congregational spiritual discernment

Congregational Spiritual Discernment

 

There were around 20 of us who spent Friday evening and Saturday June 2 & 3 with Don Zimmer from Worshipful Work to help us look at corporate spiritiual discernment.

 

Don has his own personal history having been an office in the Air Force, then doing well as a high placed manager for a defense contractor.  However, he said, at a point in his life, he realized he needed and wanted more in his life.  That led him in a very different direction, yet in the same context.  He began to look both at his spiritual journey and the ways he led and helped to make decisions both in his business life and his church life.  He found both to be out of line with his primary values and faith.

 

Don raised for us the bottom line question of "what is our real purpose in any decision we desire to make."  Is it to get the task done OR to honor God and one another as brothers and sisters in Christ?  He said that churches spend too much time in doing the business of the church...because the work is never done.  So churches need to decide how much time to spend on the management/business so that they can focus on the primary mission of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the world around us. 

 

He introduced us to a corporate discernment process for making the vital decisions of our church life.  He pointed out that patience is foundational...maybe more than a year...for the decisions that are at the center of our life.  Listening is also essential.  Not listening so "I can get my 2 cents back at them", but just listening to hear and understand who the other person is.  The final goal of any church decision is to serve Christ and honor God.  AND all we do, say and decide is truly spiritual.  The Christian spiritual life is not one piece of the world or our lives.  It is the central connection we all have with our Creator in all we are.

 

The new Cabinet will be looking at ways to function itself with a corporate spiritual discernment attitude as well as helping us as a church to use it.  It became clear in the time with Don that we are at a crossroads as a church who finding out who we are NOW.  For the past 7 years we have been seeking to "open up the windows" and "clear out the cobwebs" so we could be more responseive to God's call in our life.  Now that that has happened, we need as a congregation to discern what we will do and who we will be in this open and airy setting of Fairlawn-West Church.

David Loar
http://discipledavid.blogspot.com ...my blog
http://www.fairlawnwest.org ...church web site   http://www.loar.org ...family web site