Discerning, Deciding and Charting Direction
Date: October 23 2010
Location: FBC Brandon
Presenter: Cam Yates
Time: 9:30-4:30
Cost: CBWC Churches $35/person Other Churches $59/person
To Register:
CBWC and other Churches
Westman CBWC Churches- register online, or with your pastor or call Don Oddie at (204)483-2463
What does God want? For me? For us?"
These are some of the most difficult, and most important questions for us to answer -- for our lives, and for our church communities.Many Christians have some sense of how they go about seeking God's will for their individual lives. But we have little sense of how we do this in groups, and for groups - e.g. how do we do this for our Small Group Bible Study, how do we find this for a ministry in which we serve in our church, how do we discover this if we serve on our church's Board or as part of its leadership team? And how do we do this together - not simply as a group of individuals, but as a community?
This upcoming workshop will help you develop capacities as a group to discern God's voice. It is especially suitable for anyone who serves in a ministry group that needs to seek God's direction: Board leaders, Small Group leaders, Pastoral Staff teams, Worship Team members, outreach ministry teams, etc.
Christian spirituality has been described as “life in the Spirit as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and daughters and sons of the Father.” No-one would disagree with this – but how do we live it out?
There is no more contentious a place for confronting the sometimes stressful living out of this relationship than in meetings called to address issues and make decisions with the intent of "knowing" God's will in the matter, e.g. ministry team planning meetings, Board meetings, congregational meetings. The word identifying this process is discernment.Just as our decision-making meetings are not the place to begin to seek to hear and respond to the Spirit's prompting, neither is discernment basically about decision-making.
Discernment is about the core relationship of human experience: living out of a relationship with God.
Discernment is most often used in relation to the individual spiritual life - it is seen as a "spiritual practice" for Christians. As important, however, is how discernment is exercised by leadership and in the shared life of a congregation.
Topics considered during this seminar:
· how the individual spiritual life is reflected in the communal spiritual life
· the effect of self-awareness (or lack of it) on group discernment
· the relationship of individually-held core values on the life of boards and congregations
· the practice of listening to and with others as we seek to hear the voice of God
· how discernment is birthed in the bond between prayerful presence and prayerful response
· how the individual spiritual life is reflected in the communal spiritual life
· the effect of self-awareness (or lack of it) on group discernment
· the relationship of individually-held core values on the life of boards and congregations
· the practice of listening to and with others as we seek to hear the voice of God
· how discernment is birthed in the bond between prayerful presence and prayerful response
This workshop will be beneficial for both individuals and groups but is designed to focus primarily on the practice of discernment in relation to groups (ministry leaders, boards and congregational leaders). Participants will be expected to engage in group discussion, personal and group reflection, and to begin identifying how discernment can be more effectively "practiced" as a spiritual discipline for the well-being of faith communities. A bibliography for use by boards, ministry leaders, and congregations will be provided at the end of the seminar.