Missional Discernment (Part 2)

Discernment as the Missional Church’s Way of Life

My previous post on missional discernment concluded with the promise of a model of the discernment process. My comments there point beyond the vital indications in the surveyed biblical passages. Scripture bears witness to the fact of discernment in the life of the first-century church and narrates some of its essential components, but it does not serve to explain that process thoroughly. Further explanation is the work of a constructive approach to theological reflection that takes the biblical story into account and relies on a larger theological framework to say more. Missional theology, as well as my own experiences, contribute to the framework that I employ to that end.

Before proceeding, I should clarify what the missional church seeks to discern. The previous post identifies two interests apparent in Acts 13 and 15, namely, what God is calling us to do and how should we understand God’s purposes. Call these practical discernment and theological discernment. Practice and theology are not discrete issues—all theology is practical and all practice is theological—but they do represent distinct emphases as the church confronts the challenges that arise from participation in God’s mission. Along the way, it is appropriate and necessary for the church to ask, sometimes in separate moments, What should we think? and What should we do? These are the basic questions that discernement addresses.

I believe that discernment is essential to missional ecclesiology, so much so that I characterize it as our way of life. The idea of missional discernment represents how the church participates reflectively in God’s mission, which constitutes the very being of God’s people. Moreover, I suggest that this model of the discernment process, or something like it, represents the primary method of theological articulation for local churches engaged conscientiously in God’s mission:

The circle at the center of the diagram indicates that discernment is an ongoing process. Although I begin with theological imagination at the top of the circle, a community might break into the process at any point because its circularity inevitably brings us through each part.

Theological imagination

How the church conceives of God, itself, and the world—and therefore the relationships between the three—determines how we participate in God’s mission. At the same time, how the church conceives of these basic relationships is a result of theological discernment steeped in (or disconnected from!) participation in God’s mission. For example, if we imagine that God is redemptively present and active, the church is caught up in the divine purposes, and the world is the realm of God’s inbreaking kingdom, we live differently than if we imagine that God is a distant moral judge, the church is a refuge from corruption and condemnation, and the world is a sinking ship bound for destruction.

Commitment

The church’s commitment to participation in God’s mission (or lack thereof) naturally follows from our theological imagination. Faith in the Triune God whose life is revealed in the sending of the Son and the Spirit—and results in the sending of the church in the power of the Spirit—comes to expression in an ecclesial posture of openness, prayerfulness, and cruciformity (cross-shaped-ness). Our response to the Holy Spirit’s leading into redemptive work begins with openness to it: we expect that the Spirit must be discerned in order to participate well in God’s ongoing work and we accept the uncertainty of human discernment. For missional ecclesiology, commitment to God’s action in our context is embodied especially in persistent prayerfulness for eyes to see and ears to hear, for wisdom and insight, for the gifts and fruit of the Spirit, and ultimately, for the kingdom’s coming. In the end, the commitment that characterizes missional discernment is expressed in our “yes” to Jesus’s call to die to ourselves and follow him into the kingdom.

Relationship

The Spirit leads the missional church into relationship, for relationship is the essence of mission. Indeed, relationship expresses the nature of the divine life, which is the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As all creation reflects the glory of God and humanity is created in the image of God, communion is the horizon of the restoration, reconciliation, and consummation of all things in Christ by the Spirit to glory of the Father—the redemption of every relationship. Toward and from critical practices of missional participation, discernment proceeds: faithful presence in our wider communities, mutual hospitality toward the other, and sincere dialogue in the midst of difference, misunderstanding, and conflict. Particularly important for the missional church is presence, hospitality, and dialogue at the margins of society, where relationships of solidarity manifest the loving intentions of God for the poor and oppressed.

Listening

In the relationships that missional participation comprises, the church seeking to discern the what to think and what to do must learn to listen carefully not only to the Spirit, Scripture, and voices of Christian tradition but to our neighbors, our wider community, and our culture. Listening requires, first, attentiveness. By paying close attention, we discover the questions that demand answers if we are to respond faithfully to God’s work. Asking questions without presuming pat answers manifests the missional church’s humility before the mystery of God’s will in time and space. Asking questions without jumping to quick answers requires an exercise of the Spirit-given patience that bears witness to our confidence in the God for whom a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.

Experimentation

Discernment both emerges from and gives rise to experimentation. Admittedly, experimentation sounds risky and frivolous to many Christians. The truth is, commitment, relationship, and listening often lead us to conclude that we need to try something new—at least, new to us. But we do not enact new plans with the certainty that they will “work,” much less that they are God’s will. Instead, we step out in faith to explore the new possibilities that our discernment has generated. We do so with the creativity born of the Spirit of creation, openness to possibilities beyond our imagination, and humble willingness to fail in the pursuit of faithful participation in God’s mission.

Reflection

Following experimentation, it is necessary to take stock of what we have learned. As the Spirit guides the church to truth, the learning process is responsive. We must actively recollect the story of our experience in mission, meditate prayerfully on its implications, and dialogue openly about its interpretation. Recollection entials storytelling. Those who have encountered God in relationship to the other through listening and service recount their perceptions of God’s work. Together, the church receives and prays over these perceptions. Consequently, we discuss them in relation to our existing understandings of Scripture and tradition. By opening ourselves to the Spirit’s guidance through prayer and worship, we may discern God’s purposes in our context and confirm or revise our plans for further participation in God’s mission.

Biblical interpretation

Undboutedly, Scripture accompanies every moment of the discernment process. Through it, God shapes the church’s theological imagination, enlivens our commitment, guides our relationships, gives us ears to listen, encourages our experimentation, and aides our reflection. But a distinctive moment of biblical interpretation follows from these missional experiences. The church returns to Scripture, focusing our attention on the endeavor to understand what it uniquely reveals in light of participation in God’s mission. The questions that have arisen in the process of dicernment accompany our return to Scripture. They inform our close reading of the biblical text and the interpretive dialogue that ensues. Questioning, close reading, and dialogue, in turn, give rise to new understanding and elicit our response.

Response

The church’s response to new understanding—whether of what to think or do—culminates in repentance, confession, and worship. We repent of our sin, failure, and misunderstanding, turning more fully toward God’s purposes. We confess our faith in the Triune God, renewed and enriched through discernement. And we worship with the praise and thanks due the one in whose redemptive work we have been privileged to participate. These transformations, in turn, reshape our theological imagination. And so the process proceeds, as long as God’s Spirit leads the church in mission.