The ordination service for a new minister or deacon is a significant event. Need a few fresh ideas?

Diana Davis

Invitations. Print invitations to the ordination service for the new deacon or minister to mail to friends and relatives. Encourage attendance by including the new minister or deacon’s photo in your church newsletter or local paper and on Sunday morning pre-service audiovisuals.

Personalization. Add a bouquet of his wife’s favorite flowers. Invite the ordainee to give his salvation testimony. A new minister could share about his call to ministry or a new deacon could convey his commitment to serving. If he has a mentor pastor or a family member in the ministry, invite that pastor to participate in the service.

Mementos. Give him a simple white hand towel as a reminder of God’s mandate for servant leadership. For a unique gift, embroider 1 Timothy 3:2 or 3:13 on a pillow, use it for kneeling during the laying-on-of-hands, and give it to him as a gift. Give new deacons a deacon lapel pin. Personalize the ordination certificate by inviting ordained ministers who attend the ceremony to sign the back. Present a newly ordained minister with a genuine leather Bible, signed by ordained ministers and deacons who attend.

Honor the family. Designate special seating for his family members. Present his wife a flower and an appropriate book. Plan a lovely reception after the ceremony, and provide name tags or flowers for family members.

A wall of prayer. At a recent ordination, each attendee received a Lego building block. To signify their commitment to pray for the pastor’s ministry, each person wrote his or her name in permanent ink and brought it to the altar. The pastor built a wall from those blocks, and keeps it on his desk to remind him of the “wall of prayers” surrounding his ministry.

When new deacons or ministers are ordained in your church, it demonstrates God’s stamp of approval and his blessings on your church’s ministry. Exert the extra effort to make ordination services memorable.