Dear Jeff,

other way around in my case. The female deacon was already there when I became a deacon.

I agree the situation does not sit well with God's Word and I wish it was different. Please bear in mind I am not defending female deacons here! I don't have the time or energy to resolve the biblical question of whether women can be deacons at present. I am aware good men go different ways on this. As I mentioned to Joe I disagree with the notion of authority you are giving to deacons. I simply don't see making decisions in general to be the authority that Paul speaks of to Timothy; his focus is on spiritual authority.

I have to choose in England ,where there are literally a handful of presbyterian churches (about 15) to serve 50 million people. to go to an imperfect church (and the presbyterian churches aren't necessarily perfect either). I have to choose which are the really important things to the gospel which I will fight tooth and nail for and which I will let ride. In the absence of a plurality of elders, worrying about female deacons is lower down the list. Indeed upon joining the church I carried out correspondence to make it clear that if I joined I did not consider myself under the authority of the female deacon to preserve my integrity in being able to deal with the issue if it arises.

The church I am privileged to be part of believes the foundational truths of the gospel and, in common with many evangelical churches, needs members who are willing to help reform generations of loose thinking about all sorts of things such as the majority of the members only attending one service on a Sunday and not attending the mid-week prayer meeting either, or the Sunday School which keeps children apart from worshipping with their families and whose teachers desperately need to be in the service listening to the sermon since they don't attend any other meetings.

Our new pastor, who has been around for five years but has been pastor here for 18 months, and his wife both have cancer at present so it is taking time to work through these issues. He has been willing to give me opportunities to preach and to lead the prayer meeting. He is very willing for me to lend him good books to help his sermon preparation and calls to discuss ideas and questions he has regarding the service, sermons etc. I hope you can see why I am encouraged to continue working here. Ironically I could never imagine being given these opportunities in the Reformed church I used to attend in London, which bespeaks the woeful failure of many Reformed churches in England to nurture young men for service, but that's another story.

In that former church where there were both elders and deacons I'm not aware that I, or anyone else, considered ourselves to be under the authority of the deacons. They were simply the guys who looked after practical matters in the running of the church.

IMVHO Reformed Christians in England need to be willing to engage with their local evangelical churches (which are generally Calvinistically inclined unlike in the US) to be good, faithful, prayerful members of them and where conditions are receptive to stay with them. After all, I believe in the sovereignty of God and that his gospel will triumph so that I am willing to serve him.

As mentioned before I am clear about the elders and gender and authority and preaching and have upon several occasions and in various churches made my position plain on the subject and taken appropriate action to back it up.

This may just have to be one of those areas where we disagree but I hope pondering the nature of the authority issue may help us understand why each of us acts as we do.

Your brother in Christ,

James.