As it stands as of now:

My letter thus far:

To the elders:

My name is Quiara Hazlewood. I have been a member at Sycamore View for several months now and had been attending for several months prior to that. In that time, I’ve become very attached to this church, these people; it has truly become my home church.

I respect the decisions of the eldership as the spiritual leaders of the congregation, however a recent decision has troubled me and I’ve felt compelled to comment.

Recently a decision was made that in essence redefines the deaconate. I realize that biblically the “office” of a deacon is hard to establish, much less to define. The fact that it is a nebulous post (if a post at all) adds to the complexity of the issue. The hermeneutic applied in reaching this decision, however, is difficult to reconcile.

Traditionally, c’s of C have made a practice of going to the Bible to find the answers for everything from why we’re here to how we worship to church organization. In this move, I think we’ve stepped outside that paradigm.

It’s odd that this discussion centers around the book of 1st Timothy, in fact. Historically, c’s of C have limited or even negated the participation of women in the wider world of church ministries – based largely on the interpretation of 1st Timothy 2 and a few other “key” verses and/or passages. Whether I agree with that or not doesn’t matter. I do, however, agree with the principle: let the Bible be the determinant.

In the same book, in the very next chapter, Paul discusses the qualifications for deacons and for elders. In no text are we given to believe that deacons are “elders-in-training.” In the same way the church argues for specific roles for men and women based on the interpretation of 1st Timothy 2, we are now crossing that line and blending the “roles” (for lack of a better word) of elders and deacons. They are presented as two distinct ministries with distinct qualifications. I don’t find evidence to believe that they were ever considered overlapping in the sense that one is training for the other.

I agree that training for potential elders is a good idea. I just don’t think the deaconate is the place for it. I realize that some of this may seem like quibbling over semantics, but it’s really a plea for consistency in the methods we claim to apply. If an argument from silence can justify our lack of instrumental musical accompaniment, how can that same hermeneutic allow us to redefine and reassign something delineated?