Listening Together: The Role of Discernment in Ministry

Join Marcelle Martin and Windy Cooler for a rich conversation about discernment as the living center of ministry. Drawing from Marcelle’s long experience with Faithfulness Groups—ongoing circles of spiritual companionship and prayerful listening that help Friends attend to divine guidance over time—the discussion will explore how discernment takes many forms in the life of a minister and a meeting.

Faithfulness Groups offer one pattern for shared listening and accountability, but what other forms of discernment sustain our callings? Windy and Marcelle will reflect on clearness committees, eldering relationships, meeting-based care structures, and the quiet interior work of individual guidance. Together they will ask how Friends can deepen our trust in the Spirit’s motion in every kind of ministry—public and private, prophetic and pastoral, solitary and communal.

This conversation invites all who feel called to some form of faithfulness to consider: How do we listen for God together? What helps us…