Fieldwork / Capital Campaign Diary

Discernment: A Building Program About More than Buildings

By John Baker

I have been the rector of St. Aidan’s in Alexandria, Virginia for twelve years and for most of that time St. Aidan’s has been involved in a building program. Our sanctuary is a 1960‘s contemporary, wooden building that has been described as resembling a barn or a ski chalet. The walls are rough-sawn plywood. Several telephone poles serve as pillars in a large box of a room that is filled with light thanks to several large windows. However, the wood is stained and worn and the door into the worship space is not easy to find. Eight years ago we decided it was time to tackle some much-needed repairs to building. The changes we envisioned were intended to preserve the integrity of the building, enhance its usability, and make the space more inviting. We launched a home-grown capital campaign that raised enough money to address some of the most pressing repairs and to do some renovations to the interior of the church. We secured permits and architectural drawings. Then the recession hit and we stepped back from a second round of fund-raising as we waited for better days.

For eight years our central question seemed to be: Will we be able to do these renovations? Today, the question has shifted. I think we will probably do at least some of the renovations that were planned, but they will be a part of a larger movement that is taking place at St. Aidan’s. These days, we are busy learning to ask what God might be inviting in the life of our congregation. We are learning also that asking such a question means being open to answers we may not have expected. On the way to building a new entry for our worship space we discovered something of the spiritual energy and life that can be found in and through the process of spiritual discernment.

Our introduction to the value of discernment came about through two different channels that converged for us at the beginning of this year. The first of those came as we engaged the Episcopal Church Foundation to help us raise money to complete the work envisioned those many years ago. We soon learned we would be involved in a three-part process that would begin with a time of discernment. I think when we first heard our consultant use the word discernment some of us, myself included, thought maybe it was a fundraiser’s way of saying “get the new folks to buy-in.” The current Vestry, like the parish, includes some people who were involved in developing the original vision and others who were not even at St. Aidan’s in those days. We knew that we would have to bring the newer folks in and include them in the planning in order to make any campaign work. What we learned over the next few months was that we were only going to build what the community could agree on. We learned also that the task for this first phase of revisiting the renovations program was a process of spiritual discernment. Listening to each other and to God, were, in this part of the work, more important than seeing the original plans completed.

We met in small groups to discuss questions about our values and theology, our spiritual lives and what brings us to church on Sundays. Long time parishioners spoke about the desire to be more welcoming and how that desire had launched the plans for renovations. Newer parishioners affirmed the sense of welcome that had met them when arrived and many spoke of feeling accepted at St. Aidan’s just as they were. Some spoke also of being drawn to a congregation in which buildings were obviously less important than community. Others reminded us all of the simple beauty of our worship space. Where some of us had seen only a worn structure with some major design problems, others saw signs of values that we could all claim. Soon, the building program was not a project to be pushed through in the name of progress but a cause that was opening up good conversations about purpose and call among the people in the parish. We are still moving forward into a feasibility study for the renovations, but these days we see the work on the buildings more clearly in its relationship to our common life and ministry.

The other line of discernment discovery for St. Aidan’s came out of this year’s Vestry retreat. Our senior warden had been a part of a discernment group formed last summer to help a parishioner decide whether she was being called to ordained ministry. In that process a group is formed and a trainer is brought in to spend a day and a half guiding them as they learn to listen fully to each other and to listen for God’s voice. After setting out guidelines that create space for the Holy Spirit to be heard in and by the group, hours are spent in conversation, prayer, and in silence, working to discern the way forward with an important question. The group learns that simple things like pausing after each speaker and allowing silence and time for centering can create a powerful sense of openness in which anyone’s voice may be the voice of God. The night she was elected, our senior warden told me she thought the Vestry should be introduced to the process of spiritual discernment.

For the first time in twelve years I did not lead the Vestry retreat. The senior warden and another member of the Vestry who had been in the discernment group led us through some guidelines for listening to one another, for working toward consensus, and for being open to signs of the Spirit. After our training we spent a few hours talking about what is most important to us. The group then helped me tackle a question: Should I sign up for a course in spiritual leadership at the Shalem Institute? I went into the weekend thinking the question would be good for learning the process but I really didn’t think I wanted to do the program. The Vestry members asked me a lot of questions about my ministry and my sense of call. I heard myself speaking from the heart in ways I had not spoken to a Vestry before. I learned something important about myself by listening to the people around me--to their questions and to what they said they were hearing from me. Over the course of the retreat, we prayed and played and sat in silence, and when it was all over I was ready to sign up for the Shalem course. We came away from the weekend thankful for time spent talking about the center of our faith. We came away also with a new respect and appreciation for this word, discernment.

We are still discovering the power of coming together to listen intentionally for what God might be inviting. Our Vestry now begins each session with silence and some centering time. We then recite a short list of listening guidelines before we begin the meeting. If anyone senses that we are not honoring the guidelines during our conversation that person may call for a break--a pause in which we acknowledge the presence of the Spirit and remember the gifts we have found in listening to each other.

In the past month, two new groups have also formed around discernment at St. Aidan’s. Seventeen people gathered one evening to talk about a feeling in the community that it was time to expand pastoral care into a more lay-led ministry. Many of those seventeen liked the discernment process so much that they have begun gathering on a regular basis for support and “spiritual companionship.” Others from that group are continuing to work together to discern St. Aidan’s way forward in pastoral care. There is, at least for me, a new sense that we are all in this ministry together.

Maybe that is the first and most obvious fruit of intentionally working to discern the call of God. Listening together for the Spirit’s voice focuses us on community in a new way. We learn once again that the God we seek is in the community and speaks to us through the community. It is easy to get caught up in the idea that because we have much to do we can’t afford to take time to just sit and listen, to God or to each other. At St. Aidan’s we are rediscovering the voice that calls us into community and encourages us in our ministries. We are learning to listen for that voice and we are finding that it speaks to us most clearly from the center of our community, sometimes with surprising clarity. Renovations to our worship space will be nice if they happen. They really are needed. But what may be the greater gift of this process--the one that lasts and continues to build us up over time--is our new understanding of and appreciation for the gift of discernment.

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Capital Campaign Diary
By John Baker


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  • Worship at St. Aiden's Episcopal Church in Alexandria, VA.