Deaconess Ministry

LCMS deaconesses are women who are full-time professional church-workers, trained to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a ministry of works of mercy, spiritual care, and teaching the Christian faith. "Deaconess," from the Greek word diakonos, means "servant." Phoebe, named in Rom. 16:1-2, was a helper to Paul and others. She often is considered the first deaconess.

Where do deaconesses serve?

Today deaconesses serve primarily in three settings:

1. missions—both foreign and domestic;
2. congregations—teaching, visiting the sick and imprisoned, or serving in family or other caring ministry; and
3. institutions—serving as chaplains in hospitals, prisons, retirement communities, and facilities that care for people with developmental disabilities. In order for a deaconess to be endorsed as an LCMS institutional chaplain, she first must complete a master's degree in theology along with four units of clinical pastoral education (CPE). As an institutional chaplain, a deaconess provides valuable spiritual care to those she encounters, complementing the Word and Sacrament ministry of an ordained pastor.

Because of the strong historic and ongoing human care component in deaconess ministry, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's Deaconess Ministries maintains a consultative presence on the Deaconess Council, which was formed to enhance the coordination of training and promotional activities.

• Click here to listen to Deaconess Grace Rao's interview on KFUO Radio's "His Time" program. Deaconess Rao, director of LCMS Deaconess Ministry, and Deaconess Tiffany Manor, staff with Lutheran Church Charities, talk about what a deaconesses is and what she does. The deaconesses also share about their recent trip to Liberia, Africa, providing training and teaching about opportunities for women to serve in the church as deaconesses.

For more information, please contact:                                     
Deaconess Grace Rao
Deaconess Ministries

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
800-248-1930, ext.1387
Grace.Rao@lcms.org

• In 1919, the Lutheran Deaconess Association (a pan-Lutheran organization) was formed and began training deaconesses for the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, which at that time included the Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Norwegian Lutheran synods.
   
• Between 1919 and 1935 all deaconesses trained to be nurses, and their training took place at hospitals or institutions in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Beaver Dam, Wis; Hot Springs, S.D.; or Watertown, Wis.
   
• In 1935, the deaconess training centers were consolidated into one school in Fort Wayne, which moved to Valparaiso, Ind., in 1943.
   
• In 1980, The LCMS opened its first synodical deaconess training program at Concordia University Chicago (River Forest), and the Concordia Deaconess Conference (a free association of confessional LCMS deaconesses) was formed.
   
• In 2002, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, started a graduate level deaconess program.
   
• In 2003, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, also opened a graduate level training program.
   
• In 2008, Concordia Publishing House published a book titled In the Footsteps of Phoebe: A Complete History of the Deaconess Movement in The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, written by Dcs. Cheryl D. Naumann, providing in-depth history of deaconesses in the LCMS.

Based on 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, the CDC motto reads:

Working in faith
Laboring in love
Remaining steadfast in the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Another deaconess motto is "The True Deaconess Spirit" by Wilhelm Loehe. Many deaconess motherhouses in Germany adopted Loehe's poem as their motto in the 19th and 20th centuries. It later gained popularity in America after the immigration of German deaconesses to this country.

The True Deaconess Spirit
What is my want? I want to serve.
Whom do I want to serve?
The Lord in His wretched ones and His poor.

And what is my reward?
I serve neither for reward nor thanks
but out of gratitude and love.
My reward is that I am permitted to serve.

And if I perish in this service?
"If I perish, I perish," said Queen Esther.
I would perish for Him who gave Himself for me.
But He will not let me perish.

And if I grow old in this service?
Then shall my heart be renewed as a palm tree.
And the Lord shall satisfy me with grace and mercy.

I go my way in peace
casting all my care upon Him.

It doesn’t take very long perusing the pages of the New Testament before you begin to realize the vital and vibrant role that women played in the early Church. 

Take, for example, Romans 16. There, Paul first greets Phoebe, a deaconess (also translated servant) of the Church in Cenchreae.  He also greets Pricilla as his fellow worker in Christ Jesus. Also Mary.  He greets Tryphanea and Tryphosa as “workers in the Lord.” Even though Paul clearly taught that it was contrary to God’s will for these or any other women to hold the office of pastor (1 Corinthians 14, 1 Timothy 2), yet he knew and valued the important work such women carried out so diligently as servants of Christ and of His people. 

The office of Deaconess is found not only with Phoebe in the pages of the New Testament. It continued in use for many centuries in the early Church, before a variety of circumstances gradually led to its gradual decline. Beginning in the early 19th century, however, the office of Deaconess was revived among Lutherans, and we’ve had women serving in that office ever since. 

Today, we are particularly blessed in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod with a strong and growing corps of women who have been theologically trained and who, like the women of old, continue to work hard, laboring in the Lord’s harvest fields, serving alongside the office of pastor, helping and supporting that office by using their gifts to bless and serve others. 

Wherever they go, whatever they do, Deaconesses seek to serve by being living witnesses to the hope they’ve been given in Jesus Christ, who is the Forgiveness of this world’s sins and the Destruction of death. In hundreds of ways, in a variety of settings, Deaconesses bring that healing balm of the Gospel to bear on those who are hurting and in need. As they remember that their Lord came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many, they are blessed to serve for love of their Servant King. Thanks be to God for these “workers in the Lord.”