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Minister & President’s Column

by The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal

December 2008/January 2009

There’s something else going on

Afew weeks ago I was with one of our congregations that had recently faced some challenging decisions in which the stakes were quite high.  In the course of our discussion, they asked me what I thought were the marks of a faith community that had fruitfully embraced spiritual discernment as a decision making approach.  I came up with seven qualities.

The first is trust.  A discernment process can only work in a faith community in which people trust one another.

The next is transparency.  When we articulate a position, it must be our position, not someone else’s; and we must mean it! And it must not be some trick to get something else accomplished.

As the conditions of trust and transparency are established and practiced, the community must remind itself again and again that there is “that of God” in every person.

Fourth is safety.  Over time, a congregation can establish a track record that shows how people who express divergent views will continue to be held in high esteem.  Where bullies are tolerated, discernment will never bloom.  Only in a safe environment will the “still small voice of God” be heard.

By increasing its experience of trust, transparency and safety, a faith community allows for both true confession and real candor.  These are the moments when I have experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit in its fullest form.  Sincere, courageous, unqualified, often unpremeditated sharing from the heart. 

When sharing of this quality occurs, people don’t thrust their hand to the sky to react.  They listen in awe.  They pause so that their mind and heart can stretch to embrace this new truth they had never before considered.  In this way, our patience is increased.  We become more generous with our time because the Holy Spirit is in our midst. 

And here, finally, we have come to a place where we can engage a truth larger than what we ourselves have known – a truth larger than the self. 

When a faith-community opens itself to the possibility that God may be calling it as a community to do something, or say something, or be something – it is then that these qualities emerge as spiritual food that can nurture and strengthen the congregation for the calling God has in mind.  Not only that, but when a congregation receives these God given gifts – when a congregation feasts on this manna from heaven – the relationship of the congregation to its neighborhood suddenly changes. 

If you’re part of a congregation that manages to pull off its Council meetings or Annual budget discussion without anyone coming to blows, you can certainly be grateful! But that’s not an atmosphere that would prompt you to say to a neighbor or a friend: “I wish you’d come to church with me someday.”

But if you are part of a congregation that is actively listening for and eager to engage God’s call; a congregation of diverse people who bring a wide range of theological and political views to each discussion, knowing that they will be heard and valued, and clear that it’s not each person’s role to convince or recruit anyone for their position [that would be refreshing, wouldn’t it!]; if your congregation is a place where the parking lot discussions have been welcomed into church council, and passive-aggressive behavior has given way to candor around topics like how much each of us pledges and confession about both our weaknesses and deepest hopes; if you are part of this kind of congregation, then along with most of the other members of your church, you’ll eagerly say to your neighbors and friends, “You’ll never believe what happened at our church council last night...” and as you tell them, your enthusiasm will awaken their curiosity. 

And when they join you one Sunday morning and experience community unlike any other they have ever known, they’ll return.

When such a community meets to make decisions:

• instead of suspicion, they cultivate trust;
• instead of using phrases like “people are saying,” they are transparent;
• instead of sizing up the opposition, they look for “that of God” in people whose views differ from their own;
• instead of making people wonder what can and can’t be said, they actively nurture a safe environment;
• instead of secrets, they enjoy candor and surprise one another with their personal confessions;
• instead of being tyrannized by the clock, they show patience.

These values that I have just listed are the alternative values magnificently articulated in the life and teachings of our Lord and Savior.  As he lived out these values in a time of trial and tribulation, so are we called to live them out today. 

We must now muster the leadership necessary to offer each of our cities and towns an alternative community where the kingdom of God is actively sought and joyfully received.