Post date: Jun 7, 2013 11:51:14 AM
Listening for God: together and individually
Listening for the voice and direction of God is hard work! Sometimes I wish it were more like Biblical times when God seemed to communicate with God’s people more directly. It would be so helpful to have a voice coming from a burning bush like Moses. Or to hear God give specific instructions for life like were given to Noah about the ark and animals. Or perhaps like Paul, we could get whacked upside of the head and in one instant change our entire way of being. Even though most of us most of the time do not hear from God in these ways, I hope and I pray that we do still seek to discern God’s voice and direction amid the cacophony of voices around us.
I believe that we best discern God’s voice and direction collectively as God’s people. Listening for God really does work best in community. The saying “two heads are better than one” definitely applies for listening to and for God. Collectively, through individual prayer, communal prayer, and conversation with one another, God’s voice and direction can more faithfully be discerned, than if only one person or only a few are doing the discerning for the group. Often when a many among a group of God’s people are called or feel pulled in one direction, this is the will and voice of God speaking. While this is not always the case (including sometimes in the Bible like when the Biblical prophets stand up and call for the people of Israel to return to their faithful worship of God), more often than not, we do make more faithful decisions together than we do individually. This is one of the reasons why I believe it is so important to have open and honest communication as a congregation. This type of communication helps us all hear our individual discernment as part of the communal discernment of the faith community.
While it’s fairly clear that discerning God’s direction together involves us all putting our heads together and listening alongside of one another, it’s less clear how to discern and listen for God in our individual lives. Individually, I believe the way to listen for God’s voice is to listen within yourself to what God may be doing and saying for your life, and then checking that voice with what others may believe and hear as God’s call for you and your life.
A great example of how this type of discernment works is when a person is called into rostered leadership in the ELCA (for instance, when someone discerns that they feel called to be a pastor). There is a two part call for individuals. First, an individual, by their own volition, needs to be compelled or pulled into ordained ministry. Then secondly, the community must affirm this calling. In our church this happens by an individual having a sense through prayer and listening for God that God is calling them to be a pastor. They need to discern that it is not only their dream, but God’s dream for them as well. As this sense of call is beginning to develop inside of someone, they then need confirmation from a wider community that others also see them as being called to be a pastor. Often this begins with trusted and close friends and family and their home faith community or congregation. From here then the wider church affirms this calling through a process called candidacy. At various steps along the way towards becoming an ordained minister this calling is confirmed both internally and by the wider church.
Listening for the voice and direction of God is challenging both communally and as individuals. By collectively discerning their future direction, I believe a group of faithful people can more fully hear the direction in which God is calling them together. As individuals, listening for one’s own calling and then receiving confirmation of that calling by the community can help us discern where and how God is calling each of us in our own lives.Faithfully and humbly listening for
God alongside of you,
Pastor Adam