Sifting Our Discerning

Discerning the mind of God for oneself requires a clear commitment to loving God, and a diligent weighing of both the clear teaching of the Word of God, and an awareness of the Spirit's leading into one's own life. Discerning the mind of God, together, requires much more. Communal discerning needs a shared process that is agreed upon and accessible. It also requires a commitment to loving God together--community--and a laying aside of all cherished notions. While there are many popular books on the will of God, there was precious little on "Discerning Together" until Morris and Olsen developed an approach for communal discerning and deciding in 1997. This book weighs their work, by investigating the principles of discernment in the Bible, and the development of discernment through church history. It then examines the approaches of these two practitioners. The center of this book is that humble discernment with certainty was common, all through the Bible; it is to become an ordinary thing among those who love God today.