Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World

at work. Third, discernment depends on a willingness to be surprised about the places and among the people where the Spirit might be at work. Fourth, it involves being present without a predetermined strategy for assessment.

“They feel seen,”

It calls us into the risky space of discerning where God is at work rather than depending on our own assessments of needs, which conveniently leave us in control of agendas and

What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living we call “modern Western culture

In City of God, St. Augustine wrote: “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are always too full to receive them.

“To be with people as a church member is to find ways of helping them and meeting their needs. If we do not do this, we are not Christians.

Dwelling is not guided by the need to get the text right,

Congregations see discernment as the individual work of a few “spiritual” people.

Congregations are organized counter to the practice of discernment.