Diaconal Ministries Canada is a partner agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRCNA) that promotes diaconal work in Canada.
Deacons serve by leading and equipping the church to minister to its members and the world in a rich diversity of ministries — awakening compassion, demonstrating mercy, seeking justice, and collaborating with God’s Spirit for the transformation of persons and communities.
Diaconal Ministries Canada partners with deacons, churches, and ministries to demonstrate God’s love in the community.
Vision
Transforming communities in Christ.
Mission
Relying on the Holy Spirit, Diaconal Ministries Canada exists to inspire, empower, and equip deacons as they animate their churches to join in God’s transforming work in communities across Canada.
Values
To carry out this mission, we value prayer, celebration, collaboration, servant leadership, gift-based ministry, holistic ministry and justice.
Three Key Focus Areas
We equip deacons in the following areas which are taken from their mandate (aka. 'Charge to the Deacons'):
1. Engaging Communities
We believe communities should be blessed by the churches that exist there. We seek to inspire, empower, and equip Deacons and churches to engage with their communities and neighbourhoods in such a way that they become conduits through which God’s grace, mercy, and justice flow. Our primary tools for doing this are: Community Opportunity Scans (COS) and the NewGround Program. We also provide deacons and churches with various resources, toolkits, and diaconal events.
2. Living Stewardly
The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)
The word stewardship comes from the Greek word oikenomous, which means "somebody who manages a household." Stewards in the ancient world were trusted with everything from ensuring that the house was clean, to managing the finances, to overseeing the public face of that household.
We are not the owners but have been trusted with resources and the care of everything—creation, gifts and talents, money, time, the gospel—for the sake of God's purposes in the world.
"Christian stewardship begins with a solid understanding that [everything] we call our own is not ours at all, but God’s. We are managers, or stewards, of His property. We must, therefore, define our task and seek to understand how to 'do stewardship' in a way that pleases God." (From the introduction to Stewardship: Keeping Faith with God’s Gifts by Mary VandenBerg.)
3. Promoting Mercy & Justice
Justice, at its core, is about relationships: our relationships with God, with each other, with ourselves, and with creation. God calls us all—and Deacons especially—to restore relationships through the pursuit of justice and to challenge lifestyles, choices, and systems so that all may have opportunity to participate fully in community as image bearers of God. This work will continue until Shalom is restored.
How We’re Funded
Diaconal Ministry Shares form the main revenue stream that helps support the activities of Diaconal Ministries Canada each year.
While our primary funding comes from annual Diaconal Ministry Shares, Diaconal Ministries continues to break new ground and extend our reach. These new initiatives take extra time and money.
A Brief History
Believe it or not, our roots go back to the 1950s when some of the first Diaconal "Conferences” were organized by deacons for deacons. From the Maritimes to British Columbia, deacons formed conferences and met to share experiences and resources, develop workshops and training events, and find ways to assist each other and their congregations. In these early years, World Renew (CRWRC at this time) worked very closely with diaconates on both sides of the border, speaking heavily into the diaconal work churches were doing.
