Dramatic testimonies of "running from God" and finally "surrendering" to ministry are legendary among clergy. My experience felt quite different when ordained to the gospel ministry by the Boynton Baptist Church in Ringgold, Ga., in 1979.

The call to ministry was more affirmation than surrender for me. It came out of a growing awareness of being gifted for Christian service and trusting the hand of God to help me find what forms of ministry that calling might take over the years.

While my home church graciously examined and ordained me, the request for such action came from the first church I served in seminary.

Apparently, I am on track to be ordained every 23 years. My second ordination -- to serve as a deacon -- took place recently when the kind people at Highland Hills Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., elected me to that position of service.

Unlike the easy affirmation of my call to ministry many years ago, I was very hesitant about being a deacon and still have reservations. If not running from the role, I at least came to the diaconate kicking and screaming. Indeed it was surrender.

I easily trace my resistance to the seminary congregation that sought my first ordination. Two deacons made quite an impression on me back then. (I named them to my current church family but will not do so here in order to protect the guilty.)

As a young, idealistic minister, I was excited about a new ministry venture. But these two deacons were constant roadblocks.

They never offered help with the programs or mission projects I led, but quickly magnified any mistakes I made. And they really liked exerting whatever power the position of deacon gave them.

Though older by several years, these two men taught me the important lesson that age does not necessarily equal maturity. The pastor had to compile a weekly schedule because of their childish scuffles over who would be in charge of the sound system each Sunday.

The local sheriff once instructed them to stop speeding out of the neighborhood and endangering the lives of young children when the fire alarm sounded. As volunteer firefighters, they were most concerned about beating the other to the fire station and claiming the driver's seat in the fire engine.

I didn't walk the aisle, but made a strong commitment back then that I wanted no part of a job that involved deacons. And I sure had no interest in ever becoming a deacon myself.

For more than two decades, first as a campus minister and then a Christian journalist, I have stayed true to that promise. On rare occasions, when I preach at a church without a pastor, a desperate pulpit
committee member will call that afternoon to see if I have any interest in the position.

"Thanks, but I avoid jobs that come with deacons," I always kindly respond. Then I cover the phone while the caller laughs, and whisper to my wife, "They think I'm kidding."

Now, after 23 years of running, I will begin serving as a Baptist deacon for the first time this month. I have finally realized that the two deacons who so negatively impressed me years ago do not represent the best possibilities for that role of service that has too often been misconstrued into a position of power.

I have found better models in deacons like Alice Crenshaw and Libby Allen, who helped us celebrate and adjust to life when our daughters were born, and another family deacon, Gene Espy, who was among the first to show concern and give support when my father died a couple of years ago.

I did not surrender to the diaconate because I need more meetings to attend or another title. But I see more clearly the kind of deacon I want to be.

Baptist churches have suffered enough at the hands of deacons that push personal agendas and see themselves as power-brokers handing down directives to church staff and fellow church members. That is not the kind of deacon the Bible talks about.

As an observer of Baptist church life for several years, I have reached some conclusions. One is that those who do the most work in the church seem to complain the least -- and that the opposite is true as well.