Deacon Care

• Our purpose is to glorify God by helping meet the emergency financial needs of Perimeter Church members, while providing good stewardship of the Deacon Fund.
• We are ordained deacons of Perimeter Church who have been nominated and elected by Perimeter members and selected and trained from among all Perimeter deacons to serve on the Deacon Care Team.
• We work with Perimeter members who are in financial distress or crisis.

• We seek to lean on our Lord Jesus to help establish a meaningful, helping relationship with our members.
• We hope to see our members’ situations change over time until they no longer require our assistance.
• Potential goals include guiding members to manage their budgets responsibly, plan for the future, seek and find viable employment, resolve conflicts, mend relationships, seek God’s community, and intimately know and obey God in all areas of their lives.

• The Deacon’s Fund is funded by the donations of individuals at Perimeter Church. We are therefore accountable to the congregation to be wise stewards of the resources God has given us through His people.
• Funding is limited; therefore, we direct financial support to the neediest people within the congregation.
• Requests will be considered based on a member’s basic living needs. Each request goes through a review process involving at least 2 deacons and possibly other individuals involved in caring for the member.
• When financial assistance is granted, it is done with the hope that our assistance will be short-term and will no longer be needed once the member’s situation improves.
• Financial assistance is provided directly to a third-party provider, instead of a direct payment to our members.

• Actively and regularly participate in worship and in other areas of church life. We encourage our members to seek community through an ongoing fellowship group including discipleship groups, Connect Groups, Celebrate Recovery, etc.
• We expect honesty and full financial disclosure to help us make assistance decisions that are best suited for the situation. Financial disclosure may include detailed spending plan (budget) information, personal financial statements to review assets and debts, other sources of charitable assistance, etc.
• When assisting with counseling, we expect that there is an understanding that some level of information about the member may need to be exchanged between the deacons working with the member and the provider of services/counseling.
• We encourage members to be open to seeking the Lord’s ways according to the Bible and to work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit to change their heart and behavior to be in line with the gospel, especially as it relates to their hardships

• We will seek to listen to and understand our members, encourage them in Christ and pray for them.
• We will humbly seek to address our members’ needs through offering resources and financial, practical, and spiritual guidance. We may also establish accountability needed to further encourage progress.
• The Deacon Care Team will strive to respond to the request within 48 hours. If a decision to provide financial assistance has been made, additional time is needed to submit and process check payment requests.

The Deacon Care Team desires to establish a trust relationship between the member and the deacons working with them. Such a trust relationship can only be established and maintained if the member is confident that the deacon and any other parties that may need to be engaged to help, including the shepherding elder, shepherdess and Perimeter staff will protect the confidentiality of the situation and any facts learned during the development or resolution of a particular case.

For instance, payment processing will require that certain information like the member’s name, the payee’s name, account numbers, payment amount, etc. be used to assure the accuracy of payment processing. Other information may need to be shared on a need to know basis to make decisions regarding assistance, or to assist with more comprehensive needs. Throughout the process, our commitment will be to always have respect for the members’ privacy.