Toward a Working Definition of Discernment:
Discernment is seeking the deepest yearnings of God’s heart for us and for our communities. It is the gift of the Spirit. It must be noticed, accepted, treasured, and surrendered to if it is to be received. Communal discernment is an experience of group prayer and reflection on God’s word.
A community must want to discern. No one person has more than a piece of the wisdom. The piece each person has comes out of who he or she is and their lived experience. Community members must see this as a journey to be taken together.
Communal discernment emphasizes wholeness: God has gifted us with both intellect and emotions. We are capable of gathering data, analyzing, synthesizing, making choices and evaluating, we are also capable of intuitive feelings that allow subjective feelings to merge with objective truth. The Spirit lives and speaks in all of human reality.
There is no one way to seek to discern, but certain things are essential within the community:
Trust
Holy indifference
Revisiting the communities stories help people recognize the work of the Spirit
Faith sharing experiences
A facilitator, a guide
Discernment is hard work. It requires:
Deep personal faith and a willingness to give up the need to control or shape the outcome.
Faith to allow the Spirit to reach and touch me and then faith in my own wisdom to speak it.
Faith in the wisdom of others so that I can hear and respect and treasure it.
Belief that other members are trying to do the same thing
Faith that the wisdom of God is indeed being shared in the gathering
Practical wisdom: Persons chosen for leadership must come to know what the community expects and to agree to have an agenda that gives promise to bringing about the community’s wisdom. Persons in roles of leadership must also know how their own strengths, weaknesses and needs are perceived by the community. The community needs to know how leaders perceive the community’s gifts and limitations in light of the agreed future and how invested the leaders are in pursuing it. The community needs to look at what it is calling itself to as it calls its leaders. The community cannot expect its leaders to carry the burden; it is a mutual task. Discernment does not solve all problems, nor should it be used for that purpose. If the group is being held back, the problems will have to be named and dealt with.
Some attitudes and circumstances can effectively block a community’s ability to discern:
Sometimes people follow something called “discernment” but it is not really
Sometimes a community does a partial discernment, then breaks off the process when things appear to be not moving
Sometimes groups have done “discernment” but it has not worked well so they do not want to try it again.
Sometimes groups who have used discernment question the time it takes and try to use a shortcut.
Sometimes community members have difficulty understanding the importance of doing more than just praying for the guidance of the Spirit.
Sometimes groups seek to apply discernment too broadly
Five Essential Practices That Provide the Foundation for Discernment:
Coming from somewhere: The practice of history giving and story telling. Faith is a story. The conscious weaving of biblical story, community story, and individual story invites reflection, insight, clarity, identity, belonging, commitment.
Distilling wisdom: The practice of Biblical and theological reflection. Stories energize people. What significant stories exist in the life of the community? Select a story, unpack it, capture its essence, connect the story with scripture, weave the stories together. What emerges as important? Is there an image, a metaphor ?
Seeing with spiritual eyes: The practice of prayerful discernment. Discernment is not consensus decision making. It is not a political process. It is not a logical, rational ordered discipline that lead deductively to inescapable conclusions. In fact it is not to be equated with making decisions at all. It is listening to the yearnings of God. Discernment assumes the practices of individual discernment. Rigorous self-examination is a starting place in light of the images of Jesus. Seek to uncover the call by asking, testing, reasoning, feeling. Let it sit, put it to the test of time and the heart. Discernment is a patient process.
Going somewhere: the practice of “visioning” the future. Visioning is an ongoing process. Using the metaphor of an observatory, the foundation can be thought of as the reading and study of the scriptures. Upon this are the building materials of the communities history and identity. The viewing platform is built out of the values and beliefs. The isolated and protected viewing room is created out of silence, solitude and worship. The telescope represents our capacity to dream, imagine and image a preferred future. The focusing mechanism is continuous effort to stay on the image and test the clarity. One last factor is the eye, heart, and mind of the viewer, the internalization of the view from the observatory.
What Will a Powerful Vision Do For Us?
Connect with great worth--This is what Will James had in mind when he said, "The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
Encourage participation--The vision is invitational, it invites others to join by committing to it. It's a recruiting tool.
Inspire--It reaches the passion of the heart that comes from a deep longing to make a difference.
Provide clear guidance--Our vision will include enough detail to guide action. It will define the significant results we intend and allow us to evaluate our actions against those results.
Be a challenging possibility--It will be noble enough to call forth our very best and yet be achievable.
Continuous Assessment:
Continuous assessment is essential, but beware of quantification. For most of the history of humanity people did not quantify their world. Measurement in Biblical times was comparative…Galileo Galilei…gave us the modern notion of measurement…Decartes plotted motion on to a grid (the Cartesian coordinates)…Newton established universal mathematical laws. In this century, measurement came to the human organization--every type of organization, from a church to a business. The practice of measurement leads, over time, to reductionist thinking and then to mechanistic activity--which does an incredible job of destroying nature and the natural sensibility of people and communities. In a comparatively brief period of time, civilization has become accustomed to 'conscious purpose, --our consciously contrived ends that overrun, instead of emulate, the way that creation develops itself. W. Edwards Deming said that 97% of what matters in an organization can't be measured. Measurement cannot and should not be eliminated but measurement without story and dialogue is dangerous. Creation does not quantify, but creation does count. But, when measurement becomes a tool for fragmenting our understanding, and assessing one process, or one person, as better than another on some objective scale, then it is inherently unnatural. People inform one another not through numbers, but through stories and dialogue.
Taken from the work Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Believes by Dr Charles Olsen (Alban Institutes) The thoughts on assessment are from Dr Charles Tollett’s presentation in a Georgia DOE/Leadership Academy Program August 2000.
Guide to Prayerful Discernment Within a Group
Your commitment as you begin discernment must be toward God’s Yearning:
Nothing More…
Nothing Less…
Nothing Else…
You must be selective in the number of issues to be discerned. Discernment takes time. Allow for it. Focus on the largest, foundational issues, the ones that set the tone for everything else. If discernment is done here and the five practices listed above are practiced then the rest will come. If you begin the process of discernment and discover that new issues have emerged or you need to reframe, you may have to begin anew. If so it is time well spent.
The discernment process that Worshipful Work builds from is outlined below. It is built around a planting and harvesting metaphor
Selecting the Seed
Framing: Select the subject of arena for discernment. The focus must be narrow and clear enough for group reflection. The matter framed invites a commitment to engage in a patient and prayerful process around the ultimate question: “God is ……. your yearning?”
Planting the Seed
Grounding: What is/are the guiding principle/s? your guiding principle/s is/are informed by your values, beliefs and purpose.
Shedding, letting go: Not my will. What are the personal positions, biases present? Are people truly indifferent to all but God’s will? What do you need to let go of in order to be truly open to God’s yearnings. Acknowledge where people are not indifferent. Be thankful for honesty. Engaging in deep spiritually centered discernment will invite some letting go. Coming to indifference to anything except God’s wishes. What pictures of the future leadership of this church are you willing to release? What fears am I going to have to let go of.
Rooting: What are the Biblical images or texts that come to mind? What are the stories from your denominational and congregational traditions?
Cultivating the Plants
Listening: What other voices need to be heard? Gathering of data, insights, and inner promptings of God’s Spirit from the center and edges of the community
Exploring: What are some of the possible options or paths within the guiding principle? Remember we see what we are prepared to see. Look with new eyes.
Improving: What improvements are possible? Work to improve each option through mutual consultation and prayer.
Harvesting the Yield
Weighing: Weigh all the options, use a variety of means. Describe the tension between options. Where does the integrity lie?
Rigorous, vigorous mental examination
List the fruits
Test the possibilities
Cassian’s test
Is it filled with good for all (Robert K. Greenleaf says “do no harm’)?
Is it heavy with the fear of God?
Is it genuine in the feelings that underlie it?
Is it light-weight because of human show or because of some thrust toward novelty?
Has the burden of vainglory lessened its merit or diminished its luster?
Do you feel consolation or desolation? Does your spirit lure you?
Use Biblical imagination and guided imagery as tools to help unfold your awareness
Reframing
Have you been paying attention to the most important issue? Has another issue surfaced that needs attention first or is there a need to reframe? If another issue has emerged hold what you have been doing and begin the process anew. Do not be afraid to take the time to let it rest.
Choosing
How is the group disposed? Statement? May we proceed in the way just stated? Choose by consensus
I like the choice/option as it is stated? (consensus)
I am concerned, but I will support this minute (consensus)
I am uneasy for ….reasons, but will stand aside (consensus)
I cannot support this choice/option (nonconsensus)
Nonconsensus options: If seriously divided, not there yet, or at an impasse, then:
Revisit guiding principle/s
Revisit test of indifference
Additional time for prayer and reflection
Cast lots
Appoint someone to decide for the group
Vote by majority rule
Count only “yes” votes
Drop subject or postpone
Test of the Heart
Is there consolation or desolation? Pray for resonance with God’s Spirit:
A knowing that the decision arrived at is God’s gift because the experience of each Movement centered on God’s yearning
A feeling deep in each heart that the decision rests well in the hollow of god’s hands
An action that propels you forward into the deeper mystery that God’s Spirit will yet do something marvelous with this decision
Extracted for this forum from the work of Charles M. Olsen Transforming Church Boards into Communities of Spiritual Believers, Alban and Danny E. Morris and Charles M. Olsen in Discerning God’s Will Together, A Spiritual Practice for the Church, Alban / The Upper Room
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