Susanne Watson Epting serves as the Executive Director of North American Association for the Diaconate. At the time the keynote was first published, she was Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Iowa, Convenor of the Coordinators of Living Stones Partnership and President of the NAAD. Keynote address given at Living the Covenant Consultation, June 12, 1999.

Thomas Ferguson holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University; a Master of Divinity, Yale Divinity School; a Certificate in Anglican Studies, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale; and a Master of Theology from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. At the time of publication, he was a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Christianity at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, and a teaching fellow at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Tom was Director of Admissions and Instructor in Church History, School for Deacons, Berkeley, California.

Richard L. Jeske is Senior Pastor, Faith Lutheran Church, Prairie Village, Kansas. This paper was a presentation at the LERN-EDEO seminar, National Workshop on Christian Unity, Cleveland, Ohio, May 21, 2002.

Osvaldo Vena is Associate Professor New Testament and Director of Hispanic Ministries at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. This paper was originally presented at a meeting of TEND, the Ecumenical Network for the Diaconate, November 9, 2002.

Charles Hefling is professor of systematics in the theology department at Boston College, and a member of the Diaconate Planning Committee at the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. He currently serves as editor in chief of the Anglican Theological Review.

Benjamine Hartley is a deacon in the United Methodist Church. He is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at Boston University. This paper was originally presented at TEND, the Ecumenical Network for the Diaconate, in November 2001.

John Willets is a deacon in the Diocese of Chicago, and a professor at the School for New Learning at DePaul University. This paper was presented at the TEND meeting in November 2004.

This presentation was originally given at the Fall 2006 meeting of the Ecumenical Network of the Diaconate in the USA (TEND)in response to the question, "What was happening historically in Germany in the middle 1800s that inspired the diaconate to grow?" Some of the oral character of the original presentation has been maintained. Dr. McArver is a faculty member at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.

Susanne Watson Epting is Executive Director of the North American Association for the Diaconate (NAAD). This paper was delivered at the 2007 meeting of the Ecumenical Network for the Diaconate (TEND), October 19, 2007, at Rosemont, Illinois.