Season Five And The Big Question

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In the book of Acts, there's four instances where the people of God get together and they seek wisdom from the Lord. And these are our examples of community spiritual discernment.

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Welcome to season five of the Church Renewal Podcast. And thanks for joining us.

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I'm Matt. I'm Jeremy.

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This season, we're exploring what Matt calls community spiritual discernment, how the church seeks, recognizes, and follows the wisdom of Jesus together. The ideas we'll discuss are also developed more fully in Matt's forthcoming book, but our purpose here is to not simply introduce a book. We want to give pastors, elders, leaders, and congregations the biblical and practical framework they can begin using now. This podcast is produced by Flores Coaching. Floors comes alongside churches in seasons of transition and renewal, placing transitional pastors and helping congregations prepare for a pastor search, understand their health, and clarify their future direction. We make this podcast to open those conversations to a wider audience so that lessons learned in one church can serve many others. Across the episodes ahead, Matt and Jeremy take up what happens when a church faces a consequential question and the right path is not obvious. They'll begin in scripture and then explore the character and communal habits this work requires. They'll also look honestly at the ways fear and control can distort the process and at practices that help a church move forward faithfully. Our goal is to help churches think more deeply about both the decisions before them and the life they share while making them. Welcome to season five.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

So,

Why Leaders Skip Prayerful Wisdom

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Matt, give us some background on community spiritual discernment and what led you to write this book in this time.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, great question. So for 15 years, I've been walking inside pastors and churches, and eight of those have been since I've been leading Flourish as executive director. And so we've worked with, I don't know, a couple of hundred churches at this point. Uh, and as an individual, I've worked with many more than that through 15 years. And one of the things that I've seen over time is that leaders have a misconception about the way that we should go about making leadership decisions. What I find is that people make leadership decisions in a way that didn't honor their brothers, sometimes their sisters around the table, depending on what the leadership group is that was making the decision. Like a pastor search committee is commonly a mixed group of men and women. And you've sort of gone back in and you're like, how did that decision end up that way? Right. And they describe it to you, and you go, Oh, okay, I I see how you made that, but that doesn't sound like a really biblical way of going about that. Right. That was really the root of this. And I think some of what we've seen over time as we've worked with churches is that they're not thinking about leadership, frankly, in a very um, this is gonna sound weird, but not in a very spiritual way. In that it's not prayerful, it's not discerned. They're just they're not really, if you will, leaning into the wisdom of the spirit. Um, and really we'll get into this more as the season goes, but I I think that they've not put themselves in the position where they've humbled themselves before the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Obviously, that is a a compelling statement that we will unpack. Sure. Before we move too far into it though, I want to ask you this who is this book for? And as you think about this person, like what's going on in their life or in the life of the church where they're involved, yeah, that would say, you'd say, hey, this this is probably right for you.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Anytime that you have a group of Christians in leadership trying to discern together, Lord, what would be wise here to go forward? It's definitely a Christian endeavor because it involves the Holy Spirit at work in the heart of the leader and uh in the hearts of people in the group. But I think it's as applicable for where a church is going as a ministry as to where you should go as a business. So you're gonna hear a lot in the season about wisdom because really what we're seeking is what's the what's the wisdom of God?

SPEAKER_02 4:07

So if you had to and if you were able to give a 30-second pitch, yeah, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I think that if your endeavor is to glorify the Lord and to lead in whatever setting you're in, whether it's a business or a nonprofit or a church, then learning how to do community spiritual discernment is the most crucial skill that you need as a leader, how to lead a group in it and how to model it. What we see in our work with churches is that they have clearly not been discerning. And at times what that's meant is we've seen churches close that refused to listen to the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Excellent. So talking about the title here, people don't have this in front of them yet. I don't have it in front of me yet. I do expect a signed copy at some point because I I you you will receive it, sir. Perfect. The title for this book is uh currently community spiritual discernment. There's no reason to believe that would change. Right. And the way you have that written, because this is not a video medium at this point, is you have the community and the discernment lowercase C and D. So you have spiritual capitalized. Explain to us why you made that choice. And what

What Community Spiritual Discernment Means

SPEAKER_02 5:16

what the obviously you're focusing here on spiritual sure as this component. Help us understand that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, and uh the first thing I want to say is that I don't think that this is uh what we might call woo-woo. I don't think that the Lord wants this to be difficult. I think that it's a discipline to do this. Um, but if you read the, if you read James 1.5 rightly, the Lord invites us to ask him and then he says he'll give generously. Right. I think that our challenge is that we hesitate to ask. We hesitate to humble ourselves, we hesitate as a group to say, Lord, we don't yet have wisdom. And that's our challenge. And I think what the Lord says is if you'll come and you just say you don't have wisdom, but you're open to the wisdom that I might provide, then I'm happy to give it to you. So I think that the the reason that we don't have it is because that we don't abide. So we don't believe John 15, 5. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Right. Prayer and dependence, asking the spirit for wisdom. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to discern the wisdom that God would give us. We're saying, Lord, we want the wisdom that comes from above. Right. We don't have it, we want it. So that's the discernment part. The community part is that leading in a group, whether it's a business or a nonprofit or in a church setting, is in community. It's not just you, should I change jobs? It's not just you and your wife, uh, should we change churches? Right. It's a group of diverse leaders who bring different things to the table. They are parts of the body of Christ, which Paul, if you follow his analogy in his talking about the body, like they actually need each other. So eventually we'll talk in the season about this synology of the puzzle, um, because I think it's a way that helps people make concrete what does it mean that the I can't say to the hand, I have no need of you, right? But when you sit around in a group that's gathered for discernment, um, do you actually believe that you need all of those other people? Right. Or do you just feel like, particularly if they're the leader of the group and you're someone like me, um, my temptation is just how can I shape this group to get out of it what I want? Right. So just putting my cards on the table, my proclivities are. But that's not um that's not what the Lord has. He wants us to humble ourselves and he wants us to actually believe that we need each other because we actually do. Um, but we're doing it by uh the Holy Spirit. And I think that in some of the settings that we work in, we know more about uh what we're against related to the Holy Spirit. We know more about what we don't believe than what we do believe. And the way that I've taught this for years now is when a group gathers for discernment, when you get to the end, you want to be able to say, just like that group at the Jerusalem Council said, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us that dot dot dot. Right. They knew that the spirit had worked in their midst. Right. That that is the that's the hallmark of whether community spiritual discernment happened. That the solution that they walked out of on that day in Acts 15, nobody brought into the room. And the Lord works in such a way in the group through the conversation that everybody goes, Wow, that's it. And we didn't have that before. And I don't think that's magic, and I don't think that's woo-woo. I think that's just opening yourselves up to the spirit and saying, Lord, we don't know, but we want to know what your wisdom is. Would you grant the wisdom that comes from above?

The Church Exists For The Gospel

SPEAKER_02 8:59

You already said that this applies to nonprofits, organizations, churches in really simple math terms. For as if I'm nine years old. Help me understand this, just to pull back the camera lens even more. What is the church? Why does it exist, and how do you know?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, so in the Reformation era, we used to talk about, you know, what the marks of the church are, right? So marks of the church have to be present, uh, preaching of the gospel of sacraments and discipline in order for a true church to exist. True church exists where there's elders and ideally deacons as well. Um, and they practice the marks, can be from uh a house church of 20 people, you know, up to a megachurch. They can all be true churches. The point of churches is that they understand why they're there. The preaching of the gospel into the lives of people means that they go out with the gospel, and as they're going, they're making disciples of pagans, teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded. Uh, a true church exists where it is after what Jesus is after. Um, Matthew 24, 14, right? Jesus says this gospel will be proclaimed to all nations, and then the end will come. Right. So if the end is not come, because you're listening to this podcast, then the reason for that is the gospel hasn't gotten to everybody yet. And that is Jesus' only sufficient reason that today dawned is the gospel hasn't gotten to everybody. Churches are there to get the gospel to people. Yes, mature them in Christ, yes, meet for weekly worship, yes, for discipline to happen. But the reason churches exist in Jesus' mind is because he wants to give the gospel to people.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

You're displeased with my answer. I love your answer.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I love your answer. Okay, good. I I just want to sit and revel in that answer, honestly. What other organization is out there that has that mission? No, what other group out there is it's like, you know what? Our core values here are proclaiming the name of Jesus so that people don't go to hell.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

We form people in Christ so that they'll go out and they'll give Christ away. It's arrested. It's yes. I I like to talk about it like as a mash hospital. Yeah. Now that analogy is getting old because I'm old. Um the mash hospital, the point of it was patch you up so you can go back out to the front line. Right? That is what the church uh gathered on Sunday is supposed to be. Patch you up anew with the gospel so that you can go back out on the front line where you live, work, and play, where there's lots of people that don't know Jesus. And when leadership groups and churches, if they're not clear on that, they're not pursuing community spiritual discernment as they seek to understand what Jesus would say about their church if he were there, the direction of their church, uh, how they should be going about the Great Commission, who they should be moving towards in love and with deeds and words. And even things like, you know, what sort of staffing do we need around here and why? Um, these are all topics for community spiritual discernment, and churches sometimes don't treat them that way.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Yeah.

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Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

So I have to ask this question next time. You

The Warning Of Removed Lampstands

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say, and you've said it a couple times already this morning, um, that Jesus there there's a very real possibility that Jesus will leave your church.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Sure. Would you please tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And what do you mean Jesus will leave the church? Sure. So if you look at Revelation 2 and 3, right, and the letters to the churches, what I like to say about that is that they are not dead letters. Right? Um, and and there are friends here that I should acknowledge. Uh Dave Miles uh is the one who first put me on to this, Ken Quick, um, in his eighth letter. They've helped me refine this perspective uh over time, but this is not their conclusion about these letters, this is mine. So I don't think these are dead letters. Um, if you look at all the letters, uh they end with, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. So even though a letter was written to a particular church, but it wasn't only for them. Right. Like the spirit wanted those seven churches and actually wanted all of the churches through time to hear these kinds of things. Listen to what the spirit says to the churches, right? From Romans 1 until the end of Revelation 3, that huge chunk of the New Testament is the Father's heart expressed to churches that have gotten off the way. Right. And his desire that they would get back on the way in response to the grace that's been given to them because of Jesus' work. When they get off the way, Jesus wants them to get back on the way. But when you look in Revelation 2 and 3, the warning that Jesus says, this is Ephesus, remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you, will come to you, and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. And so my way of putting that, Jesus' warning is that he'll come and he'll take the light and walk out with it, and he'll leave your church. And so Jesus, I what I like to say is those letters of Revelation, um, they're not dead letters. Those threats from Jesus, there's as live today as they were back then. If we don't get with Jesus' program, he does not have a reason to stay with us. Which makes the promise in the Great Commission on that Jesus says, I'll be with you. Um and this may be object objectional to people, or they may object to it, or they may think it's bad exegesis or whatever, but I think that it's helpful to say, um, I think that's a conditional promise. I don't think you can lay hold of a promise about the Great Commission that Jesus will be with you if you're not about Jesus' work. You have to combine the Great Commission with Revelation 2 and 3. So if your church is not about the Great Commission, um, you have no reason to believe that Jesus uh is with you. I guess that's the bottom line.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

If your church is not about the Great Commission, you have no reason to believe that Jesus is with you. Yeah, I know that's blunt. But there it is. It's a very provocative statement. It's a very provocative statement.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

People are used to it if they've listened to this podcast, though, for any period of time.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

They're used to the blunt New Yorker. All right. So I we're gonna circle back to that, but I want to ask you about this.

Discernment Versus Ordinary Decision Making

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Um, you break this down, this process, if you will. And you do you view it as a process?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I think it's something that you there there is a way to go about it, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Right. Yeah. So you break it down to three parts community, spiritual, and discernment. Right. And it seems to me that those three things are integral, they're interrelated. So if you have a failure in one, you're gonna have a failure or you're gonna risk a major failure in the whole uh the whole pursuit. Is that a fair understanding?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Absolutely. Okay, yeah. If you if you miss it, I mean, there are things that take discernment and there are things that don't take discernment. Uh, whether you happen to buy Apple or Dell, I don't think is a matter for discernment. It might be a matter of foolishness, but it's not a matter for discernment, right? Um, you can pick wall colors and and um, you know, uh times of well, times of service probably is borderline, but there are things that you don't yet have the wisdom for and that cannot be obtained from AI or from research from Google or whatever. They are things where you need the wisdom that comes from above. And if you try and go about something before you have that wisdom, um, more than likely it will blow up in your face. So distinguishing is this something where this is a matter for discernment? And so we enter into a different mode, if you will, uh, that's slower, um, that's prayerful, that we're that we we we intentionally go about it different than if we're choosing between Mac and PC or between this shade of color and that shade of color. Sure. Um, and so some of that is mature leaders and mature uh leader of a group, that leader slows down and says, hmm, I think this is going to be a matter for discernment. And so we should we should enter that sort of way of thinking and and moving. Um geographically, where we're sitting right now is near a location where I did transitional pastor work. And in the beginning, we could not do this. And we came up on an incident um in an elders' meeting where I lifted the agenda and I said, wow, that that's gonna be a hard one. And I didn't know how long it was gonna take and I didn't know how fractious it was gonna be. I just knew that it had the potential to be very, very difficult because it was a matter for discernment. Um but I trained the men in how to go about this, uh, how to do a lot of what we're gonna talk about in this season. Right. And it was a five-minute conversation because they had learned how to do it. Wow. It it needn't be slow. And we got done with it, and they sat back and they said, Thank you to me because I taught them how to do it. Um, and I said, Very good, gentlemen, you did it. They had done it on a very difficult thing because they had been trained in how to do it, they could do it quickly. They could hold themselves in check, they could have the right kind of conversation. They had prayed out of time because they had the agenda, right? Which is an important thing. Um, I'll just throw that in here so we make sure that it that it gets in here. One of the reasons it's important to slow down sometimes is that people process information differently. Sure. Yep. Many pastors, many entrepreneurs leading in nonprofits or businesses or churches, if you're an entrepreneurial type, you're used to being a verbal external processor. Yep. So Jeremy and I work like this. We do a lot of verbal processing, some of what you hear and some of what you don't, if you're a podcast listener. And so Jeremy and I get along really, really well because we both verbally process, right? That's not everybody.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And I also internally process. So I spend, you know, hours, weeks of hours getting ready going through, getting ready, getting questions ready. Where Matt shows up and just starts talking about. Like you've looked through the stuff 24 hours before.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah. Um so when you have in your group a mixed group of internal processors where their best thoughts about the topic are two days away from now. Right. Um, your best thoughts about the topic were 30 seconds ago. Right. If you're an external processor, if you're impatient, particularly as the leader, or if the group is immature and they snap towards a decision, you're not leveraging the gifts of those folks that are thoughtful and that are internal processors. And so if that's why it's important uh to distinguish is this a question that's just a straight decision and it should be fairly easy, and we can distinguish it. Shoot, we can probably even delegate it to a group because there's not something that's of vital spiritual significance that's at stake here. Or is this a matter for discernment? And if it's a matter for discernment, then we know we need to slow down. So you you've obviously heard of cat and dog theology.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

This sounds like microwave and crock bot theology. Ah, that's good. Yeah. You've already touched on this a little bit, but I want to ask you um in the three different parts here, the community, the spiritual, and the discernment.

Signs Your Process Is Breaking

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Are there leading indicators that you can point to someone who's, you know, we're hearing this for the first time. I've never heard this before, Matt. I'm bought into your idea of church. I get Jesus may leave the building. Right. Okay. But are there leading indicators that I could look at that you would say, hey, check these? Obviously, lag indicators are all over the place. And if we're wise, we're like we have a running list of what those are. But are there leading indicators of community portion breaking down or the spiritual or the discernment portion? Yeah. That maybe we're already off in the wrong track.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah. Uh yeah, I think for all three, we know if we're off in um relying on the spirit, if there's not an abundance of prayer. Because I think that if we really believe that apart from me, you could that you can do nothing, then we pray a lot alone and together and we seek the Lord because we actually believe that we don't yet have the wisdom. So I think that the aspect of this being by the spirit is indicated by our prayerfulness, by our dependence, by our humbling ourselves. Okay. I think the community is if there are people whose voices are not being heard, right? If practically speaking around the table, we think that we don't need the insights of this brother, or that if I'm the brother who thinks that you know my insight should be all that that matters, which is easier when you're the leader of a group, right? Right. Or the most dominant member, if even it's not the leader, right? And so I think that's where the community can break down. Um, I think the discernment breaks. Down when we don't realize that it's a matter for discernment. When we treat something that's a matter for discernment as though it were kind of straight decision making, Apple Dell, um, this color or that color, or when it's when it's not, yeah, right? When it's not, when you run into um church where uh they had limited resources to apply towards children's ministry in their church, and the decision that the discerned decision they came to was to shut down a long-term children's program in order to redeploy those resources into something that would be more appropriate and missionary to their neighborhood now. And that is just difficult to discern the cessation of something and the wise beginning of something else, not only to do it, but also how to do it so that it's humane.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Uh, Matt, defining moment. Uh, the term is community spiritual discernment. How would you define that?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah, it's a group that is gathered around an important topic that want to discern the wisdom of the Lord uh regarding that topic. And they know that they can't do it on their own and they need the spirit to do it. So it's community, spiritual discernment. So, one of the things about our work at Flourish is that we do these things called church health assessments, and we try and reflect back to the church what we think Jesus would say if he was there. We try and draw it out of them and then reflect back what Jesus might say if he were there based on their responses to questions that we ask them. And sometimes uh we tell them, I think this is what we sense that Jesus might say if he were here, and they don't want to hear that. And that's very sad. Um, lots of churches close every year, 15,000 or something crazy like that, 56 a day, which is bananas. And my sense from working with a couple hundred churches in the last 15 years is sometimes Jesus has just left the building. What he threatens to do in Revelation 2 and 3 actually makes good on, and he takes the light with him. And it's because people don't seek him and don't want his will, they want their way to the end, and they're happy for a church to close as long as they got their way, which is very sad. Agreed. Recently, um, I did uh a uh seminar on rethinking session communication, and we we'll link to that. One of the things that is difficult for leadership groups is that sometimes they've spent all of their energy discerning, uh, which is great, but they don't spend the energy to figure out how to communicate what they've discerned well, and that can mess you up as well. Um, knowledge is all you need. Um, so no, not as knowledge is not all you need, right? Um, so all that's some indicators. So the three that can break down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

If you're looking at this, you've already spoken to this, but I want to just tease us out a little bit more, maybe maybe it'll be worthwhile.

When A Decision Lacks Buy In

SPEAKER_02 24:59

What does a fracture in the community portion look like in terms of the breakdown? Yeah, is it just we don't have everyone speaking in? Is there is there is there more than that?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah. But the way that I talk about it is that the conversation at least ought to be engaged, passionate, and productive. Right? So engaged is if it's something for discernment, then we all ought to be engaged in it, right? Because it's important. It's not just, oh, I don't really care about colors. We shouldn't be, we shouldn't hesitate for it to be passionate. You look at Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council, and it's very, very clear that it was a passionate conversation. They disagreed without being disagreeable, without not bearing the fruit of the spirit towards each other. But it was also productive, it got somewhere. My uh acquaintance, L. Dayhoff, talks about the difference between um listening to hear and listening to respond. And in listening to respond, I listened to Jeremy just long enough to know where he's going. And then I'm thinking about my response. I'm really not paying attention to the rest of what he's said. I'm just waiting for him to shut up so I can start talking again. So that's listening to respond, right? And listening to hear is that I'm listening to the whole thing. And I'm listening to the whole thing because I actually believe that Holy Spirit might be speaking to the group through the person whose mouth is open right now. And you're not saying you're not limiting that to ruling elder teaching elder. No, every Christian has the Holy Spirit. It it's I can formulate the doctrine, I can be orthodox about it. It's still a great mystery that that one of the most beautiful and wonderful things about the Holy Spirit is that under the preaching of the gospel, the Holy Spirit takes someone from having a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. Right. But he's not a the way I like to say it is that he's not a it's not like he's a house flipper. It's not like he goes in, fixes it up, and goes away, sells it, closes the LLC, so he erased from liability and moves on to another one. So we so the Holy Spirit is not a flipper of people. He changes hearts and then he takes up residence. And one of the most wonderful and beautiful, and I think uh um understood and applied doctrines is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is that in some marvelous, marvelous way, as I sit here with Jeremy, the Holy Spirit lives in Jeremy and the Holy Spirit lives in me. And the Holy Spirit wants to do, we prayed at, we've been praying before we sat down to record. We prayed before we recorded. We believe the Holy Spirit has something to do in this recording. And we actually believe, Jeremy and I, we've worked enough together, we actually don't know how this is going to go. But we're trusting, we hope well, but we trust the Lord there's gonna be something useful to you as the listener. And so if we don't have a felt a really deep sense um that when somebody else around the table opens their mouth, it might be Holy Spirit speaking to the group through them. That's when the community breaks down.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

What does that particular breakdown look like? And there's there's two other questions I have sort of in the back of my mind here, but I want to stick with this one for just a minute. Yeah. When that happens, when there's not an engaged, passionate what was the third one you said? Uh productive. Productive.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Yeah. So I think what happens is that you may well make what I'll put in air quotes as a decision. In the inverse of biblical teamwork, um, that we'll talk about, um eventually a decision does get made. Sure. Yep. But it's one of those decisions where people that were in the group afterwards they say things like this um, is that what we agreed on? I I never bought into that. And those phrases tell you that yes, the meeting moved to the next topic. Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

And yes, something was put down as a decision, or you know, if it was an elders' meeting, it that made it into the minutes, right? Or it became an action item in a business meeting or in a nonprofit's agenda. And it's marked as decided.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Right. But decided does not mean discerned. Decided does not mean what a great title. And you you moved ahead. Yeah. You decided to go with something, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

But if the community did not participate fully, then I I actually don't think that that discernment's actually possible. Um so the analogy, uh and we'll say it briefly here and we'll talk about it more. The analogy is a thousand-piece puzzle and ten people around the table, and each of them have a hundred pieces in their pocket, and nobody has the box top. And that you actually can't make the picture without all of the people putting their pieces on the table.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

And caring that they're going in the right way.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah. Yeah, and caring about how you put your pieces on the table, treasuring other people's pieces, believing I only have at most a tenth of the picture. Believing that and not raising myself above somebody else or lowering them and saying, well, you know, I have 995 pieces, and yay, yeah, the rest of you might have one piece each, but I've got, you know, I have almost all of them. And not really believing that the eye needs the hands. Right. Right?

SPEAKER_03 30:31

I get that.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

So I'm gonna go off script here for a second because I think that these are questions that people may bring to this first episode here.

Wisdom Without New Revelation

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Um we're we're talking about both community and spiritual discernment. You're coming at this from a reformed Presbyterian background. Some of the things that you're saying could sound like you're saying congregationalism, and some things you're saying uh could sound on the spiritual discernment side, like uh you know, test the Holy Spirit and figure out what uh what's jiggling in your belly to know what he's saying. Right. So my questions are this Does this kind of process is this applicable both in a congregational setting, if that's where someone happens to be, as it is in a Presbyterian setting. And secondly, does what you're laying out here hold in both a cessationist and any continuationist setting?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah. So take the second one first. Uh it it yes, absolutely. It doesn't matter whether you're continuationist or a cessationist, because what we're talking about is not new revelation. So we're not adding, we're not, you know, in the most crass way of putting it, like we're not we're not adding new pages to the Bible, right? There's I guess what I'm trying to say for my cessationist brother. So continuationist settings, this kind of talk is pretty common. Fairly normal. Yeah, it's fairly normal, right? And so uh this is uh in some ways, it's not it's not as needed. There may be some correctives, there may be some tweaks, but it's the the idea that the spirit could work in a group is not objectionable in a continuationist setting, right? In a cessationist setting, I think that there's there may be hesitancy, and I'm trying to make room for an appropriate working of the spirit in community that fits in a cessationist setting, which is what the PCA is, right? Um, so uh I'm very simply trying to say that God is saying something in James that if any of you lacks wisdom, um, and that's if you'll refer to your Greek, uh, it's it's a plural. Um, it's a um we're right near the Mason Dixon line here where we're recording, but I'll use a y'all because we don't have much something else in English that works, right? If y'all lack wisdom, that's colloquially what it says, right? If y'all lack wisdom, what do you do? Then you ask of the Lord. And what happens if you do that? You just have to go over two chapters in James and you get the wisdom that comes from above. Well, how does that happen? How do you get the wisdom that comes from above? Because it certainly is not the wisdom that comes from within. And I think that's one of the major ways that the community aspect breaks down is that we refer to the wisdom that comes from within, and we're relying on men, not on the Lord. And so that's a problem. Um, so what I am trying to say is there's something going on in James, there's something going on in the book of Acts. Um, and that's whether you're in a continuationist setting or a cessationist setting, there's something going on there. Um, it's not new binding revelation on all believers, right? Um, but it is the wisdom of the Lord to be sought, and we don't seek it at our peril. And so I'm trying to encourage in many times in a cessationist setting, seek the wisdom of the Lord. He says he'll give it if you ask for it. And I think that our challenge is that we're we're not asking for it. We're just assuming that we already have wisdom, but it's I think many times then the evidence shows out that it's the wisdom that comes from within.

Scripture, Formation, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 34:15

So I have one more question to round out this first episode. Um, but before I do, I want to ask you, is there anything else that you want to cover here in this introduction to season five that we haven't yet uh touched on?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, I think as we look forward to this season, um, there are a number of things that are on my heart to share um uh publicly that I've shared privately and with leadership teams and so and you know, elder boards and sessions and different groups. Um, but I I think that my heart in this is that we as God's people learn how to be spiritually discerning and that we want to become the kind of people who can be that for the groups that we lead. And becoming the right kind of person is what equips you to do this in the right way. And that if you're not becoming the right kind of person under the gospel, um you're not gonna be equipped for this.

SPEAKER_04 35:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

It's as much about the kind of person that you are that it is um how you go about it. Almost that you can't go about it, right, unless you're the right kind of person. So it's not just about a process. It's what's the what's the spiritual formation of the person who's participating in the process?

SPEAKER_02 35:26

So final question then. What scripture do you think churches are by and large either not taking seriously or ignoring when it comes to community spiritual discernment? After listening to you, yeah, I know what I think, but I I I'd like to know what you think, and I'll toss you what I think and you can you can critique me.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Um boy, which which scripture? There's so many. There's so many that I see that churches are are not participating in the world.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

We've got 64 gigs to record too.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah, yeah, but we yeah, we have limited time in a podcast episode. What scripture? Romans 12. Paul talks about in this context as you apply the gospel to yourself that you have to have a sober evaluation of yourself. Right. And I think that we tend to not find ourselves in James 1.5 enough that we believe that we already have the wisdom. And so uh we don't humble ourselves and we don't ask. And so we never actually get into discernment because we don't think we need to. Um and so practically speaking, I think that's the one that gets violated the most is that we don't think we lack wisdom. Uh we think we already have it.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

I'll tell you what I as you were talking a few minutes ago, the scripture that came to mind that I think we're not taking seriously is um Christ saying to us, I'm the head. Yeah. You already said the the eye can't say to the hand, they can't the foot can't say to the ear. I don't have any need of you. There is a head.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah. And it's not us. It's not us. Not doesn't matter where we are. The leader of a team or a group or a business or a nonprofit or an elder board. Yeah. We're not the head.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Wow. Okay. Well, Matt, thank you for this.

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Uh that's a uh that's a fitting place to end. That's a challenging place to end. Um, there is more coming, and we will certainly unpack this more. Listener, I hope that you are intrigued at least, um, encouraged, uh perhaps even inspired to continue with us. Uh, if the book hasn't yet come out when you're listening to this, it will be out shortly, and I'd love for you to pick up a copy and share it with your leadership. Our goal here is that you would be blessed and served through this as you think together and ultimately own the skill, uh, sharpen the practice, deepen the discipline of knowing how to hear the voice of Jesus speaking to you, not only as a person, but as a congregation. That's our hope, that's our goal, and we invite you to join us again next time as we jump into more.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Community spiritual discernment begins with the conviction that the church belongs to Jesus, exists for his purposes, and must continue listening to him. In the next episode, we'll pressure test that claim. Can churches actually seek specific wisdom from God together? Or does that idea take us beyond what scripture allows?

Flourish Coaching Resources And Contact

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawn, Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy. If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information, go to our website, flourishcoaching.org, or send an email to info at floorscoaching.org. You can also connect with us on Facebook, X, and YouTube. We appreciate when you like, subscribe, rate, or review our show wherever you're listening. It can be hard for churches to ask for help, so when our clients tell us who referred them, we'll send a small gift to say thanks. Thank you to Redeemer Anglican Church in Annapolis, Maryland, for the use of their facilities to record this episode. We are humbled and grateful for your partnership. And special thanks to each of the guests who joined us this season. Flourish Coaching is proud to partner with and learn from all our colleagues where the spirit is being sought and followed. We are privileged to receive the gift of their time, experience, and expertise and to share it to strengthen the body of Christ. All music for this show has been licensed and was composed and created by artists. The Church Renewal Podcast was directed and produced by Jeremy Sefferati in association with Flourish Coaching, with the goal of equipping and encouraging your church to flourish wherever God has called you. Bye for now.