Mission Moments: Preparing Deaconesses for the Mission Field

Did you Know?

LCMS deaconesses are women who are professional church-workers, trained to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through works of mercy, spiritual care, and teaching the Christian faith. “Deaconess,” from the Greek word diakonos, means “servant.”

The class of nine Uruguayan deaconess stu-dents and their instructors -- Pictured L-R are Pastor André, Maíra, Ana Clara, Marta, Bibi, Jéssica, Mariana, Rubi, Simone (who trained as a deaconess through Concordia Seminary in Buenos Aires), Paula, Gabriela, and Pastor Phil and Deaconess Rachel.

Women from Venezuela, Honduras and Uruguay attended the orientation class for the deaconess pro-gram of Concordia the Reformer seminary. A total of 26 participants attended the online event.

One of the priorities for Pastor Phil and Deaconess Rachel in Uruguay is training and equipping deaconesses to serve in their communities. In order to do this, they partner with Concordia the Reformer Seminary in the Dominican Republic and its Deaconess Program. Praise God the program is growing, and recently expanded to four more countries -- Peru, Uruguay, Honduras and Spain! Other countries served by the program are Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic.

According to Pastor Phil, "Work with the deaconess program never stops… and that’s a good thing! Teaching, connecting, planning, reading and revising curricula and materials are always happening in order to equip tomorrow’s deaconesses to speak the Gospel clearly and faithfully in their contexts and to support their pastors and church bodies. We are grateful to be a part of this work."

The Jasephs are using an intensive theological course called Diaconal Identity. Learning happens both in-person, and online, and many topics are covered including the sacraments, the liturgy, ecclesiology, and the theology of the Word of God.

Pastor Phil is grateful to God for these faithful women … "They are very dedicated, very involved, hard-working students."