A Discernment Process for Spiritual Leadership

I’m nearing the end of Ruth Haley Barton’s excellent book Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. In Chapter 12, Finding God’s Will Together, she outlines a process for discerning God’s will as a group. The emphasis is on discernment. I’ve used some of these before, but I found this to be the best explanation and most complete process I’ve heard described.

I really appreciate Barton’s emphasis on both solitude and group. I really appreciate her statement that combines spiritual community with spiritual leadership.

You get somewhere by discerning God’s will and doing it together.

1. Clarify the question for discernment.
2. Assemble the community of wise stakeholders who have used discernment processes in their individual lives. Involve people who are committed to the process of personal transformation, who have experienced personal discernment in their own decision-making.
3. Establish or re-affirm guiding principles that will govern the process. Discernment at the leadership level requires an extraordinary amount of safety in the group process. Trustworthy relationships are crucial. Discuss and agree on the values.
4. Begin with a prayer of quiet trust. Barton suggests this from the Book of Common Prayer:
   

   Oh God, by home we are guided in judgment,
   and who raises up for us light in the darkness:
   Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties,
   the grace to ask what you would have us to do;
   that your spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices,
   and in your straight path we may not stumble;
   through Jesus Christ our Lord; Amen.

5. Pursue a state of indifference to anything but God’s will — nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Ask “What needs to die in me in order for the will of God to come forth in and among us?”
6. Listen on many levels. Listen to our experiences. Listen to inner promptings by the Holy Spirit. Listen to fact and information. Listen to testimony from those most affected. Pay particular attention to distress, confusion, desolation and difficult emotions.
7. Listen within through periods of silence. Break up group meetings with periods of individual “listening prayer” where individuals spend time in silence focusing on a common passage, then share with each other what they heard from God from this passage regarding the question for discernment. Not all may hear something specific, while others may. Listen as a group to what each shares he or she heard from God. Manage group dynamics through periods of individual solitude. Allow dysfunctions to be named. Allow periods for self-awareness.
8. Select an option consistent with what God is doing among the group. If no single option stands out, identify 2 or 3 options and refine them. Ponder the options to see which sit well with the group, which bring consolation or desolation. Seek inner confirmation.
9. Agree together. Unity is the fundamental marker that God’s will has been discerned. As an expression of faith, thank God together for his presence and his gift of discernment.

You get somewhere by discerning God’s will and doing it together.

What do you think? How have you used a discernment process for hearing God’s direction and doing it?