Holy Listening: Seeking the direction of God in the voices of the neighbourhood
2025 Vestry in the Parish of the Blue Mountains.
GROWING BEYOND THE DOORS
By Rev. Canon Grayhame Bowcott
AS I WRITE this article, preparations are being made for our upcoming annual Vestry Meeting, a time when the membership of our church will reflect on our lives and ministry together over the last year, and then seek to discern God’s direction for our community in the year ahead.
Vestry can be an exciting time, especially when a congregation is open to the idea of God calling them to something new in the future. But how do we discern God’s calling for our congregations? How do we set our ministry priorities in a way that is faithful to God’s mission in our lives and in the communities that we are called to serve?
I believe that one of the most important elements to finding our missional direction (the marching orders of how to serve) is to create space for Holy Listening in our congregational priorities.
One of the greatest impediments to missional planning, especially when these conversations occur in the busyness of the Vestry season, is the fact that the people present at our Vestry meetings tend to be our most committed members of the church. For starters, that’s a good thing! We should always be deeply grateful for the membership of our congregations, who are the bedrock of the planning and exercise of ministry in our churches. However, as Vestry is usually a gathering of the membership of the church, what is often missing, are the voices, the needs, and the community partners who are not part of the membership of the congregation.
It is helpful to remember this important point about discernment: that God doesn’t just work through the membership of the faith community inside the walls of a church, but rather that God is already at work in the wider neighbourhood beyond the walls of our churches. The question we sometimes need to ask is: how do we participate in what God is already up to?
More often than not, our Vestry meetings can become a meeting of “Anglicans talking to Anglicans”, and they tend to focus on the needs, concerns, interests and values of those within our membership group.
When congregations are discerning God’s call to service in the contexts of their influence, within the neighbourhoods that they are situated in, often we need to journey outside the opinions of our membership to hear God’s voice in the wider community. The exercise of Holy Listening is when space is made to invite other voices to the table where our ministry planning decisions are being made.
A great example of this was found several years ago when a neighbouring congregation to mine, Christ Church in Meaford, decided to host a Town Hall meeting to talk about the most significant needs in their community.
During the pandemic, the congregation of Christ Church had jumped into action through hosting community meals, and through their generosity, tens of thousands of meals were prepared in their church and served throughout the entire county! It was truly a ministry of profound generosity!
However, when some effects of the pandemic began to subside, the congregation decided that it was time to discern where God might be calling them to next. To do this, they engaged in an exercise of Holy Listening, by hosting a community conversation (a Town Hall meeting), and by inviting their mayor, community group leaders, and anyone interested in joining a conversation about the needs of the community and the ways that caring groups, including their church, might respond.
Whenever congregations engage in Holy Listening beyond the membership of their church rolls, there is a potential for new partnerships to be made, for unknown needs in the neighbourhood to be identified, and in some ways, most importantly, for faithful church leaders to hear where God might be calling them to serve in the future.
My invitation to any congregation that is struggling to discern their calling or purpose in their own local context, or to any congregation that is seeking to grow in new relationships and partnerships, would be to find ways to include Holy Listening in their own ministry planning conversations and meetings.
God doesn’t always provide all the answers to our future service within the membership of the Church. Sometimes we need to journey to the voices beyond our own walls to hear God’s will for us.
Rev. Canon Dr. Grayhame Bowcott is passionate about fostering congregational relationships and sharing our Anglican vocation with others. He serves as Rector of St. George’s, The Parish of The Blue Mountains, and as Program Director for the Licentiate in Theology program at Huron University.