The question, "How does your church transition new deacons into their role?" was originally posted here but could still use some answers and feedback from the community.
Does your church provide training for new deacons? Do you hold a retreat or provide mentoring relationships for new deacons?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Hi Staci - thanks for posting this question again. I would also be interested to know what kind of training is provided for elders as this is a topic of interest for many churches.
Carol,
At the CRCNA we've facilitated many webinars on topics that are suitable for new and/or experienced elders. In some cases, these are presentations that have been used for the purposes of giving elders their training and/or orientation at various churches. You can see the full list of recordings here http://network.crcna.org/topics/type/resource/type/webinar-recording/topic/elders
I highly recommend doing a search right here on The Network section for Deacons on the subject. There have been a relatively large number of posts, at least one webinar and resources--including the Diakonia Remixed report to Synod 2013 and the report to Synod 2016 from the Task Force to Study the Office of Elder and Deacon--that I have used and made available to deacons and diaconates from churches in our classis.
Classis Holland recently spent an evening with Steve Timmermans (CRCNA Executive Director) and Andy Ryskamp (recently retired Director of World Renew U.S. to learn a bit more about where we are heading and how we hope to get there. There was a recent post on the website of the Holland Deacons' Conference that provided some of the information they shared that evening. Here's the link to that post: https://hdccrc.org/whats-ahead-for-crc-deacons/