Too often the missing element in God’s business is God. “At church meetings, we often expect the pastor to pray book-end prayers—one at the beginning and one at the end—but then it’s business as usual,” said Sister Ellen Morseth, BVM. “Spiritual discernment is essential to the church, but it has been buried for years.”
Morseth and Presbyterian minister Charles Olsen began Worshipful Work, a Kansas City-based ministry that teaches church leaders to bring the practices of worship into the board room and business meeting. The ministry grew from a study Olsen led, funded by the Lilly Endowment, on the ways congregations make decisions. Noticeably absent in the control group was a concentration on spirituality and discernment.
Most church leadership teams assume God is guiding what they do. But—with the influence of business models on church planning and administration—the plans God has for a congregation are sometimes bypassed for the sake of efficiency.
Spiritual discernment—seeking the mind of God on a matter—is an often overlooked spiritual discipline. Olsen and Morseth have sought to reestablish discernment as a spiritual practice within congregations.
In Transforming Church Boards (Alban, 1995), the book that resulted from the Lilly study, Olsen defines the practice first by what it is not:
Discernment is not to be equated with consensus decision making.
Discernment is not a political process.
Discernment is not a logical, rational, ordered discipline that leads deductively to inescapable conclusions.
It is a sometimes lengthy, sometimes meandering activity of determining what God wants, or from an eternal perspective, what already is. He points to Romans 12:2 as foundational to the practice: “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Olsen compares discernment to the work of the archeologist, who does not build or destroy, but who discovers and uncovers what is already there.
“Consulting Scripture, waiting in silence, and corporate soul searching are not an ‘easy way out,'” Olsen writes. “Efficiency-minded boards are accustomed to controlling the agenda, but the discernment agenda tends to have a life of its own.”
Stepping stones, but not steps
Some congregations aren’t ready for discernment—at least, not a lengthy, formal process. “You can’t just ask a congregation to jump into this,” Morseth said. “People really have to learn what spiritual discernment is.”
As pastoral administrator of a parish in Montana, Morseth led the congregation through a long period of discernment on a complicated decision. She did not announce the process, but she began building the practice into church life on three levels: individuals, small groups (committees), and finally by the congregation as a whole.
Church boards beginning to work in discernment may need an ordered structure at first, especially those accustomed to parliamentary rules. But as procedures give way to the process, several changes occur. “Prayerful discernment slows down the verbal and aggressive members, while seeking the wisdom of the silent ones,” says Olsen.
Morseth concurs. “I make sure everyone has a chance to say something, especially those who are naturally quiet.” She tells the story of a storefront congregation in Kansas City. An elderly man who attended the board meetings only spoke when spoken to. The leaders learned to ask him, when they were uncertain about their discussion, what he was hearing. He could say succinctly what they were doing. He was their sage.
Olsen and Morseth have attempted to give shape to the ethereal, but not too much shape. She warns that discernment cannot be reduced to a series of steps.
Instead, Morseth calls them “movements.” The first is framing the God question: “God, what is your yearning in this matter?” The last is the summation: “God, it seems that your yearning is . …” There are eight movements between the “God questions.”
“Just like the stepping stones across a creek, you may step on many of them more than once as you cross,” Morseth said.
It is important that the “God question” truly be a question: “God, do you want us to purchase this property?” Sometimes, the question is mistakenly a statement: “God, you want us to purchase this property, don’t you?” Morseth says that allows human ego into the process. Reaching the point of surrender to God’s desire involves rigorous self-examination by all involved, and much time is spent in the “shedding” movment, which calls for the release of personal desires, letting go presuppositions about God, or the church, or the issue at hand. Morseth says the shedding movement will be visited many times before a conclusion is reached.
After framing the “God” question, the group identifies a guiding principle— a lens held before them throughout the process. This is a non-negotiable: sometimes the present vision of the congregation, its chief goal or characteristic, sometimes its founding purpose. Every option is held up to this lens to determine which is most faithful to the guiding principle.
Other movements include “improving,” where each option is pondered and bettered by recommendations from the group, and “weighing,” where all the options are tested for their spiritual weight. “In a rational, practical system, we would line up the options and vote them up or down,” Morseth observed. “In spiritual discernment, we give each option time so we can think more creatively about the possibilities. We don’t discount them even if they seem impractical or infeasible.” This process generates more ideas, and the eventual decision is often some combination of ideas that would not have emerged from one person alone.
Once an option is discerned by the group as most likely God’s leading, it is stated again as a “God” question. That is “closing,” but it is not the conclusion. The final movement is called “resting.” Morseth said, “We ask, ‘Does it rest well with God and with us? Or as the Jesuits put it, ‘Is there consolation or desolation?’
“A Presbyterian pastor told me that on major issues, the church’s session now waits until the following meeting before entering their decision in the minutes. They wait to see how it rests with them.”
Discerning when to discern
Part of discernment is knowing whether a matter is right for communal spiritual discernment. Morseth advises church leaders to choose carefully the issues they raise for spiritual discernment. “Don’t start with a hot topic, one where everyone has their minds made up. That’s a win-lose decision, and spiritual discernment is not about winning and losing. At the same time, it should be something important. Not whether to have ham or chicken at the potluck.”
She tells pastors to begin practicing the personal discipline, then introduce it into congregational decision making. Begin to reinforce awareness of God’s presence in guiding the church. “One person told me how their council lights the Christ candle in the sanctuary and brings it into the meeting room. Another man said he took a few minutes before the meeting to quiet himself in the sanctuary, rather than rushing in and joining the line of committee members at the copier. Prior to the next meeting, several board members joined him. Eventually, they moved the whole meeting into the sanctuary.”
Morseth and Olsen’s new book on selecting church leaders via spiritual discernment will be published by The Upper Room/Alban Institute in February 2002.
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