Decision by Prayer

To the vestry and rector of St. Swithun’s on the Green:

At your annual vestry workshop you described yourselves and many in the parish as “tired,” even “burned out.” You decided that your first task was to find ways of “recharging” parish spiritual batteries, beginning with vestry meetings. You asked for help. I suggested learning how to make decisions by prayer.

Prayerful decision-making has a long tradition. In modern times, the sixteenth century Jesuits developed a method of “communal discernment.” In the seventeenth century the Quakers developed a discipline for seeking the “sense of the meeting.” The basic conviction of both practices is that the Holy Spirit is present in the Christian community and is seeking to guide it. This is a very “high church” view. It takes seriously the status of the church as the community of the Holy Spirit whose members are each given a spiritual gift and called to a specific ministry. The Quakers speak of the “Inner Light” that guides their deliberations. The Jesuits teach that God has made human beings rightly, such that if you pay attention, you can actually feel God working within you, and on this basis a community can be guided in making its decisions.

The Quakers have a practice of weighing “concerns.” The Jesuits weigh “consolations” and “desolations” to make their decisions. By “consolations” they mean those feelings given us by God to lead us towards him and by “desolations” those feelings which signify a moving away from God. Both groups teach strict disciplines of prayer, of seeking the will of God rather than one’s own, of listening carefully to minority views, of patiently taking time to move step by step, of testing for consensus. From these two traditions, from the group dynamics movement of modern-day business, and from my own experience I offer some principles and methods for our use in the church today:

1. Scrap Robert’s Rules.

Robert’s Rules of Order are a precious heritage of American and British democracy. They provide for fair and workable rules of debate, for hearing the various sides of an argument, and for finally taking a majority-rule vote. Such a method is essential to our form of government. It is essential in most American large-group decision-making processes. But it is based on adversarial relationships, on persons’ taking sides and duking it out. We want a fair fight; so we use Robert’s Rules.

That’s not what the church is about. We want to work in cooperation, not as opponents. We don’t want winners and losers. Whatever our decision-making method, we want it to build up the Body of Christ, not to make divisions among us.

We are also different in that we are seeking not the will of the majority, but the will of God. So we need a method of decision-making that is explicitly designed to seek God’s will, to keep us in unity, and that works in cooperation, not opposition.

2. Choose prayer.

The Quakers and Jesuits meet in prayer to make their decisions. We need to do the same. Below I spell out one method for doing so.

3. Work by consensus.

Consensus does not mean unanimity. It does not mean everybody agrees. It means a willingness to support the decision, a willingness to commit yourself to it, even if you don’t agree — or, at least, not to fight against it. The Whirlpool Corporation uses a method of voting by thumbs that helps make this clear. If you’re in favor of something, you put your thumb up; if you’re against it, you put your thumb down; and if you’re willing to go along (either supporting the decision or not fighting against it), you put your thumb sideways. Consensus is reached when all the thumbs are either up or sideways and no thumbs are down.

Notice that I said all thumbs. This method does not provide for abstention. If someone is not ready to make a decision, we continue our deliberations (except in emergency circumstances, as noted below).

A word of caution. If there are a lot of sideways thumbs on an important matter, it may be well to postpone the decision until it is clearer to the group.

4. Take time.

Consensus often takes a long time. You need to commit yourself to that.

The alternative to taking the time—as tiresome as it sometimes is—is to brush aside the concerns of a minority or to vote them down. The result is a division within the community, a tearing down, not a building up, and all too often a failure to discern God’s will.

Sometimes, however, the decision is urgent; it can’t wait. In that case you may have to resort to majority rule or to decision by the rector or the bishop or someone else in authority. We’re not talking impracticality here.

5. Silence is basic to decision by prayer.

Silent “centering down” is the heart of listening to the Spirit. Meetings need to begin in quiet prayer in order to center down, and during the course of a meeting, when it appears that the group is locked into confusion or a clash of views, a basic remedy is for the meeting to become silent once again and return to the center. And it is probably a good idea to get in the habit of scattering moments of silence throughout the meeting. It’s amazing what the Spirit says to us when we stop talking!

6. Participants pray in preparation, in particular seeking to discern their own self-will and seeking to give it up.

The Jesuits practice a strict discipline of preparatory prayer intended to lead persons to an interior freedom in which they are poised to do the will of God, not their own. Meetings should be times of carefully listening to one’s own heart and trying to express it clearly, and times of carefully listening to the hearts and minds of other participants, not adversarial times in which we seek to win our point of view and defeat those of others. Our guide is to be the signs of the Spirit, not our own desires.

Therefore participants commit themselves to give up self-will. They pray in advance to this end by asking God to reveal their self-will to them and help them to give it up. At the beginning of work on an important topic, each participant tells the others their particular desires and wants and their commitment to giving them up to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They also ask the other participants to watch over them in this process and if the others see them to be acting out of self-interest, to point this out to them.

7. Respect and enforce conscientious dissent.

It is very important that the vestry listen to a dissenting minority. Over and over in human history it is the minority that has heard the voice of God and the majority that has been blind. Therefore it is important to be patient with the person who repeatedly refuses to go along. In such a case we are called to listen to what the person has to say and to explore that person’s point of view as fully as we can. We may need to devote many sessions to such an effort. Or we may need to postpone a decision indefinitely. We do not want to find ourselves opposing the will of God.

However, sometimes there are people who are unwilling to listen to any point of view but their own. Sometimes there are members who are just stubborn or who simply do not understand what it means to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The vestry cannot function with even one such member.

If it becomes apparent that someone is blocking vestry work out of self-will, that person needs to be “eldered,” that is, the rector and senior warden or other leading vestry members need to go to that member, explain matters, and ask firmly that he or she desist from blocking the leadings of the Holy Spirit.

8. There is to be no argument or attempt at persuasion.

Participants are collaborating to see where the Spirit is leading them. Therefore, no attempts at persuasion, no argument, no rebuttal. Only attempts at clarifying, expanding, exploring, testing.

9. The rector, or other moderator, works as summarizer and clarifier.

The moderator, as moved by the Spirit, summarizes from time to time where he or she perceives the group to have arrived. The summary is presented to the group and the moderator asks whether this summary accurately represents the group work so far.

10. For large and controversial topics work together in an order sensitive to group process.

A common way for controversy to begin is for Joe to propose action — “I move that we cancel the 9:15am experimental liturgy”! And you know what happens next. A fight. Sides line up and a power struggle begins.

Joe has begun with a solution. He sees a problem and he proposes the answer. This is a sure way to stir up opposition, division, and confusion.

Current studies in group dynamics have discovered a process by which a group can work on controversial issues in a cooperative and non-divisive way. Instead of beginning with a solution, we begin with the situation. What’s the situation that’s stirring up Joe’s feelings? What’s the problem he’s seeing and that he’s trying to solve? Let’s look — together — at this situation first, before we try to see what we can do about it.

A Deliberation Process for Vestries

After the vestry has prayed and kept silence the above diagram can guide it in its work. Think of it as an order to follow, but also as an order of coercion. If somebody starts with ACTION without consulting anyone else, there will almost always be trouble. Or if somebody announces a DECISION, there’ll be trouble too. There’s less if Joe comes in with a SOLUTION, but still that usually stirs up opposition. But if someone comes in with a problem, with a SITUATION that needs looking at, there is usually a cooperative reception. Besides, if we’re clear about the situation somebody wants to address, then we’ll be clearer about possible solutions.

So the first step when someone voices a concern is to explore the situation. The vestry works together simply to describe the problem or opportunity in all its relevant aspects. Then when the vestry has achieved a shared understanding of the situation, it is ready to move on to the next stage.

The key here, once again, is to work cooperatively. We are committed not to take sides. To this end it helps to develop more than one possible solution. Let’s say that the problem Joe has seen is a problem of deportment. The young people coming to the 9:15am service have been making a lot of noise. One solution is to cancel the service. There are probably alternatives.

When the group has developed alternatives, stated clearly and in a form requiring a yes or no answer, Con-Pro comes into play. The Jesuits developed “Con-Pro” testing as a method that goes far toward avoiding divisions in the Body of Christ.

Here is a stage at which it is especially important to pray in advance to give up your self-will. And at this stage the deliberation should begin by everybody stating what that self-will is and asking the group for help in giving it up.

Then, taking the alternatives one at a time, the entire group lists on newsprint, where all can see, every con they can think of, every factor that weighs against a given proposal. Everybody does this. And nobody responds, nobody starts arguing for the proposal. There is no debate. No attempts at persuasion. This is a collective process. The only questioning or discussion is for clarity or for expanding a remark, building on it.

The group starts with the con’s because starting with the pro’s means that some people will be sitting there thinking of the con’s, and will have trouble getting into the pro’s. So we get the con’s out of the way first.

When they’re done with the con’s, the group does the pro’s.

Sometimes it is helpful to divide the room into a con side and a pro side. The whole group moves to the con side when it is doing con and to the pro side when it is doing pro. That helps members keep in mind what they’re doing

Here the group, when it looks at its con-pro listing, is asking a simple question, “Is this proposal the will of God?” And the answer is either Yes or No.

Sometimes the answer is immediately obvious. The group looks at the two lists and one list clearly outweighs the other.

The Jesuits test by Consolation and Desolation. Is there “a sense of peace and movement toward God?” Or is there “a sense of dis-ease and movement away from God?” The Quakers test by the “presence of inner peace.” Another method is to use Galatians 5:19–23, where Paul lists the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. The group considers which “works” or “fruit” may result from carrying out the proposal.

11. For lesser matters continue to work in prayer, to avoid self-will, but simplify and shorten the above method to suit the circumstances.

This full process takes too much time and energy to be used with every topic. Ordinary methods of discussion can be used with lesser matters, provided they stay lesser, provided members observe a discipline of prayer, and of listening carefully to one another.

For further exploration of this subject I suggest the following:

George Schemel, S.J., and Sister Ruth Roemer, “Communal Discernment,” in Review for Religious, Vol. 40, Nov.– Dec., 1981, pp. 825–836. This describes the con-pro method.

Douglas Steere (ed.), Quaker Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 36–47. This is a simple description of Quaker methods.

Danny E. Morris, Charles M. Olsen, Discerning God’s Will Together, (Bethesda, Maryland: Alban Publications, 1997) 85. This is the best book I know for decision-making in the church. Its method is more complicated than the one described in this paper, but it is filled not only with classic sources and principles, but with many helpful suggestions.

Michael J. Sheeran, Beyond Majority Rule, (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1983), 27. This is a classic description of Quaker methods, written by a Jesuit!

Warner White
2/6/4