Discernment

Beginning tomorrow night (Wed.) I'll be teaching a class at church that I have titled "The Other Disciplines." I'll be focusing upon those classical disciplines that are often overlooked in today's culture. I'm going to start out with two that seem in short supply these days. The first will be discernment and the second will be holding our tongues.
Discernment in a group setting is a difficult and time consuming work, but one that is well worth the time because non of us are smarter than all of us. Now that doesn't mean that I'll be championing consensus, even though that is a good goal. I'll be helping people learn how to seek out others to help process the decisions of faith and life that so often we go alone. The second discipline is one that is actually necessary before we can practice the first. In a discernment setting if the people present don't know how to hold their tongues and speak when they have wisdom and not just opinions discernment will never happen.
One of the hardest things to learn is to know when to speak and when to keep silence. In order to encorporate this discipline into our lives the first thing we must learn is that there are other ways to do things than "my way." That there are multiple ways to do the right thing means that we can be open to God being at work in a way that we have not considered and would not necessarily embrace at first.
I think this should be a good class and pray that the people who will come to be apart of it will embrace some new perspectives and habits that will draw them closer to God.