Out of silence: the practice of congregational discernment

Christian Century, April 3, 2007 by Amy Johnson Frykholm

By integrating silence and agreeing to work by consensus, congregations learn a way of being in community together. Says author and retired Episcopal priest Mary Earle: "People begin to understand that prayer life and congregational life are of a piece. Contemplative practices teach a way of being together that is shaped by listening. In that environment, people are less likely to assume that they must manage disagreement by quarreling or leaving."

One of the great strengths of contemplative discernment practices is that they can move people toward unity. Paul Anderson, a professor at George Fox University, has been working with a group of pastors and scholars for two years on discernment in an interdenominational setting. "Progress toward unity is often more efficiently made in five to seven minutes of quiet than it is in an hour of debate." Silence, Anderson says, has a way of distilling hopes and fears, of letting muddy water settle so that groups can see more clearly.

But silence can also be painful. In our own group, silence was by no means embraced wholeheartedly. For some, silence was life's daily, dreaded companion. For others, silence was linked to their experience of failed relationships. During our first practice session after receiving the diocesan training, the silence between words proved too much for one member, who stormed out. Another confessed that silence was terribly uncomfortable. "I've never seen silence as a good thing," he said.

Experts offer two suggestions for overcoming a group's resistance to silence. One is keeping the silence limited to a specific period of time so participants know that it will not be indefinite. In our training, one member was assigned to be the timekeeper and to ring a bell to punctuate the silence after three minutes. The second suggestion is the reminder that silence needs to be practiced. Author Jane Vennard emphasizes that only through experience can a person come to know the benefits of communal silence. Silence is a discipline and something that groups grow into over time.

WHILE SILENCE IS one difficult element of congregational discernment, the second element, consensus, is perhaps even more difficult. Whether it's deciding to recarpet the hallway or determining how much to spend on outreach, most congregations use some form of parliamentary procedure. Using that procedure means that congregations have winners and losers. Up-or-down votes go to the majority, and minority voices are at that moment silenced.

Practitioners of discernment say that consensus in the context of congregational discernment is not a matter of everyone agreeing. Instead, it is a matter of seeking to determine and define God's will for a particular congregation in a particular instance. With decision making taking place in the context of prayer, punctuated by silence, the question for church councils is not "Do we all agree?" but "Do we have a sense of what God is doing?" If not, then the discernment must continue.

Seay speaks of three kinds of consensus, and in only one case does it mean total unanimity. The first kind of consensus is the easiest: everyone agrees. In the second type, someone disagrees with some aspect of the decision but has decided that she can live with it. In the third type of consensus, someone disagrees completely, but still feels that she can live with the decision. In Quaker practice, this is called a difference of "preference." A participant may determine that his difference is a matter of preference, not principle, and agree to go along with the decision of the majority.