Out of silence: the practice of congregational discernment.

The Christian Century | April 3, 2007| | Copyright

I HAD AGREED, along with 11 other people from my congregation, to attend a program on congregational discernment, but I was not looking forward to it. I was skeptical of the diocese's ability to teach a nonbureaucratic method of reaching decisions, and I was also skeptical about our group's ability to discern anything. Few of us could have defined the word discernment, and none of us had any idea what we were in for.

Congregational discernment is a vague phrase, and yet it is one gaining a foothold in many churches. The concept is shaping concrete practices, such as the way ...

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