A Deaconess is... a Lutheran woman formed in community educated in Lutheran theology consecrated to serve people in church and society.

When Jesus took the towel and basin and stooped to wash the disciples' feet, he provided a most vivid picture of servanthood and a model for deaconess ministry. "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." John 13:14

In New Testament times deaconesses and deacons were set apart to assist and lead the church in caring for the poor, marginalized, powerless people whom it would have been so easy to forget. You may have heard of Phoebe (Romans 16:1-2), Lydia (Acts 16: 13-15, 40), and Dorcas (Acts 9:36-41), women of the early church whom were identified by the apostles for their examples of diakonia.

Throughout the ages the diaconate has shaped itself in various ways, but the central heartbeat has always been the same -- to reach out in Christian love to those in need.

Today, as it has since 1919, the Lutheran Deaconess Association continues to educate women for ministries of service. Deaconesses embrace the outcasts and those on the fringes. They care for the lost, the least, and the little ones. They wash the feet of people in need.