Church & Minister Relations
If your church is struggling to show and develop a sense of unity, agree on an important decision, or are just stuck, contact Jim Pollard who can put you in contact with a conflict resolution team that will assist the church in breaking through the stalemate or impass to a healthy future.
Resources
Spiritual discernment is a decision making process that does allows churches to come to a consensus before taking action rather than voting which can be devisive. In cases where a vote is required, a concensus is reached first, making the vote less devisive.
Spiritual Discernment
"Basic premise of discernment: God has a will for the life of the (association) and wants to make that will known." Seeking & Doing God's Will: Discernment for the Community of Faith
"The goal of a corporate discernment experience is to faithfully participate with the Spirit of God in the life of God's people." Seeking & Doing God's Will: Discernment for the Community of Faith.
Model for Church Discernment
► Gathering Prior to a time of discernment, it would be helpful for groups to enter a sacred period of seeking. This period is referred to as the "Gathering."
"Participants in a discernment experience gather in the power of the Spirit, conscious of their status as God's people. Gathering the group in this way is fundamental for discernment, for it marks them, or sets them aside, as God's people, created by God for God's will, rather than as a group of people inclined to follow their own desires."
► Presentation The beginning of discernment is a statement of the facts regarding the need/opportunity.
► Scripture "Scripture is the founding story of the Christian faith. Here the group begins to make connections between the congregation's story and the story of God's people in Scripture."
►Tradition
- This allows the group to discern God's leading through story - both the stories that make up the tradition of the congregation and stories drawn from the tradition of the Christian church through the ages.
- Types of stories congregations have to tell:
- Founding stories
- Hero stories
- Unfolding stories
- Sad stories
► Reason The Reason Movement is a constructive process that builds upon the ideas of all the participants in the group instead of playing off the merits of the various contributions against one another. In discernment, reasoning means gathering together the wisdom contained in the whole group. Each person should speak only once.
► Experience Discernment must inevitably lead to hearts listening in quiet prayer. The Experience Movement of the discernment process provides the time for the group to focus on their experience of God's presence in their midst.
► Direction Discernment should result in a consensus of the group of a peace from God about what direction He would have the group to move. The whole discernment experience takes place in the context of the grace of God. The work of discernment accomplishes nothing by itself; it is only effective when we offer it to God for God's blessing.
Obstacles to Discernment:
- Culture
- Prosperity
- Self-interest
- Self-absorption
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