and humorous one year old daughter, Caroline.

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