“Pursuing God’s Will Together” with Ruth Haley Barton
Show Notes:
We don’t often create space for God in our communal decision making process, and we rarely, as a staff, community, group, or church, attempt to discern God’s will for us together. Ruth Haley Barton is working to change that.
Ruth Haley is spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader, and author. She is the founder of the Transforming Center, an organization that creates space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. For Ruth Haley, discernment--recognizing the presence of God and listening to God’s voice in our everyday lives--is a habit that we can practice daily as we make small decisions, which will help us make bigger personal decisions, and eventually will guide our corporate decisions.
Resources:
Learn more about Ruth Haley here
Buy Ruth Haley’s books here
Learn more about the Transforming Center here
Listen to Ruth Haley’s podcast, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Transcript:
Chris McAlilly 00:00
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester 00:00
And I'm Eddie restor. Welcome to The Weight. Today our guest is Ruth Haley Barton. She is a
Christian spiritual leader. She's a spiritual director. She and others established the
Transforming Center, which is set to, exists to strengthen the soul of your leadership. And
today we're talking about her book,
"Pursuing God's Will Together."
Chris McAlilly 00:24
It's a conversation about the deep well of spiritual wisdom that comes out of the Christian
tradition for how to navigate decision making. We talk about some of the obstacles and the
barriers to making spiritually robust decisions that create space for God in the process, based
on, you know, being a part of Western culture. We talk about some of the, you know, the
frameworks for decision making that come out of other contexts. And we really spend a lot of
time talking about the Bible. We talk about different traditions that come out of Christian
history, that are useful, that are informative to the work that we do together. It was a great
conversation. Eddie, what was your takeaway?
Eddie Rester 01:10
This was a great conversation, because it's about the Holy Spirit and how churches and
Christian organizations and Christian people can do their decision making in a different way.
You know, Chris, you brought up Robert's Rules of Order. We're part of tradition that is... Um.
How do we say this kindly?
Chris McAlilly 01:31
I like the pause there. We talked about taking pauses in decision making.
Eddie Rester 01:35
We did talk about taking pauses.
Chris McAlilly 01:37
I'm glad you've taken a pause before you make a decision on what to say.
Eddie Rester 01:39
Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of times Christians follow strategic planning, Robert's Rules, or all these
very secular and very good methods for planning and decision making. But often we forget that
God's at work, and we need to create space for God to work as we begin to make decisions. I'll
say it that way. How's that?
Chris McAlilly 02:02
Yeah, I mean, Robert's Rules of Order was developed in the late 19th century by an army
officer, and it's really a manual for parliamentary procedure. It helps organizations conduct
orderly, fair, equitable, efficient decisions. And all of those things are good. What we're trying
to get to in this conversation is what does it look like to make a decision as a group that allows
room for God to be the subject of active verbs, that takes seriously the presence of the Holy
Spirit in guiding a community of faith more deeply into the will of God?
Chris McAlilly 02:40
I love the way that she talked about it. She talked about the importance of having a really
healthy understanding of the role the Holy Spirit in Christian community. And she said the Holy
Spirit is just the Spirit of Jesus leading the church. And I found that to be very clarifying and
very helpful. And we talked about discernment as something that edifies and builds up the
body of Christ that leads us in the direction of unity.
Chris McAlilly 02:41
We know that's part of God's will, that we would be one as God the Son and God the Father are
one. It's easy to talk about it. It's harder to do it. And she gives us a lot of language and
frameworks, and really just a witness that suggests that it is actually possible to do this work
and to do it faithfully and well. I'll be, you know, pouring over this book, again,
"Pursuing God's Will Together," in our work here in Oxford. What's a way that you might use this as you lead
there In Dallas?
Eddie Rester 03:41
I love what she said at the very end about we leaders tend to skip over preparation and move
to practice real quick. So I think for me, it's thinking about as we have decisions to make here
at the church I'm serving, how can we begin in these early months, begin to do the work
preparation that can lead us to practice? And so I think for me, that's the big takeaway, what
she offered at the very end, when she's like,
"Hey, before we go, I gotta say this one thing." I think it was one of the most important things in
the conversation, from a very important conversation.
Eddie Rester 04:14
So if you're a Christian leader, wherever you are, I hope you'll spend some time, listen to this,
maybe share it with your other leaders, if it's a board or council, and think about how you can
begin to do this work and pick up a copy of her book "Pursuing God's Will Together."
Chris McAlilly 04:29
I will take some confidence, and I don't think of myself as being particularly discerning. I see
the people in my life that have this spiritual gift of discernment, but I'll take some confidence in
what she was talking about in Romans chapter 12, where, you know, we can be transformed by
the renewing of our mind, so that we can discern God's will perfectly. And she talks about as a
mark of Christian maturity, we can all grow in this area. And I hope this conversation helps you
and your journey in your growth as aleader. We're so grateful that you've joined us on the
podcast. Tell everybody about it.
Eddie Rester 05:06
Please.
Chris McAlilly 05:06
Do it. Now.
Chris McAlilly 05:08
[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to
navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and
unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.
Eddie Rester 05:26
As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all
carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
Chris McAlilly 05:37
But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of
wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
Eddie Rester 05:48
That's why The Weight exists: to create space for the conversations that challenge our
assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
Chris McAlilly 05:57
Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition,
and responsiveness to a changing world.
Eddie Rester 06:05
So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a
nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of
Christ-centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight.
Chris McAlilly 06:23
We're here today with Ruth Barton. Do you go by Ruth Haley Barton, or do you go by?
Ruth Haley Barton 06:28
Ruth Haley Barton, please, yeah.
Chris McAlilly 06:31
And we're so grateful that you're here today. I came across your book "Pursuing God's Will
Together" a couple of years ago, and really grateful to have a conversation with you today.
Ruth Haley Barton 06:44
Well, it's good to be here.
Eddie Rester 06:45
So Ruth Haley, would you just share a little bit about your background? I know you're a spiritual
director. Some people may not know what that means. You've established a center for spiritual
transforming and so help folks understand a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Ruth Haley Barton 07:01
Well, I've been working within churches for all of my life. I'm a pastor's kid as well. So the
church world is the world that I know the best and that I care about the most, actually, and in
my own training as a spiritual director, because that's where my training is in spirituality and
spiritual direction. It's all about discernment. And I remember thinking at some point, you know,
really, churches should be able to have a way of discerning God's will together. Like, if you can
do this as individuals, discern God's will together, there should be a way in which churches and
Christian groups can discern God's will together. And so that really started me on the path in a
couple of ways.
Ruth Haley Barton 07:40
First of all, we actually founded the Transforming Center almost 25 years ago now, based in
large part on that desire we had. All of us who started the Transforming Center together were
leaders in different environments, and we just wanted a place to get to try this stuff. You know,
we wanted to move out of that sort of secular decision making. And all I mean by that is that in
secular decision making, there isn't any place for God in it. You know, nobody creates the space
for that. So we just wanted to work with a group of people and experience leadership as
responsiveness to the will of God, versus just strategic thinking and planning and all of that.
Ruth Haley Barton 08:18
And so the founding of the Transforming Center actually came out of a desire to experience
discerning God's will together at the leadership level. And then obviously it led me to not only
practice it, and then also to write about it, because I kept thinking, well, somebody else is going
to write that book. You know, a book really needs to be written. And there are some books out
there, but I didn't find them to be as practical as what I hope this one ended up being. So.
Chris McAlilly 08:45
What are some...
Ruth Haley Barton 08:46
And I realized, oh, that's mine to do. I guess I'm gonna have to do that.
Eddie Rester 08:48
That's right. That's usually how it works.
Ruth Haley Barton 08:50
It is, with God. God does it that way.
Chris McAlilly 08:52
What are some of the streams of influence that kind of inform how you think about spiritual
direction? I'm familiar with, you know, different ways of thinking about it, whether you come
out of a Protestant background or a Catholic background. I'm familiar with Ignatian spirituality,
that comes out of a particular tradition within the Catholic Church. Could you maybe name
some of those influences? Maybe from your background in kind of your own spiritual formation,
or some of the things that you learned along the way in training.
Ruth Haley Barton 09:30
Well, especially in the book "Pursuing God's Will Together," you can tell that I'm pulling from
different traditions. And that was intentional, because I wanted to show and to demonstrate
that discernment is something that transcends denominations and traditions and religions and
all of that. The desire to know and to do the will of God is just a theme in any sort of religious
tradition. And so I pulled from Protestant, Catholic, Quaker, yeah. And even some of the secular
work around intuition, you know the fact that God's given us a place within ourselves where we
can know the truth, and there's God witnesses to us about the truth. So ecumenical is what I
would say, but very strongly rooted in scripture as well. And you'll notice that even though I
don't do a lot of chapter and verse, that everything that I write about is grounded in scripture
and can be demonstrated from someplace in scripture.
Chris McAlilly 10:27
Yeah, what are some of the the scriptural stories or touch points? I mean, I would think of the
Acts of the Apostles as being one of them, you know, where the Spirit is guiding the church.
And it's kind of new territory for these disciples that have turned apostles. I think about that
story where Paul and maybe Silas are on the way, and they run in. They can't go left, the Spirit
says, "Don't go right." And they end up going all the way to the edge of the land. And then, you
know, Paul has this dream, and there's this man in Macedonia, and he goes across the water.
Beyond, I mean, I assume Acts of the Apostles to be one of those touch points. Are there others
within the scripture that you lean upon?
Ruth Haley Barton 11:13
Yeah, yes, I do talk about Acts 15 quite a bit, because I do think it's the most fully described
Yeah, yes, I do talk about Acts 15 quite a bit, because I do think it's the most fully described
experience of communal or corporate leadership discernment, and I'm so grateful that we have
it. Of course, we would all wish that there was a little bit more. There are some places in that
story where I'm like, "Could you fill in the detail here?" Because I'd like to know a little more.
But it's still very fulsome in terms of the the aspects of discernment that you can see in that
story.
Ruth Haley Barton 11:41
Another scriptural emphasis for me in writing about discernment is to really do the work around
the role and the function of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus desiring to
lead his church. And that it's, you know, this Paul Anderson quote, he's a Quaker, about the fact
that if the will of God can be known, it can be obeyed. And if it can be obeyed, and it can be
sought, and it's just the basic Christian life to seek the will of God and to do it, but the Holy
Spirit is the mediator of all that. And so you have to have a good, strong theology of the Holy
Spirit, I think, to enter into discernment.
Ruth Haley Barton 12:18
And so I do a lot with First Corinthians 1 and 2, do a lot with the book of John. John 10, about
the shepherd, and also 16 and 17, 14, 15, and 16, 17, about the Holy Spirit, and Jesus'
teachings about the Holy Spirit. Those are, I think, really important touch points in Scripture
about the reliability of this opportunity to discern and do the will of God, and that the Holy Spirit
is the one who is the person of the Trinity, who is actively involved in that. So you have to
believe in the Holy Spirit as a real presence in order to engage in communal discernment, or
any kind of discernment, I think.
Eddie Rester 13:02
I hope we can get back to Acts 15 a little bit, because it's such an important story about conflict
and different ideas and coming to a place that is completely unexpected. So I want to put a pin
in that maybe, and come back to it.
Ruth Haley Barton 13:17
Yeah, good.
Eddie Rester 13:18
But a lot of, when we talk about discernment, it's discerning the will of God. And I think a lot of
people get tripped up on this idea of the will of God. So how do you understand, or how do you
explain to someone what the will of God could be for them or for their church or for their family
or for their organization?
Ruth Haley Barton 13:38
Well, for one thing, I think we know an awful lot about the will of God that we don't follow.
Eddie Rester 13:44
Fair enough. Yeah.
Ruth Haley Barton 13:47
There's these basic scriptures about loving each other and loving our enemies and being
humble and like all sorts of things that we know are the will of God, caring for the poor. We
know already that those things comprise the will of God for us. And so sometimes I get
concerned that people want to sort of skip over that part in order to get to the big ones, the big
ticket items, you know. And I want to get to the big ones, too. But I think that understanding
that God has already spoken a lot about God's will, we can know a lot about God's will without
any big process, because it's there for us in scripture, and that's the best foundation, too, then
for moments when we need to enter into a practice of discernment, is to be living within the will
of God day to day, understanding the will of God can be kind of, I don't know, demotivating, but
the heart of God... To understand the heart of God, and almost to have your ear attuned to the
heart of God, that's what discernment is. And so when we're living attuned to the heart of God
in the everyday ordinary, then we're much better prepared for the moments when we have a
major decision to make, because we're in touch with the heart of God already.
Eddie Rester 15:00
You know, I think that's so important. Because somebody said, you know, the will of God in
terms of being in a life-altering direction-altering thing, that may come occasionally, but it's
that day to day. You're doing the things. Are you doing the good work that God's put for you, at
work and at home?
Ruth Haley Barton 15:19
That's right.
Eddie Rester 15:19
I think what you said is, yeah, it's so important, because it's going to align you to hear .
Ruth Haley Barton 15:26
Yes, and you're then so familiar with God's heart and the ways of Jesus that that wisdom can be
brought then to some of these bigger decisions that might require a little bit more of a practice.
So it's pretty foundational, I think, to be seeking to know and to live out the will of God in some
of those basic foundational areas first, rather than making it always about the big thing.
Ruth Haley Barton 15:27
Now, so I talk about, in the book, I talk about the habit of discernment, which is what we're
talking about here, and then the practice of discernment. I actually talk about five different
elements of discernment in scripture, the first one being that it's a spiritual gift that's listed. So
there are people in the body of Christ who are especially gifted with discernment. But then in
Romans 12:2, Paul talks about the fact that to be transformed by the renewing of your mind so
that you can discern the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, indicates
that it's just a mark of Christian maturity, that it's something all of us are supposed to be
maturing in. And those who have the gifts of discernment, then, can help us. We can get up
close and personal with them and let them teach us and help us. But it's a mark of Christian
maturity. This is something all of us should be growing in.
Ruth Haley Barton 16:35
Then it's a habit, where we learn how to recognize the presence of God, the voice of Jesus, in
our everyday life. And we get better and better at responding in the moments to that. And that
would be John 10, you know,
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
That's in the ordinary moments of life.
Ruth Haley Barton 16:53
Then there's the practice when we have a larger decision that we need to make, who we're
going to marry, where we're going to go to school, whether we're going to accept the call to
this church or whatever. And then the fifth layer is the one we're talking we're talking about
here today, which is corporate leadership discernment, or communal leadership discernment as
a communal practice that leaders can enter into together around matters of leadership. So
discernment is a multi-layered thing in scripture and I think sometimes we can feel like it's
rather imprecise and woo-woo, but not really, you know. It's a many layered thing in scripture,
and it's something that we can grasp and understand and get better at.
Eddie Rester 17:30
Yeah, my wife is very much a discerner. She can see, I think God has gifted her, and that's what
you're talking about. She's just got this gut level ability sometimes to see through and
understand. But I like what you say. It's a gift that you, a gift of Christian maturity. This is
something that as you're in the rhythms of Christ, you should be able to more easily recognize
that voice.
Ruth Haley Barton 17:57
Right And I think that that's a part of leadership, pastoral leadership in a congregation or in an
organization that has a Christian purpose, that part of leadership is to teach and lead and guide
out in the discernment process, to prepare people for it to and to guide it, and to help a group
out in the discernment process, to prepare people for it to and to guide it, and to help a group
move to the place where they can affirm together that we believe that God is leading us in this
direction, and then do it. Go out, go there together, you know.
Chris McAlilly 18:23
Yeah. So indivudually...
Ruth Haley Barton 18:24
It's a function of spiritual leadership in my mind.
Chris McAlilly 18:26
So individually, one of the ways I would think about this would be, you know, I do, I appreciate
Eddie that you mentioned sight or vision, because that's one of the things that is there at the
beginning of pursuing God's will together, is developing the capacity to see clearly. And one of
the problems is there are many things that obscure our vision. And one of the things I'm
hearing you say is that there's an immersion in the scriptural narrative that helps develop
pattern recognition of the action of God in the world. And you begin to see that if you're
immersed in the story of scripture. In our tradition, we would think of that, about that as a
spiritual practice, or a means of grace, just being immersed in the Scripture.
Chris McAlilly 19:11
And there are others, you know, being a part of a worshiping community on a regular basis,
where you're gathering to praise God, you're hearing God's word, you're responding, you're
going forth into the world to serve, that creates a way of being in the world. What are some of
the other just basic habits? I know you mentioned the habit of discernment. What are some of
the other habits or rhythms of life that put an individual or a group in a posture of learning to
see clearly what God is doing in in the in the midst of them?
Ruth Haley Barton 19:43
Right. Well, one of them, which is very nuanced, but it's impossible to do discernment without
this, is a familiarity with what the tradition would call consolation and desolation. That would be
Ignatian language, right here. But I take it straight out of Deuteronomy 30, where God says to
the Israelites, through Moses,
"See I've set before you life and death. Now choose life so that
you and your descendants might live. It's not up in the heavens that you should have to go get
it. It's not across the ocean. It's in your heart and in your mouth for you to observe."
Ruth Haley Barton 20:17
So consolation and desolation really has to do with being attuned to one's body as a temple
that God has created with the capacity to help us discern through the experiences of life and
that God has created with the capacity to help us discern through the experiences of life and
death, like feeling life, the energy of life, come up into us, or feeling the energy of life drain out
of us, that our bodies are actually a tuning fork to the divine, I think. And so we get better and
better at paying attention to what gives us life, what gives us a feeling of death. And then God
invites us, in that passage,
"See I've set before you, life and death. Choose life." So we are
being invited in the discernment process to choose, to know what life is and to choose it.
Ruth Haley Barton 21:01
And then, I think Jesus reiterates it in John 10 when he says,
"I've come that you might have life and might have it abundantly," that we can make
choices based on what we're perceiving and noticing in our bodies and then in community,
we can get better and better and more comfortable at actually sharing that with each othera
nd learning how to trust it.
Chris McAlilly 21:20
The language of Ignatius was very helpful in talking with college students, kind of helping them
develop some of these. It really is a deeper kind of spiritual intuition. And the language of
consolation or desolation, I just want to stay with that for a moment. So what I heard you say,
and what you write about in the book, is that, "Consolation is this interior movement of the
heart that gives us this deep sense of life-giving connection with God, with others, and our
authentic self. We may experience it as a sense that all is right with the world, where we're free
to be given over to God and to love, even in moments of crisis and pain."
Chris McAlilly 22:00
And then desolation you describe as a loss of the sense of God's presence, feeling out of touch,
in turmoil, off center, confused and rebellious, drained. All that's so helpful that language is is
so so helpful. Because I think everyone has that experience. Everyone knows what it feels like
to in their bodies, to feel these things. You know, I think the beauty of doing that with other
people is that sometimes something that you can have this emotion, and it may actually be
something different than what you think, and having a good friend to be there to kind of help
guide you through and kind of talk through,
"I'm feeling this way. I'm not exactly sure what's going on."
But being with a guide or spiritual director, I think, is a super helpful process,
because it allows you to kind of discern through your emotions and really get to the sense of
what God is doing here. How do you use those concepts when you're doing spiritual direction,
or you're guiding a group to pursue God's will together?
Ruth Haley Barton 23:03
Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to be clear that consolation and desolation are not primarily
emotions, that they are actual visceral, in-the-body experiences. And you may be able to attach
an emotion to it as you are present with it, but in its first iteration, it is a visceral experience.
Your stomach, turning over, tears behind the eyes, trembling in your fingers, tightness in your
chest. You know, it's in your body first, and then, by paying attention, you might be able to
attach an emotion to it.
Ruth Haley Barton 23:38
And I think that's really important, because I think we're often, as Christians, kind of
disconnected from our bodies, you know. We don't know it as the sacred temple that it is. And
so to be willing to pay attention to your body at that level, and to respect your body at that
level, and to say,
"Okay, I'm feeling this tightness in my guts. I need to take a minute and focus
on that and see what's there, because I don't know yet," you know. And then you can talk
about the emotions of it, but it starts with really being in your body.
Eddie Rester 24:14
And I think we're taught even from childhood, you know, hide your emotions. Hide that you're
scared, hide that you're worried. And that just accelerates as we grow into adulthood and we
have to take on families and work and things, and we do become much more disconnected
from what's actually going on, because we spend so much time hiding that from others and
ultimately ourselves. So are there ways that you would say, for those of us maybe caught up in
that, here's some things to really notice. You've given a couple of them, tightness of the chest
or the gut, ways to re enter that kind of part of discernment?
Ruth Haley Barton 24:57
Yeah, and that goes back to your question, too. Is it Christopher or Chris?
Ruth Haley Barton 25:02
Chris.
Ruth Haley Barton 25:04
That in direction, sometimes I will actually draw attention to what I see in that person's body.
So, "I noticed when you said that, that you got tears in your eyes. Can you tell me a little bit
more about what those tears are for or what they're about?" Or, "I don't know if you noticed
this, but when you were describing whatever, you're wringing your hands." You know, and you
draw, it helps to draw attention to what I can see is going on in their bodies. So then they can
as well. And it's always, it's usually a pretty powerful moment when you do that, because then
you're giving permission to the body to actually offer up its wisdom, and it will do it. If you
create space, it will do it. And oftentimes it's pretty deep.
Ruth Haley Barton 25:46
It's nothing you would have thought your way into. It's your body is actually serving it up. And
then if you pay attention to it and create space for it, then you can know more about what it's
actually saying to you. So I also think even the feeling of something being life giving, or
something being life draining. I think most of us know that feeling,
"That really drained me." That really exhausted me in a negative way." Or,
"Man, I'm just so energized. I just worked
really hard on this, but I'm so energized." You know, that being able to pay attention to that is
also, I think, crucial, because God is inviting us to choose life and to do less of what is death to
us. And so you have to be able to pay attention to the life and the death as it's experienced in
your body.
Eddie Rester 26:35
That reminds me, a couple, year and a half, two years ago now, I was having a conversation
about kind of my next steps in ministry. And I talked with a wise executive. She was a Christian,
she was in this company, and did a lot of working with people to help them find their next
space. And she said,
"Eddie, how old are you?" I said,
"I'm 52.
" She said,
"Do what gives you
joy.
" It was kind of the same conversation.
"Eddie, if you go into a room to have a conversation
about what's next, and you sweat and you're just uncomfortable and you're having to feel like
you're cramming information that's your self telling you that's not for you.
"
Ruth Haley Barton 27:17
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 27:18
Do what gives you you joy,
Ruth Haley Barton 27:20
rRght. And so in the book, I talk about some other ways that you can recognize it, like the
peace that passes understanding. Sometimes there'll be a peace, you know, maybe, if you are
looking for your next step, and maybe it's not up and to the right, but you feel a sense of peace
that passes understanding about that, but there's other things in that for you. And you can pay
attention to why do I have peace about that? Even though some people might look in at this
and say, well, that's kind of a demotion, or you're taking a smaller church rather than moving
up in the world, you know. But you notice the peace, you know, the peace that passes
understanding, because that's what God's doing inside you.
Ruth Haley Barton 27:59
And so I think all of that, and definitely the joy, the sense of abundance, having to do with a
particular choice. And so, you know, one of the things that I emphasize in the book is the
preparation of each individual leader for corporate leadership discernment, because the
corporate discernment, or the communal discernment, is only going to be as good as the
individuals involved and their comfortability with the dynamics of discernment. And consolation
and desolation are a major dynamic of discernment, because then you can actually bring that
to the group and know that the group will receive it, versus thinking you're crazy.
Chris McAlilly 28:38
I think...
Ruth Haley Barton 28:39
I remember one time for us... Oh, go ahead.
Chris McAlilly 28:41
No, you're fine.
Ruth Haley Barton 28:41
Go ahead.
Chris McAlilly 28:42
You take that memory, and then I have a question on the back end.
Ruth Haley Barton 28:46
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. So there was a point when the Transforming Center, we had our offices in
a retreat center, and the retreat center come up for sale, and we were gonna have a big
strategic conversation about whether or not we should attempt to purchase it. And the first
thing that happened when I brought it up to the board was our treasurer started to clutch his
chest, you know. And another pastor started talking about the stresses and the strains of a
capital campaign in his church. And I'm like, we don't even need to have this full-day
discussion. The bodily experience, and because we trusted it so much, the stress that was
evident among our board members was just reason enough to say we're not. W're not even
going to take, you know, we're not even going to have as much of a conversation about it as
we thought we were, because it's all right there.
Chris McAlilly 29:29
I appreciate the phrase "trust the body." I mean that's both kind of an individual and a
corporate kind of phrase that that can be lifted up in the process. I think that's worth just
naming and putting, underlining. I do have a question, but Eddie, you had maybe a comment
about that.
Ruth Haley Barton 29:29
And it was actually, in many ways--it doesn't always work this way--but in many ways it was
And it was actually, in many ways--it doesn't always work this way--but in many ways it was
actually more efficient than having the big conversation with all the strategic plans and the
financial documents and all of that that you would have had to have had. So it's not always that
way. Sometimes people being willing to share their consolation and desolation can actually be
a stopper at times as well, in a good way, but it might feel more complicated, and like it takes a
little bit more time when you have to pay attention to people at that level.
Eddie Rester 30:12
No, I was just gonna say I wanted to talk more about the corporate side of it, the bigger body
side of it. Because, as I think about, you know, in my own life, trying to seek the will of God.
That's one thing. But if I'm working with a church or an organization or my family, sometimes or
a group of friends, and they are intruding on what I want to do, or what I think is right, or the
direction I think we should go. I mean, talk a little bit more, because this isn't just pursuing the
will of God for me. This is, how do we pursue the will of God together? And I think there's some
real barriers.
Ruth Haley Barton 30:53
Oh, there are. And one is just like here in Western culture, where we're so individualistic. We
think,
"Well, I have the right to make my own decision about, you know, this or that." Like we
see it as a God-given right to make decisions by ourselves, for ourselves. And so, you know,
communal discernment flies in the face of our individualistic culture, because we're saying,
"No, I'm going to do this with you, rather than doing this by myself." I'm going to do this with
other people for one reason or another that you might choose, and certainly in corporate
leadership discernment, there's what I would call the conversion to community for a leadership
group to say we are going to embrace corporate leadership discernment.
Ruth Haley Barton 31:37
But you know that's a huge choice. It's not going to be the senior pastor that comes down like
Moses from the mountaintop telling us what to do next. It's not going to be the loudest voice
that's going to tell us what to do next. It's not going to even be the reports and the finances
and all of that that's going to tell us what to do next. But we're going to lean into this group.
You're giving up some of your own autonomy, which is very counter cultural in our culture, and
you're melding yourself with others in a good way, saying,
"I believe that God has something
more for us as a group than what God could even do through me as an individual."
Chris McAlilly 32:09
That's a powerful thing to say. There's a proverb that I came across, an African proverb,
essentially, like, if you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, go together.
Going far together requires patience. I think that's one of the disciplines that I've learned
through time in trying to help a community discern God's will together. And it just requires a lot
of listening, particularly listening to those in the community that may be sensing bodily tension,
desolation, stress, kind of allowing those voices to be heard and listened to. It's a hard thing,
especially if you see where things need to move, even if everybody's not ready to go, you
know. It's difficult. It's hard.
Chris McAlilly 33:05
And I think you're right. Part of it is barriers and decision making on an individualistic basis. We
don't have a lot of reps on how to do this in spiritual community with one another. Are there
other barriers that that you would lift up? One of the things as we're talking I'm thinking about
Robert's Rules of Order. I'm thinking about like practices of decision making that come out of
out of other kind of governmental structures or orders. What are some of the other kind of
barriers? I mean, would you think of Robert's Rules of Order as being a barrier? Do you think of
it as an orderly process within which discernment can happen?
Ruth Haley Barton 33:43
I don't. I mean, I haven't looked carefully at Robert's Rules of Order to see if this is true, but I
don't know if there's is, where's the space for God in it? The space for prayer, the space for
some silence to listen, the space for coming back and listening again, the place to acknowledge
consolation and desolation. I think Robert's Rules of Order is fundamentally different if there
are no spaces for those kinds of dynamics that go along with with communal discernment, or
any kind of discernment, really.
Ruth Haley Barton 34:12
Oh, there's lots of obstacles. I mean, I think pragmatism can be an obstacle. High powered
boards, people who are just busy and they just want to get the decision made. This is not going
to go as fast as typical decision making. And I think when people have been invited into
leadership in the church from secular leadership roles, or they've had no experience with
discernment at a communal level, then they're going to be bringing their wisdom from the
strategic thinking and planning that they did in their Fortune 500 company, or building their
construction company, or wherever they were, and it's going to be different than the
preparation that it takes for discernment.
Ruth Haley Barton 34:50
So there has to be real preparation for the individuals who are going to engage. I think control
goes along with individualism, but there are some personalities. All of us want to control things
to our own ends, but there are some personalities that are much more attached to control as a
way of staying safe. And I can tell you that the discernment process and practice is not one
where any of us get to feel like we're in control. Nobody gets to feel like you're in control,
because the Holy Spirit's in control, and it's going to take us to different places.
Ruth Haley Barton 35:25
I'm sure that when I think about Acts 15, wow, what an out-of-control situation, you know,
I'm sure that when I think about Acts 15, wow, what an out-of-control situation, you know,
versus somebody just coming in and saying,
"Here's the word of the Lord for this council." You
know? It's just different than that. So, you know, I think there are also psychological issues in
individuals, or spiritual issues. So one of the things I like to talk about a lot is some of the
theological underpinnings of corporate leadership discernment. And there's five or six that I
think are pretty fundamental, but one of them is a belief in God's goodness, to me, to us, to all
of us.
Ruth Haley Barton 36:05
That sometimes, spiritually speaking or psychologically speaking, there isn't a real conviction
that God's going to be good if I really do give myself over to the will of God. And so there's a
tightness that people can hold on to, because there's not the openness of, "No, I'm trusting God
and trusting the process for good outcomes." So those can be psychological barriers, you know,
really, truly, not trusting, not knowing how to trust people or God or anyone.
Chris McAlilly 36:35
Yeah.
Ruth Haley Barton 36:35
And those things have to be worked with.
Chris McAlilly 36:37
Yeah, for sure.
Eddie Rester 36:38
And we're definitely in a moment right now where trust, particularly inside institutions, is at a
low point.
Ruth Haley Barton 36:44
That's right.
Eddie Rester 36:45
And so building up enough trust so that people can enter into a situation where they give up
control and time and even because discernment, at some point you have to give up plans and
hopes, maybe, potentially.
Ruth Haley Barton 37:01
That's right.
Chris McAlilly 37:02
So one of the ways in which you seek, in the in the book, to create a framework of trust is
through a written covenant that makes commitments to one another rea, and, you know, I
guess, explicit. Talk through the power of a covenant as a, maybe a mechanism of of building
trust.
Ruth Haley Barton 37:23
I want to go back to what you're saying, Eddie, before we come to this question. There's also,
because it's really important. You're so right to name time, control, but I want to add one more,
and that is, you're actually trusting other people with yourself, with the more tender parts of
yourself. Like I'm trusting my desires to this group. Like, if I have desires for the outcomes for
this, I'm having to trust this group with that. I have to trust this group enough to share my
consolations and desolations. There might be a time when it seems like the whole group is
going one direction, but I still have reservations, and so I have to trust the group to still to
respect me and want to hear my reservations, even though they all want to go home because
it's 10 o'clock at night. You know what I mean? Trusting is so big, and it's trust with God, trust
with each other, and even trust with ourselves and our own relationships with God. Do I trust
my own relationship with God enough to tell you about my consolation and desolation and to
trust that God's in that?
Eddie Rester 38:26
Yeah.
Ruth Haley Barton 38:26
And that I've worked with it enough for my sharing on that level to be helpful.
Eddie Rester 38:33
Right.
Eddie Rester 38:34
I think that's part of the... I definitely want to get to the covenant.
Ruth Haley Barton 38:34
Yeah.
Ruth Haley Barton 38:42
We're gonna go to the covenant, yeah, but I just want to tie that up a little bit, yeah.
Eddie Rester 38:45
I just feel like this is one of the places where we are, because our culture in this moment gives
us a lot of reasons to distrust.
Ruth Haley Barton 38:56
That's right.
Eddie Rester 38:56
And so when someone you know comes in with a political position that's clear suddenly, if
you're not inside that echo chamber of their political, instantly, you don't trust them.
Ruth Haley Barton 39:09
Right.
Eddie Rester 39:09
Or they're just... And I feel like this is a.... Discernment is helpful in that if I'm not mistaken,
because it begins to push us to trust God's work in ourselves and in other people as well.
Ruth Haley Barton 39:24
Yeah, and we're gonna have to trust each other more, and the group will have to decide
whether it's willing to trust itself in this way. And I think you're so right to name the fact that
where we are culturally, anything that's an institution now, and a church is definitely seen as an
institution. It's not seen as a community most times, if you're inside the inner workings of it,
that it's going to be hard for people to want to trust themselves at that level, to something that
seems like or feels like an institution, and then you've got all the political differences. And
COVID obviously brought all of that out, and it was horrible for pastors. Many pastors didn't
even know all that was underneath there in terms of people's differing beliefs and things like
that.
Ruth Haley Barton 40:07
So we are. The good news is... The bad news is we're in a very hard time in our culture and in
the life of the church for people to trust one another at this level. But the good news is that the
byproduct of corporate leadership discernment is that you do build trust. It forces that. And
there are methods and means, means of grace, I would say, built into the discernment process
to open us to a deeper level of trust. So it's so funny, people will go into the process thinking,
"We're doing this because we have this decision we want to make." Then they come out of it,
and they say, "Well, we got our decision, but the biggest surprise was that it was more unifying.
We're more unified now than we've ever been in years and years and years." So they get
something out of it that they didn't even know they were seeking, you know.
Ruth Haley Barton 40:52
And it's just incredible to me what this practice and process can do in terms of bringing a group
of people together in the kind of unity that Jesus prayed for and wants forfor us, and the
covenant is part of that. So we can go to that now to say that crafting a covenant can be part of
the process of building trust with each other, the work of it not just the having a covenant, but
actually the work that takes you to having one, to actually approve with each other. That work
gives you an opportunity to share what's important to you, to share some of the hurts and
dings and disillusionments that you've had in other other community life. It gives you a way to
name, gives individuals a way to name what's really important to them in terms of feeling safe
in this group and being willing to participate in this way. So the process, again, the process
itself of making a covenant is actually very trust building and then having one builds trust
because it means that any person in the group is then empowered to come back and say, Hey,
I'm not sure we're upholding our covenant, right here. Can we talk about that? That's very
empowering to the group and to every individual in the group.
Chris McAlilly 42:00
Yeah, some of the things...
Eddie Rester 42:01
I think it brings a level of....
Chris McAlilly 42:03
No, sorry. Sorry to interrupt.
Eddie Rester 42:04
No, you're looking at it right now. So yeah.
Chris McAlilly 42:05
No, I was just kind of naming off some of the things that you lift up, clarifying values, you know,
identifying the places where that's connected to key passages in scripture, things that God has
done with God's people through time, identifying practices that help us live out those values,
learning about experimenting with realistic, doable rhythms of practice and disciplines,
recording our values and practices and providing copies to the group, incorporating that input
in into the the group's kind of process of decision making for a final approval, ratifying it, and
then coming back to it on a regular, ritualized basis, are some of the dimensions that you lift
up. And one of the things that we, I've been through these processes, both, you know, Eddie
and I, you know, when we worked together, and then in other contexts as well.
Chris McAlilly 42:57
And it reminds me of this quotation from Luke Johnson, who's my New Testament professor. He
wrote a book on discernment in the scriptures, and he says that discernment is a gift of the
Holy Spirit, which we've been talking about, and its purpose is to be used for the building up
and edification of the Body of Christ. And I do think that that's what I've experienced in
covenant making processes. And what I hear you describing in your book is that, if done well
and right, it can be the kind of thing that can actually draw people more closely to God and to
one another.
Ruth Haley Barton 43:30
Yes, absolutely it can. I actually think that that's God's will. You know, that's Jesus' will. That's
one of the wills that Jesus prayed. We know that it is God's will for us to be unified. We know
that. So whatever it is that's going to get us there, we know that we're in the will of God, just by
even attempting it, because we know that that's what Jesus wanted for us and wants for us.
Eddie Rester 43:52
Right. So let's go back to Acts 15. I think this moves us right back around to Acts 15. And so I
want to set it up, because it's one of my favorite stories for church leadership. Paul is out there
converting Gentiles. There are people saying, Oh, if you convert Gentiles, they have to follow
the whole law. They have to get circumcised. And so they decide to go down to Jerusalem. Or
go up. You always go up to Jerusalem. And go see Peter and James and the church leaders and
kind of present their case, because they don't want to decide it on their own. They want this
group to have a moment to decide it. So I've teed it up. So Ruth Haley, I'm going to let you take
it from there about what you see and what happens next and why it's such an important story.
Ruth Haley Barton 44:41
Yeah, well, it's one of the reasons it's such an important story is because something new is
happening that has been initiated by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is bestowing gifts upon the
Gentiles. And the other thing that's so interesting about this story is that it appears that God is
contradicting God's self. That God is contradicting laws that God gave back in the Old
Testament, which makes this very complicated. We look at it now, we don't realize how
complicated this was for them, that God was doing something so new and so different that it
seemed to contradict what God had said that they had to do from the past. And I think that's so
interesting. And so the experience itself was what caused them to stop and say,
"We need to discern this."
Ruth Haley Barton 45:28
And I think that it's important to name what's happening among us. Either it could be
something good, it could be something bad, it could be something that's somewhat of a
problem, it could be an issue. But what's happening right now among us that is bringing this to
the surface for discernment. I think it's important that we, the group that is convened, needs to
be really clear on what they're discerning and why. And so they clearly had some sort of a
process of listening to different ones of the leaders. Listening was crucial. I think listening is the
biggest part of discernment is to get it set up. You know, what is the question? And I think
defining the question for discernment, too, is really important.
Ruth Haley Barton 46:10
I went to work with a board of a not for profit once, and they wanted me to do this process with
them. And they thought they had their question for discernment, that they had agreement on
it. And when I asked what the question for discernment was, there were, like, seven different
versions of the question. It took us two hours just to come to an agreement on what the
question was, right. So to me, there's, I mean, in the, you know, in this New Testament story,
the question was whether or not the Gentiles needed to be circumcised, whether they needed
to follow all the rules, but the question was clear. And so I think that's really important.
Ruth Haley Barton 46:45
I also think it's really important to frame the question around the will of God, or around God's
heart for us, or God's desire for us, versus what should we do? So, what is the mind of Christ on
the LGBTQ question? You know? What is the mind of Christ on whether or not we should build a
new building? You know, like to frame it spiritually. Always frame it that way, because how you
frame the question is going to affect how the whole thing goes. And that's just pre work right
there. But then there was fulsome discussion and lots of good listening. I like that the word
"silence" is found a couple of times in this in this story, indicating that people did do good
listening. They kept their mouth shut and listened. You know.
Eddie Rester 47:27
Whole assembly became silent. Everybody
Ruth Haley Barton 47:28
Yeah, just were there in silence, in respect and reverence and letting the Holy Spirit be active
Yeah, just were there in silence, in respect and reverence and letting the Holy Spirit be active
among them. It's interesting to me that they invited the Gentiles to share their experiences,
anybody who had a touch on this big pink elephant in the middle of the room, they let them
address with their own experiences. Very, very respectful of those who were actually having
the experience of being empowered by the Holy Spirit. And then, Peter's, you know, I'm
preaching to the choir here. Peter's role was so important because he connected it back to
what God had been doing down throughout history. And so I think people knowing their Bibles
and understanding the arc of the Christian story, and placing whatever we're discerning within
the narrative of what God is doing in the world is so significant.
Ruth Haley Barton 47:31
And that's what Peter did so powerfully. He said,
"You know what we're experiencing here?
That's what God was talking about back there in Joel," you know, like,
"we are right in the middle of God's purposes." How exciting would that have been to hear the apostle Peter say
that James had an important role to play, because there was a moment where he felt he
understood, perhaps, what God was doing, and he stood up and he stated it. And so you'd need
somebody who's willing to do that at different times, letting people respond to it. And then they
did have unity. I mean, we could all hope that we had the experience that they had, or they had
such complete unity, it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.
Ruth Haley Barton 48:40
And then there was a further discernment, though, because they had to discern, okay, now,
how are we going to communicate this to the rest of the churches? And then they had to come
up with a plan for that. So sometimes people ask me, what do you see as the relationship
between discernment and strategic planning? And I think that that's the relationship, is that
you discern first what the will of God is, and then you bring strategic thinking and planning to
carrying it out.
Eddie Rester 49:16
Right.
Ruth Haley Barton 49:17
And I'm not saying that God is never strategic or that strategic considerations never come into
the in discernment. They do. I find God to be very strategic, surprisingly so, you know, but
that's not why we do stuff around here. We do it because we feel we've been led, and then the
strategic thinking and planning can come along. So those are some of the things that I see that
help, that, I don't know, provided a little bit of structure for my own thinking and reflection on
how this works with real people.
Eddie Rester 49:47
One of the things that I love is that when it'sdone, they clearly communicate...
Ruth Haley Barton 49:54
Yeah.
Eddie Rester 49:54
What it is and what's been decided. Because what gets decided is so super surprising, what the
Holy Spirit reveals to this group of, it was men at that time, but this group of followers of Jesus,
so surprising, so radically different than what any of them expected going in. You know, it was
simply about circumcision, following some laws that they basically chunk out. That's right,
everything that they've kind of built, their faith structure, their religious structure on, kind of
gets punted at that moment. And it's, again, it's one of my favorite. I'm so glad you brought it
up. It's one of my favorite chapters in scripture for thinking about...
Ruth Haley Barton 50:38
How does God work?
Eddie Rester 50:39
How does God work in a moment of conflict, in a moment of true difficulty?
Ruth Haley Barton 50:44
Right. That's right.
Chris McAlilly 50:45
I do think, that's the beauty of your work as I've reflected upon it, and as I'm thinking through
the conversation, it's just a reminder that God is at work. You know, I think so many of the
conversations that that we're in, some of the ways in which we live our lives. You know, I
include myself. Most days, most decisions are made as a practical atheist, you know, as if God
were not a part of the mix. And that's confession, but it's also the truth. And I think so much of
the mystery of the work that we're trying, we're collectively trying to do together and the
demand of it is to create space for God to be the subject of active verbs in real time, in a real
community. And I'm just very grateful for your writing and for the work that you and others
have have created at the Center. And for the ways in which you're providing, I mean, a witness,
a really robust witness, to the possibility. Ad it really kind of helping folks gain confidence that
this isn't just language, or this isn't just stuff that we can talk about. It's actually something that
can be put into practice. So thank you. Thank you so much for everything that you're doing to
help give people hope and confidence that it's possible to do this work in community. Thank
you.
Ruth Haley Barton 52:12
Well, you're welcome, and I appreciate leaders like you who are trying to put it into practice
with integrity, because that's what it's going to take. And if I could just make one concluding
statement, I'd love to do that, that I do really believe that for discernment to be effective, it's
two thirds preparation and one third practice. And a lot of type A leaders, they just want to get
to the practice, and they don't want to have to do the preparation. And it's the preparation of
each individual leader to be at that table. It's the preparation of the community itself to see and
understand themselves as a community, and not just a team or a board or whatever.
Ruth Haley Barton 52:51
And then there are, there's the preparation for the moves, like where there's an understanding
of what moves could contribute to this. And so I would that would be my main caution is, I know
people are going to try, but I'd like to warn you not to. I know people are going to want to try to
go to the practice without working on the preparation. And I'm like, go for it, but I'm telling you,
you will hit up against a wall, and you're going to have to go back to preparation anyway.
You're going to have to go back to how each leader has been prepared for this. You're going to
have to go back to whether or not the community is really prepared to hold, as a community,
as a spiritual community, in the midst of difficult discernments. You're going to have to hold to
some of the places in the practice that sometimes you're going to want to rush over so you're
going to find yourself back there anyway. So I would just start there.
Eddie Rester 53:39
Yeah.
Ruth Haley Barton 53:39
Go ahead and start with preparation, and then the practice will go much better, and you might
even find yourself discerning before you even get to the practice. That's the other thing that's
just so beautiful about it, is that once people start growing in these ways, and you're preparing
the leaders for discernment, they're going to start being more discerning, whether or not you
have the practice in place or not, because they're starting to be more discerning people. And so
the quality of your conversations and decision making is going to change even before you fully
embrace the whole practice, you know. So that's, to me, that's very exciting. You don't have
to... You can do something before you do everything, and God will meet you in this intention
and this opening to want to know and to do his will.
Eddie Rester 54:17
God will meet you in the intention. What a great spot to stop. Ruth Haley, thank you. Thank
you. Thank you. Been a great conversation.
Ruth Haley Barton 54:24
Yes, thank you all. And the Lord bless you and your attempts to carry out this practice so that
you can discern and do the will of God in your settings.
Eddie Rester 54:39
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like,
subscribe, or leave a review.
Chris McAlilly 54:45
If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you
can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]