UMC Deacons at 25: Picking up on an Old Conversation
This article was originally published by UM & Global, written by Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley and Deacon Paul E. Van Buren on May 17, 2021, and the full blog post can be found here.
Benjamin L. Hartley is a deacon in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference and is living in Seattle, Washington. In the fall, he will be joining the Seattle Pacific University School of Theology as an Associate Professor of Mission and World Christianity. He writes occasional blog posts at https://missionandmethodism.net/blog/
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Order of Deacon, Deacon Benjamin L. Hartley and Deacon Paul E. Van Buren had a conversation about the book, the progress of the UMC diaconate, and their hopes for the future. This post contains the first part of that conversation.
“I was fortunate at Boston University School of Theology in 1998 to take a doctoral seminar on the diaconate taught by Professor Carter Lindberg, a Lutheran. He had recently participated in an ecumenical dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans in Hanover, Germany about the diaconate called The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity. A year later, I took another course by Professor Dana Robert entitled “Women in Diakonia and Mission.” I was elated. It was still another Boston University School of Theology staff member, Margaret Wiborg, Director of the Anna Howard Shaw Center, who is responsible for connecting me to you all at the Section of Deacons and Diaconal Ministry in Nashville. As I recall, she asked me for the papers I had been writing for classes, nearly all of which had something to do with the diaconate. She liked them and told me to send them to your colleague, Jimmy Carr. It wasn’t long before you and I were having conversations about writing a book together! ” Deacon Hartley recalls his experience at STH. The full conversation can be found here.