Four Women Join the Deaconess Community, ELCA
Elizabeth Conway, Michelle Collins, Barbara Peterson, and Jennifer Worman were newly invested into the Deaconess Community, ELCA on April 25, 2008 at the Community's annaul meeting in Ashland, NE. Investiture represents a unique tradition in which women become part of the Deaconess Community. They are granted full rights within the Community and are given a candidate pin and the title “sister”.
Investiture marks the point in a deaconess' theological training and diaconal formation when she is ready to commit herself to the Community, and the deaconesses are ready to commit themselves to her. Once ‘invested’, deaconesses are considered full members of the Deaconess Community and will usually begin their year of internship before being consecrated and receiving their first call.
Deaconesses are women who are trained in their chosen profession as well as in theology and are consecrated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Canada to serve God around the globe. Deaconesses serve in many ways – as teachers, counselors, administrators, health professionals, Christian educators, youth workers, information specialists, ecumenists, and more. They serve in congregations, synod offices, hospitals, social service agencies, outdoor ministries, caring institutions, universities, and more. Deaconesses, along with other diaconal ministries, are the church outside the church and, often times, are the church’s face in society.
The Deaconess Community currently has 76 Deaconesses ranging in age from 27 to 91 who serve as far away as Jerusalem. The Community first began in 1884 and continues to reach out to people in need and to lift up the needs of the world to the church. Their ministries guide the church to care for people who would be forgotten. Compelled by the love of Christ and sustained by community, Deaconesses devote their lives to proclaiming the Gospel through ministries of mercy and servant leadership.