124.4. Administer the sacraments of the
Lord’s Supper and Baptism. The Lord’s Supper should be administered at least
once a quarter. Pastors are encouraged to move toward a more frequent celebration
of this means of grace. A district licensed minister who has not complied fully
with the provisions of paragraph 524.7 shall arrange for the administration of
the sacrament by an ordained elder minister. A local licensed
minister shall not be eligible to administer the sacraments of baptism or the
Lord’s Supper. Consideration should be given for extending the Lord’s Supper to
homebound persons, under supervision of the pastor. (523.7, 700)
504. The Church of the Nazarene recognizes the order of elder and
the order of deacon only one order of the preaching ministry, that of
elder. It also recognizes that the member of the clergy may serve the
church in various capacities (Ephesians 4:11-12). . . .
525.1. The deacon does not witness to a specific call to preach.
The church recognizes, on the basis of Scripture and experience, that God calls
some individuals to a lifetime ministry who do not witness to
such a specific call of Word and Service, and believes that
individuals so called to such ministries the ministry of a deacon should
be recognized and confirmed by the church and should meet requirements, and be
granted responsibilities, established by the church. This is a permanent order
of ministry.
525.2. The deacon must meet the requirements of the order for
education, exhibit the appropriate gifts and graces, and be recognized and
confirmed by the church. The deacon shall be vested with the
authority to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, to assist the elder in the distribution
of the Lord’s Supper, and to officiate at marriages
where the laws of the state do not prohibit, to conduct worship, and on
occasion to conduct worship and to preach. It is understood that the
Lord and the church may use this person’s gifts and graces in various associate
ministries. As a symbol of the servant ministry of the Body of Christ, the
deacon may also use his or her gifts in roles outside the institutional church.
(124.4, 124.9)
525.4. If in the pursuance of his or her ministry, the ordained deacon
feels called to the preaching ministry of elder, he or she may be
ordained elder as such upon completion of the requirements for
that credential and the return of the deacon credential.
526. An elder is a minister whose call of God to preach, gifts, and usefulness have been demonstrated and enhanced by proper training and experience, and who has been separated for the ministry of Word and Table and to the service of Christ through His church by the vote of a district assembly and by the solemn act of ordination, and thus has been fully invested to perform all functions of the Christian ministry.
526.1. We recognize but one order of preaching ministry—that of
elder. This The order of elder is a permanent order in the church.
The elder is to lead well in the church, to preach the Word, to administer the
sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and to solemnize matrimony, all in
the name of, and in subjection to, Jesus Christ, the great Head of the Church.
(31, 124.2, 124.4, 124.9)
FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:
1. Throughout the history of the Church, from
ancient times up to and including our own lineage of John Wesley’s Anglicanism
and American Methodism, the distinction between the order of deacon and the
order of elder has been: a.) the deacon is called to a ministry focused on
service, and b.) the elder is vested with the authority to administer the
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This has
been expressed as the ministry of “Word and Service,” on the one hand, and the
ministry of “Word and Table,” on the other hand.
2. This is this distinction that holds nearly universally in the larger Wesleyan/Methodist tradition.
3. This is the main distinction that seems to be held ecumenically, and is stated as such in the reports of the ecumenical dialogues between the World Methodist Council (of which the Church of the Nazarene has been a member) and the Anglican Communion, and it is the main distinction that seems to be held in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, as well.
4. Our current distinction between the two orders (viz., preaching), seems to have been assumed due to the statement in par. 526.1 that “We recognize but one order of preaching ministry – that of elder.” - However, making preaching the distinction between the two orders when we developed the order of deacon was an erroneous assumption. The statement found in par. 526.1 was not intended to distinguish the order of elder from any other order. Rather, that statement was meant to reinforce that we had only ONE order; that of elder. We did not have TWO preaching orders (viz., elder and deacon), as did the Methodist Episcopal Church of the time. We only had ONE preaching order (viz., elder).
5. To identify the distinction between the elder and deacon as one of a call to preach, not only disregards the historic position of the larger Christian Church universal, but is very difficult to maintain when the deacon, according to par. 525.2, may also preach, and when we are a part of a tradition that involves lay preachers (cf. par. 503.1).
6. The proposed changes will bring us much closer to alignment with the usage of the terms in Scripture, the distinctions throughout the history of the Christian Church, the ecumenical consensus, and our own Wesleyan heritage.
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