Order and structure, accountability and faithfulness, these are our goals. These are also the case as board structure, strategic plans, business plans, and other such administrative structures are considered. These feel like framing of a building or the skeleton of the body, but the heart, the life is discernment. The following is from our current plan for practicing discernment as a community.
Our intention as a community is to respond from a place of discerning and distinguishing God’s will and leading. Moving forward “on the basis of discernment rather than human planning” is accomplished in our life together as leaders, by being grounded in prayer and the other spiritual practices. We therefore maintain our commitment to scripture, silence, solitude, listening to God and each other, worship, intercession, self-examination, and confession as the underpinning for the discernment process.
We see discernment as a core value of our community. Because we long to have a shared sense of God’s desire and leading, this process is for those decisions that shape our identity, values, policies and direction as a community. Therefore having an attitude of discernment continually is our intent individually, but as a practice, discernment is to be engage only for these types of significant decisions.
One of the defining characteristics of spiritual community is a shared commitment to move forward on the basis of discernment rather than human planning and strategic maneuvering.
-- Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthen the Soul of Your Leadership
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