Deacon's add Benevolent Ministry

I'm excited about a new addition to our deacon ministry that is starting to come online. Obviously, the role of a deacon and the ministry of our deacons is quite broad. In addition to helping the needy, they are a very important touch with our ministry. They are charged with caring for our people, getting to know the people on their list, and things of that nature. Often though, the perception of the role of the deacon is that they focus solely on helping people with financial assistance. I often felt that that robbed them of the full magnitude of their role. So recently, the deacons have developed a new component addressing the benevolent needs of people and they have set up a subgroup of the deacons that is responsible for the benevolent side of the ministry. This group will field all requests per need and work with a budget to administer and care for those needs. They have set up criteria to help them add some objectivity to explaining why we help one individual and not another, or why we help people at different levels, things of that nature. So if you are in a position of need, you will find that there is a new process that is being used, and I'm excited about it. I think it adds strength to our ministry and it is a better process to help people out.