Finding God's Will

Exploring the Process of Corporate Discernment
Ruth Haley Barton
This article provided by the Engstrom Institute

It was a conversation similar to many I've had with Christian leaders. A pastor from a large church in Colorado was telling me his church was going through a major transition as it tried to respond to the growth it was experiencing. It had outgrown its facility, so the obvious question was: "Will we add on to it or start another church?"

But clearly this was only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface larger questions lurked: What should be our emphasis now? Does our mission still capture what we felt called to? Is our current leadership structure effective for what's emerging now? Can we keep going this way or will we burn ourselves out, adding a building campaign and more people and activities to our plates?

Sensing the weight he was carrying, I probed a little deeper and asked, "How are you going about answering these questions? Does your leadership team have a clearly articulated process for discerning God's will in these matters?" A look of disorienting awareness crossed his face as he realized the answer was no. After recovering a bit, he said, "We always have a time of prayer at the beginning of our meetings."

Understanding Spiritual Leadership

Many of us have a vague idea that there should be something different about our leadership as Christians—particularly if we're leading a church or Christian organization—but the difference often gets reduced to a perfunctory prayer at the beginning of a meeting! What is it, then, that distinguishes spiritual leadership?

At the heart of spiritual leadership is discernment—the capacity to recognize and respond to God's will, both personally and in community. It requires moving beyond our reliance on cognition and hard work to a place of deep listening and response to the Spirit of God within us and among us.

It's one thing to rely on what feels like a subjective approach when it pertains to one's personal life, but it's much riskier when our decisions involve large budgets, other people's financial investments, the lives of multiple staff, reports to high-powered boards, and a customer base with its expectations. Is there a trustworthy process for actively seeking God's will in the decisions we're making?

The practice of corporate discernment, like any Christian discipline, requires creating space for God's activity in our lives, making ourselves available so he can do for us what we can't do for ourselves. The spiritual leader is distinguished by his or her commitment and ability to guide the discernment process so everyone can affirm a shared sense of God's desire for them and move forward.

Through the practice of discernment in community, we open ourselves to a wisdom that's beyond human wisdom. But it doesn't take place in a vacuum, nor by accident. We must first cultivate an environment where discernment can take place and then enter a process that enables us to actively seek God's will in the decisions we face.

Cultivating an Environment for Discernment

The Scriptures indicate that the ability to discern God's will is a natural by-product of spiritual transformation. Paul says, "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good, and pleasing, and perfect his will really is."[1] Therefore, a community dedicated to spiritual transformation provides the right environment for discernment to take place.

We cultivate this environment by committing ourselves to spiritual disciplines—personally and together—that enable us to keep offering ourselves to God for the work only he can do.

When the leaders launching the Transforming Center began meeting, we desired to experience spiritual transformation in the context of community. This led us to establish rhythms of prayer, Scripture reading, self-examination and confession, solitude and silent listening, worship and intercession that called for personal transformation.

It was out of our commitment to be together in ways that were spiritually transforming that we began to discern a calling to do something together. It's only as we've struggled to stay true to our own spiritual transformation process that we've continued to discern what our calling is and stay true to it.

We continue to discover, sometimes painfully, that when our commitment to basic spiritual disciplines in community slips, we become muddled in our capacity to be truly discerning. Rather than acting from a clear sense of God's desire for us, we become driven by our own agendas; rather than experiencing God's peace, we become frantic; rather than finding clarity, we become lost in a swirl of inner and outer chaos.

Entering into the Process of Discernment

As we cultivate an environment in which discernment can take place, we notice it begins happening naturally. However, there are also times that require intentionality and focus in seeking God's will. Discernment as a spiritual practice is not mechanical, nor always linear. As we become more comfortable with the process, we experience it not so much as a step-by-step procedure, but as a creative mix of the following dynamic elements:

· Ask the right questions. Not all questions warrant a full discernment process. Some questions, such as choosing a computer system, might be answered with a 30-minute, fact-filled discussion. However, other questions require a greater level of attention and prayerfulness from the entire leadership group. Even when we think we know what the question is, a larger one may be lurking underneath it that holds even greater significance for us.

A church's question about the building project might lead to one about its mission and values, and whether a new building may or may not align with them. What starts out as a meeting to set strategy gives way to a deeper question of whether we're pushing our own agenda or whether God is really opening up new opportunities. Thus, discernment begins with listening for the deeper question.

· Involve the right people. It's amazing how we can become so stuck in organizational "silos," overlooking those who might have important contributions to make to the discernment process. In addition to the obvious (the board, the staff, the management team), we might consider who else has gifts of wisdom and discernment that we value? Who has information and experience that might help us? Who has the influence that might be able to help us communicate the outcomes of our process in an inviting way to the larger community when the time comes?

· Establish guiding values and principles. Discernment with others at the leadership level requires an extraordinary amount of safety in each other's presence and great clarity about what values govern the process.

For the Transforming Center, we've agreed on certain values we won't violate for any reason, no matter how expedient it might seem. One is our commitment to trustworthy relationships in community. We've agreed that coming together and staying together in unity is our first and most enduring task, as we pattern our relationships after Christ's commitment to his disciples. We don't just assume these things, we talk about them and seek to live them with great vigor and intent.

This means we're also committed to telling the truth. Beyond the kind of maneuvering and posturing that often takes place in leadership settings, we believe God works through all truth to bring forth the gift of discernment—even truth that seems like it might slow us down or complicate matters or take us into uncharted territory. So even when the truth is hard, we take great pains to speak the truth God has given us. When anyone has deep reservations or resistance to a particular direction or decision, we seek to trust the Spirit of God speaking through that person and wait for deeper understanding and unity.

We've never regretted the decision to honor each other in this way. In fact, God has often used this principle to save us from ourselves! Over time we've come to understand that when we compromise basic values for any reason, we've compromised our essence and we're left with little of value to offer them.

Pray without ceasing. Discernment requires much more than a perfunctory prayer at the beginning of a meeting. In fact, it involves several kinds of praying throughout the entire process. When the question for discernment has been clarified, the community for discernment assembled, and guiding principles established, we can begin with a prayer of quiet trust.

A different kind of spirit descends on us when we enter into decision-making from this stance. At times, when we sense the process is getting out of control, or that human dynamics are distracting us from the real issues, or that we're stuck, applying nothing more than human effort to the decision-at-hand, it can be helpful for the leader to call the group back to this prayer of quiet trust along with some time for silence, giving everyone the opportunity to shift back into a position of trust, rather than human striving.

We also need to pray for indifference, not the kind we associate with apathy, but rather, that we would be indifferent to everything but God's will. Often, we enter into decision-making with strong opinions and more than a little self-interest. Indifference in the discernment process means eliminating ego, prestige, organizational politics, personal advantage, personal comfort or favor, or even my own pet project. It's a prayer that says: God's will, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

That takes time, because there's a death-to-self that's required before we can see God's will taking shape in our lives. But giving time and attention to this is well-spent, because otherwise the discernment process becomes little more than a rigged election!

When we've reached a point of indifference, we're finally ready to seek God's wisdom, which he bestows generously when we ask. The prayer for indifference is an important pre-requisite to the prayer for wisdom because God's wisdom is often foolish to us.

· Listen. At the heart of the discernment process is the choice and ability to listen on many levels. First, we must ponder deeply the experiences that caused us to ask this question in the first place. When the New Testament believers were faced with whether or not circumcision should be required for Gentiles to be saved, they entered into a time of deep listening to their conversion experience, the perspectives of those who were with them, the arguments of the Pharisees, the sense of personal calling Peter had to the Gentiles, the signs and wonders described by Paul and Barnabas, the exposition of Scripture by James, connecting this experience to the words of the Old Testament prophets.

Finally, after all that listening, James dared to state what he felt God was saying in it all: that they would not impose any further burden on the Gentiles beyond the essentials of the faith. The process had been so thorough that it was clear to everyone that the wisdom of God had been given.

This illustrates that the discernment process involves a major commitment to listening with love and attention to our experiences, to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit deep within ourselves and others, to Scripture and Christian tradition, to pertinent facts and information, to those who will be affected most deeply by our decisions, to that place in us where God's spirit witnesses with our spirit about those things that are true. When we embark on a true discernment process, we ask, "What voices do we need to hear, and how do we make sure we're really hearing them?"

· Select an option that seems consistent with what God's doing among you. Discernment doesn't always come with great clarity. When it's not clear, selects options, seek to improve upon them so they're the best they can possibly be, and then weigh them to see which seems most consistent with what God's doing in your midst.

Questions that help us weigh these alternatives are: What's the thing God is making natural and easy? What brings a sense of lightness and peace, even in the midst of challenge? Does one option enable us to do something before we do everything?

· Seek inner confirmation. Sometimes in the excitement of the moment we can get carried away by what's happening. Depending upon the significance of the decision, we may need some time apart to become quiet in God's presence, to pray and think, to see if we're still at peace with the decisions being made. Sometimes it's good to take a break (an hour, a day, even a week) and then come back together and check with each other to see what God's been saying to them.

If people are experiencing deep, inner peace with the options you're exploring, affirm that together. If anyone has questions or reservations, honor that person by listening and seeing what God has to say to you in it. Perhaps one element of a particular option needs to be tweaked, or perhaps a larger adjustment made. Trust God to work through this person's hesitation.

• Agree together. Once the leadership group has thoroughly explored the options, hopefully a clarity emerges which points toward one of the options or some combination of them as particularly graced by God with wisdom and truth.
  
  There's a time when those who've taken responsibility for leadership look at each other and say, "To the best of our ability, we agree this particular path is God's will for us, so this is the direction we'll go." Then we rest in God, thanking him for his presence with us and for the discernment given.
  
  Now it's time to move forward with the planning and implementation, confident that "the one who has called you is faithful and he will do it."[2]

Ruth Haley Barton is co-founder and president of The Transforming Center, a ministry dedicated to caring for the souls of pastors, ministry leaders and the congregations they serve. A teacher, spiritual director, and retreat leader, Ruth is the author of several books including Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry (IVP, 2008), Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation, and Invitation to Solitude and Silence. For more information, visit www.thetransformingcenter.org.

[1] Romans 12:2b NLT
[2] 1 Thessalonians 5:24 NIV