Skip to Main Content

Congregational Life: Leaders & Outreach: Discernment/Vocation

tools for empowering leadership, developing joyful, informed volunteers and supporting effective teams which strengthen outreach and hospitality

Books

In On Purpose: Finding God’s Voice in Your Passion, authors Magrey deVega, Sam McGlothlin, Jevon Caldwell-Gross, and Susan Robb help us see God's purpose for our lives, how to open ourselves to God's voice, and how to take the first or next step to follow God's call. Reading this book and exploring life choices alongside others, individuals will learn how to channel their passions, hear God’s voice, and live the life they were meant to live.

To support reading in a group, resources include a full leader’s guide and DVD with four teaching sessions.

Watch this promo to learn more about this study. Additional components include: 

Call to Allyship: Preparing Your Congregation for Leaders of Color     The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons     Go Your Own Way          The Love Habit: Daily Self-Care Practices for a Happier Life and Healthier Relationships     Nobody Cries When We Die: God, Community, and Surviving to Adulthood     Picture of The One Body of Christ in a Quantum Age     Searching for Agabus: Embracing Authenticity and Finding Your Way to You          Unearthing Us: Poems and Practices for Discovering Our Fullest Selves     What Makes You Bloom: Cultivating a Practice for Connecting with Your Divine Self          You are Changing the World: Whether You Like it or Not     Your Heart Was Made for This

In Our Library

Unearthing Us: Poems and Practices for Discovering Our Fullest Selves     Unearthing Us Facilitator Guide: 21 Sessions Based on the Poetry of Joe Davis

     The Road Back to You Study Guide

Discerning Life Transitions: Listening Together In Spiritual Direction  -     By: Dwight H. Judy                         Cover Image

Coaching & Other Support

Faithward.orgSpiritual Discernment Toolkit: How to hear from God

The process of discernment—hearing from God—is a spiritual practice, a means by which we grow in our faith and relationship with God. Here are a few ways that you might step into, or “try on,” discernment.

The Remarkable Life Deck: A Ten-Year Plan for Achieving Your Dreams by  Debbie Millman, Other Format | Barnes & NobleĀ®Discover the Ten Year Plan in this interview between Tim Ferriss and Debbie Millman. (The Ten Year Plan exercise is from 1:30-1:40.) Traci Smith highly recommends the interview and the author's cards and a step-by-step GUIDE.

Podcasts

Wordpress-2Based on their discussion with Clara King about lay-led ministry Faith+Lead decided to dedicate an entire Q&A episode to address them.

In this listener-inspired episode, Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile, Rev. Dr. Terri Elton, and Dr. Alicia Granholm dive into the shift from clergy-led to lay-led ministry models, tackling audience questions head-on and exploring the implications of this change for churches like yours.

Congregational Discernment

three women talking at a tableLessons from pastors who have left parish ministry

By Journalist and UCC minister in Duke Divinity's Faith & Leadership

Though the number of pastors leaving parish ministry hasn’t amounted to a “great resignation,” those who have left still offer insight into the current state of the American church.

CDP Sticker (1) (1)Start with listening.

Avoid making assumptions about your community's needs, and instead, listen with intention to the people inside your faith community and in your surrounding area to understand what assets already exist and where the needs truly are. 

Over the course of approximately one month, the Community Discovery Package will guide your group through three activities and two gatherings. You'll listen deeply to the people in your community, cultivate curiosity about why your community is the way it is, ask through-provoking questions, and experience your surroundings through new lenses. 

This resource is for you if:

  • You're curious about how your context has changed in the last few years.
  • Your faith community is ready to try something new but you need a tool to guide you.
  • You've ever developed a new ministry, only to have it flop.
  • You want to see lives transformed by ministries that truly matter to the people they're designed to serve.

Pricing for the Community Discovery Package is based on your faith community's size, starting at just $100.

Learn more.

Order the Community Discovery Package.