“How do we as a church discern in a fresh way what God is saying and doing? How do we make decisions about our life together?”
Marcus Smucker, who holds a PhD in Religion and Psychology, and who
is a former pastor and current professor, as well as a certified
pastoral counselor and spiritual director, guided our thinking about
discernment during the 2013 Leadership Seminar held February 1 and 2 at
Lowville Mennonite Church.
“The word ‘discernment’,” said
Marcus, “literally means to separate, decide or distinguish between two
things. Spiritual discernment is the ability to discriminate between
good and not good – that which is of God and draws us closer to God and
that which does not. Discernment for the church belongs to the church,”
he said.
Friday evening we listened to several people read
John 9, the story of Jesus healing the blind man. Marcus noted that
discernment begins when we are in touch with our blindness and are
willing to cry out, “My teacher, I want to see.”
Those
familiar with the blind man were eager to define sin. In today’s church
we also want to define sin. Instead of focusing on who has done wrong,
we need to be willing to allow God to bring us to a “fresh place”, a
place where our eyes are opened to what God is doing.
On Saturday morning we focused on Acts 15, a time of conflict in the early church.
“People in difficult times always had conflict,” said Marcus. “If
we want to be the people of God, we need to take time to work through
issues. Once in a while there are issues that deserve time.”
Saturday afternoon we read Colossians 3:12-17. Discernment for the
church belongs to the church. We should be transformed by the renewing
of our minds so we will be able to test what God’s will is.
How do the people of God determine God’s will? Discernment is not
magic. There are three ways for God’s people to make decisions or to
discern, said Marcus: the democratic method, which often means the
minority is unhappy; consensus, which is not always possible; and
spiritual discernment, which is what the church should strive for.
We continued our afternoon activities by listening to three
accounts of the church at work. Dawson Grau, director of the Mennonite
Heritage Farm, described the beginnings of the farm and some of the
current activities.
Sonya Stauffer Kurtz, conference
moderator, told about the beginning of ministry at Fort Drum. Paul
Schambach talked about the response of Mennonite Disaster Service after
the damage from Hurricane Sandy.
“Discernment is an
ever-increasing capacity to ‘see’ or discern the works of God in the
midst of the human situation, so that we can align ourselves with
whatever it is that God is doing,” says Marcus. “In our rapidly changing
world with influences from television and the internet it is critical
that we remain open to God’s guidance.”
Terry Zehr,
associate conference minister, was our moderator for the seminar. The
Marvin Zehr band accompanied our time of worship Friday evening and a
group of volunteers led worship on Saturday.
Members of the
Lowville Mennonite Church were our gracious hosts for the weekend and
provided us with delicious meals and snacks.