This article is the fourth in a series entitled Worship in community, exploring the interaction between the worship of the church community and the relationships between the people in that community. Previous articles introduced this series, explored the historic Baptist practice of forming church covenants, and considered the communal dimensions of baptism. This article looks at the Baptist practice of corporate discernment. Read the other columns here.
A core characteristic of Baptist churches is their emphasis on congregational discernment as the mode for decision-making within the congregation. This article explores the connections between discernment and worship, and the role of discernment in the discipleship of the community.
Discernment and Worship
Congregational discernment is rooted in the strong conviction that Christ is present, by the Spirit, within the congregation and therefore the congregation can be led directly by Christ, without the need for intermediate authorities. As the congregation seeks to be led by Christ, worship is necessary preparation for discernment.
Worship reorientates us towards God and God’s priorities and reminds us that it is God who gathers us together as God’s new community. Worship helps us to lay aside our own personal preferences or opinions to seek what it is that God is saying to us. However, worship is not just the source of discernment, corporate discernment is itself an act of worship.
British theologian Paul Fiddes compares the church meeting in which corporate discernment takes place, to the eucharist, in which God takes material earthly things and uses them to facilitate a divine-human encounter. In the case of the church meeting, the material God uses is the members’ own bodies gathered together. Therefore corporate discernment should never be isolated from the worship of the church but rather incorporated into the worship of the church where it belongs.
Considering corporate discernment as an act of worship, helps us to examine some of the assumptions that sometimes creep into our understanding and practice of church meetings.
Theocracy not democracy
The church meeting is not a democratic forum in which individuals state their preferences, but rather an occasion in which the gathered church seeks to discern together what Christ, its Lord, is saying to them through the participation of every member of the church. The aim of the church meeting is not to decide things based on a simple majority but to hear the voice of the church’s Lord and to commit to obey what the Lord says
A counter-cultural model
In their use of church meetings, early Baptists were not just echoing the democratic values of Western culture, rather. the Baptist process was based on the conviction that every person has a relationship with God so can be involved in the governance of the church. The early Baptists did not use voting and when voting was introduced it was counter-cultural. At a time when voting in general elections was restricted to only a small percentage of the population (the landed (male) gentry), Baptists allowed all members, men and women of any social or economic status, to participate.
Rethinking a reliance on voting
In contrast to these early Baptists, in our current context voting has become a way of perpetuating the dominant power structures in our society and works to reinforce the perceptions of individual rights and personal preference that dominate our Western cultural norms. Those skilled in rhetoric or with the appearance of specialised knowledge are able to dominate the discussion and the adoption of more business-orientated models of meeting have also sometimes led to more adversarial modes of conduct. These models have also tended to decrease the number of people who participate in the decision-making processes and restricted the range of topics that are discussed to a more limited number of areas, usually related to church finances and property.
Hearing from Christ means hearing from everyone
In contrast, our church meeting should challenge the assumption of human competence, recognising that everyone is equally incompetent to discern the mind of Christ and equally reliant on the Spirit to know the will of Christ. It is on the basis of a shared reliance on the Spirit that everyone is able to contribute. As British theologian Stephen Holmes says,
“In Christ then, there is no educated or uneducated, rich or poor, old or young, male and female, or competent and incompetent. All are one, made one body through the blood shed on the cross, gathered in humble dependence on the Holy Spirit to seek together the miracle of knowing the mind of Christ.”[i]
How can our church meetings become spaces in which we hear from those voices that are usually marginalised or excluded? How can the voices of the young be included?
Theologian Robert Muthiah sees a need to move beyond business models of meeting with their focus on efficiency and the goal of making decisions as quickly as possible. In contrast, if Baptists are to seek the will of the Lord the focus should be on taking the time to hear all the voices, seeking to be led by the Spirit, and drawing on the tradition of how things have been done in the past. The desired outcome is not just about making the decision but making the decision in such a way that it enhances the unity in the community. The process itself needs to witness to Christ.
Discernment and Discipleship
The phrase church discipline has fallen out of favour in the last few decades, probably for good reason given its openness to abuse and manipulation, but this was a key component of the early Baptists practice of corporate discernment.
Baptists historically did not look to a central authority figure to determine how they should live. Rather, Baptists turned to the church as a whole to discern what was and was not appropriate behaviour for a follower of Jesus. When someone strayed from what was acceptable, the authority to discipline or correct church members was held not by the pastor, or the leadership of the church, but by the church meeting, as Christ’s rule was expressed and determined in the gathered church. Spiritual development was a community matter. It was right and proper for the community to be involved in the formation of the individual.
This is a challenging concept for us to hear in our individualised culture where the rights of the individual reign supreme but perhaps there is a need more than ever in the complex world in which we live to come together to discern what it means to live as a follower of Jesus in the complexities of modern life. What do we do about AI? How do we respond to climate chaos? Are there any solutions to homelessness?
By restricting the topics that are discussed at church meetings to finance and buildings rather than the difficult conversations about discipleship have we neutered the potential power of church meetings to shape us as people and a community? Could we take a much wider view of the sorts of subjects we might discern together?
As congregational discernment is founded on the lordship of Christ and Christ is Lord over all creation, not just the church, then the church can discern together about a diverse range of issues: political, economic, and social. This discernment is a dynamic process based on the belief in the real presence of Christ among the congregation. As this is a living presence, it means that the outcome can never be predetermined, and the congregation must be willing to be surprised or to face the unexpected as they seek together the mind of the living Christ.
Autonomous but not independent
A final note is needed about the “A” word. Yes, “autonomy”. While this article has emphasised the importance of each local congregation being under the rule of Christ and able to discern that rule for themselves, we must be careful that a focus on the autonomy of the local congregation does not lead to isolation or independence in decision-making.
Local churches are both the body of Christ and a part of the body of Christ. The whole exists in the part and the part in the whole, as each congregation is fully a church but also exists in the full church. Therefore, an emphasis on the autonomy of the local congregation should not lead to an inability to associate with other churches.
The basis for associating together is that these other churches are all equally under the same rule of Christ, allowing oversight to flow between the local congregation and the community of churches.
“Because it stands under the rule of Christ, the local congregation can never have decisions imposed upon it from outside; but because the churches together stand under the same rule, the single congregation must always listen carefully to the other churches in its task of finding the mind of Christ.” [ii]
Conclusion
By its very nature, corporate discernment is something that needs to be done in community. Incorporating it into both the worship and discipleship of the church helps to not only strengthen the interpersonal relationships within the church but also aids the church community to realise the importance of these relationships for their worship and discipleship. As they discern together, the church community makes explicit the link between the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the church’s relating and can grow in love for God and each other.
Image: Photo by Matheus Amaral on Pexels.
Other columns in this series
Worship in community: setting the scene
Worship in community: what’s membership got to do with it?
Worship in community: how the water of baptism binds us together
Sources
Blythe, Stuart. “‘Your Will Always Be Done’: Congregational Discernment as Contextual Discipleship.” Pages 74–88 in Gathering Disciples: Essays in Honor of Christopher J. Ellis. Edited by Myra Blyth and Andy Goodliff. Pickwick Publications, 2017.
Ellis, Christopher J. Gathering: A Theology and Spirituality of Worship in Free Church Tradition. SCM Press, 2004.
Fiddes, Paul, and Stephen Finamore. “Baptists and Spirituality: A Rule of Life.” Pages 1–23 in Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality. Edited by Paul S. Fiddes. Regent’s Study Guides 14. Regent’s Park College, 2008.
Fiddes, Paul S. “Preface.” Pages vii–ix in Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality. Edited by Paul S. Fiddes. Regent’s Park College, 2008.
———. Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology. Paternoster Press, 2003.
Greggs, Tom. Dogmatic Ecclesiology: The Priestly Catholicity of the Church. Vol. 1. Baker Academic, 2019.
Holmes, Stephen R. Baptist Theology. T&T Clark, 2012.
———. “Knowing Together the Mind of Christ: Congregational Government and the Church Meeting.” Pages 172–88 in Questions of Identity: Studies in Honour of Brian Haymes. Edited by Anthony R. Cross and Ruth Gouldbourne. Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, 2011.
Muthiah, Robert A. The Priesthood of All Believers in the Twenty-First Century: Living Faithfully as the Whole People of God in a Postmodern Context. Pickwick Publications, 2009.
Picard, Andrew. “‘On the Way’ and ‘In the Fray’ in Aotearoa: A Pākehā’s Covenantal Reflections from the Context of a Treaty People.” Pac. J. Baptist Res. 11.1 (2016): 44–58.
Sutherland, Martin. “Gathering, Sacrament and Baptist Theological Method.” Pac. J. Baptist Res. 3.2 (2007): 41–57.
Weaver, John. “Spirituality in Everyday Life: The View from the Table.” Pages 135–67 in Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality. Edited by Paul S. Fiddes. Regent’s Study Guides 14. Regent’s Park College, 2008.
Endnotes
[i] Stephen R. Holmes, “Knowing Together the Mind of Christ: Congregational Government and the Church Meeting,” in Questions of Identity: Studies in Honour of Brian Haymes, ed. Anthony R. Cross and Ruth Gouldbourne (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, 2011), 185.
[ii] Paul Fiddes and Stephen Finamore, “Baptists and Spirituality: A Rule of Life,” in Under the Rule of Christ: Dimensions of Baptist Spirituality, ed. Paul S. Fiddes, Regent’s Study Guides 14 (Regent’s Park College, 2008), 9.
