Deacon Reflection: An Unusual, Often Reluctant Diaconal Ministry

By The Rev. Deb Blackwood

By training and inclination, I am an educator. I am also someone who spent 50 years running from God's call.

It first came up in 1982 when furing a conversation the Rt. Rev. Robert Atkinson, bishop of the Diocese of West Virginia said, “you need to go to seminary." I asked, “why would I ever do that? I’ve already been an ’angry woman’ [with civil rights work, anti-Vietnam, etc.] and don’t need to do that again.” At that time, although women were accepted to Episcopal seminaries, many had difficulties with faculty and male seminarians who were not in favor of their ordination. So I literally ran away from home to the desert of Arizona and spent the next four years working as a special education coordinator in a school system and helped start a new church plant in south Tempe. Once St. James the Apostle started services in a high school band room, the Rt. Rev. Joseph Heistand, bishop of the Diocese of Arizona, again raised the question of seminary. Again I said, “no way. I like being an active lay-person!”

Ordination didn’t raise its head again until I moved to Sarasota, Florida, in 1990. During Eucharist, our associate priest, the Rev. Gayle King, picked up a piece of the host and put it in my hand, and it was as if an electrical current passed between us. I bolted from the church, but Gayle beat me to the door and said, “Whatever you had planned for today, cancel it. We have to talk.” That resulted in the creation of a discernment committee at St. Boniface and admission to the diaconate training program in the Diocese of Southwest Florida.  I was ordained at the Cathedral in St. Petersburg on June 12, 1999.

After 10 years teaching at a magnet school for gifted students in Sarasota, the Rt. Rev. John Lipscomb, bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, hired me to be dean of the Schools for Ministry. I shepherded those in the diaconal or priesthood track, coordinated clergy and lay education, and did whatever else was needed in the realm of continuing education – as well as serving as deacon at St. Mary Magdalene and later back at St. Boniface.

I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2004 when my husband retired. I again returned to teaching and served as deacon at Church of the Beloved until its dissolution in 2009. From 2005-2009, I was chaplain at Trinity Episcopal School, and it was during that time I realized the things I “could not do” as a deacon were the things that really mattered. A new discernment committee was started by Trinity Episcopal School, and they recommended priesthood for me. And in 2009-2010, I commuted to Duke Divinity School to take courses recommended by the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina, while working full-time at St. John’s, Charlotte, coordinating the new contemporary worship program, assisting with pastoral care and overseeing some technology changes. My world crashed in May 2010 when Bishop Curry said “no” to ordination to the priesthood ten days before my last classes at Duke finished. ­­

I was convinced my ministry days were over and spent the next five months just sitting in the contemporary service at Christ Church, Charlotte, trying to heal. In November 2010, the Rev. Kevin Brown asked me to come serve as deacon advent through Christmas at Holy Comforter, Charlotte, and that was an awesome renewal. I was part of the pastoral care team and developed a nurse-navigator program to deploy some of our retired and working nurses to help individuals/families struggling with difficult diagnoses, recuperation and end of life issues. We also pioneered a Community of Hope discernment program with St. Johns, St. Peters and St. Martin's that resulted in several participants currently in diaconal training.

In May 2015, I reluctantly “retired” at the mandatory age of 72 and have been in the wilderness for much of the time since. Luckily, I was part of the group of deacons the Rt. Rev. Anne Hodges-Copple, bishop suffragan of the Diocese of North Carolina, called to help discern what to “do” with the facilities at the former St. Andrew’s in East Charlotte. I became part of the resurrection of that facility located in the midst of an area historically home to immigrants and refugees.  Two years ago, Bishop Anne asked me to be missioner for refugee services for the Diocese, and it has been a joy to work with lay and ordained people, Catholic Social Services, Refugee Support Services, Charlotte Kitchens and Central Piedmont Community College as they provide direct services to more than 100 refugees and their families at Galilee Ministries of East Charlotte. In this role, I am providing support services, materials for the greater Charlotte area churches and community groups, and keeping refugee and immigration information posted through diocesan channels for the whole Diocese. Our current project  at Galilee Center is to create a kiosk for refugee advocacy in the lobby area of the main building and to begin a series of advocacy trainings in the local community.