From the 2/24/19 Belmont News newsletter:

My calling as a deacon
by Kathy Maul

As a Deacon in the United Methodist Church, I serve beyond the local church. My appointment is to a senior living community. Although my job titles of Billing Coordinator and Staffing Coordinator don’t appear to have opportunities to live out my calling, opportunities reveal themselves daily. The health care industry is a high turnover job for nurses and certified nursing assistants. Many of my nursing staff are single parents and struggle to make work and home mesh. I have the opportunity to listen and pray with these amazing people as they work hard to care for the residents and provide for their families.

I have the privilege of meeting with family members as they make what can be difficult decisions for their parent’s changing care needs. Many just need to know that we listen and care and have made these tough decisions for our parents as well.

I have had the honor of sitting bedside with families as their loved one transitions to life eternal. We pray, we sing hymns and we cry together when their loved one is released and at peace.
I am truly blessed that I can live out my calling in this atmosphere of compassion and caring, of dedication and support.

From the 2/17/19 Belmont News newsletter:

My calling as a deacon
by Sarah McWhirt-Toler

My calling as a deacon centers on the baptismal vows we make as a church community to pray for, love, and nurture our children as they grow in lives of service to God and others.

I was commissioned as a provisional deacon in 2013, and currently I live out my calling as the pre K—4th grade Bible teacher at Oak Hill School, where I write curriculum for and teach approximately 350 students weekly, helping to fulfill the school’s mission of preparing students for a lifetime of education and service. I hope that I am doing the work of planting seeds of faith to bloom in the garden of their lives.

Exploring the questions of faith with my young friends brings me deep joy. Just this past week, a friend asked me what I thought Jesus did to celebrate his birthday. This certainly has me thinking about my personal Christmas plans for next year.

From the 2/10/19 Belmont News newsletter:

My calling as a deacon
by Rev. Marie C. King

At the 2003 Tennessee Annual Conference, I was ordained as a deacon and I serve to bridge the church and the world through word, service, compassion, and justice.

Deacons serve in our vocational or primary field of service, which for most of my career has been in healthcare as a registered nurse. My calling as a deacon and a nurse has led me to be a ministry of presence at the bedside of patients, praying with families and healthcare teams, welcoming the birth of a newborn, praying with individuals seeking understanding in the midst of suffering, teaching CPR, teaching nurses, visitations, preaching, serving as an interim pastor, and ministering to the needs of the homeless, poor, and underserved. My calling is lived out in word, service, compassion, and justice advocating for the medical, political, mental health, spiritual care, and financial concerns for all God’s children, in the church and the world.

From the 2/3/19 Belmont News newsletter:

Meet your deacons
by Victoria Rebeck

You probably know that Belmont UMC has pastors (elders). Did you know it has other clergy as well?
The United Methodist Church has two orders of clergy: elders and deacons. Deacons are ordained to word, service, compassion, and justice. Belmont has a number of deacons appointed to it “secondarily”—our primary ministry happens in another place, but also at Belmont.

You may remember those ordained as United Methodist deacons were on the way to ordination as elders. However, since 1996, we deacons are not preparing to become church pastors. Nor do we serve the same way that deacons do in the Baptist or similar traditions.

We’re more like the deacons in the Episcopal or Catholic churches. We are ordained, set-apart leaders who have committed to a lifetime ministry of forming disciples and leading them into ministries of justice and compassion (loving God and neighbor) outside the walls of the church.

So you can get to know us better, over the coming weeks we deacons will tell you about the joys we experience in ministry. It’s our honor to be in ministry alongside you.