Journey Phase 2 · Exploring Candidate
Nurturing a Call Together
The afternoon session at Candidacy Summit: your story, call stories in Scripture, spiritual disciplines, and what to do before your first discernment group.
What has brought me to this place of discernment?
A Note About Discernment
You may enter this process with certainty, questions, excitement, hesitation, or a mixture of all of these. The goal is not to force certainty. The goal is faithful discernmentDiscern Synonymous with decide. Carries an underlying assumption that the decision is made with considerable thought, prayer, study, and attention to God’s call in one’s life. with God and with the Church.
John Wesley believed covenant groups were vital to Christian formation. Small groups offered opportunities for spiritual growth, accountability, and mutual care. Your mentoring group will function in this spirit.
When another person shares their story, listen as though you are receiving something sacred. Give undivided attention. Avoid trying to solve, evaluate, or correct.
Helpful questions are usually simple and open. Ask questions that invite deeper reflection on faith, gifts, feelings, values, choices, relationships, hopes, and patterns.
Purpose
We begin by creating a community where people can tell their stories, listen for God’s movement, and practice discernment together. Before exploring ministry pathways or denominational expectations, we begin with relationship and trust.
Before this Session
- Build a Prayer Team. Invite 3-5 people to serve as your prayer team throughout your candidacy journey
- Read and reflect on these passages about God’s Call: 1 Samuel 3, Esther 1-4; 8, Acts 9:1-31 and explore additional call stories throughout Scripture.
- Read Answering the Call: Candidacy Guidebook. Introduction (pgs. 11-13, Calling) & Chapter 4 (Spiritual Disciplines)
- Acquaint yourself with the structure of 2020/2024 United Methodist Book of Discipline and Read Part IV The Ministry of All Christians - Section 1: ¶120-¶124
As you read call narratives, consider:
- Which call narrative resonates most deeply with your own experience? Why?
- Which story feels the least like your own journey? What makes it different?
- Do you see elements of your calling reflected in more than one biblical story?
- What do these stories reveal about the many ways God calls people into ministry?
Journal your reflections. Rather than looking for a single "right" story, notice the patterns, questions, surprises, and movements of the Holy Spirit that emerge. How is God continuing to shape your understanding of your call today?
During the Session
- Opening Prayer
- Review the Covenant of Presence
- Conversation: Why are You Here?
- Encountering Call in Scripture
- Recognizing Patterns of Call
- Nurturing Call through Spiritual Disciplines
- Closing
Conversation: Why Are You Here?
What is something about your life, faith, or experience that has brought you to Candidacy Summit today? You might share a person, experience, question, moment, or sense of God’s invitation. You will have about 3 minutes to share.
Reflection
- What feelings emerged as you shared your story?
- Where did you identify with another person’s story?
- What did you notice about the experience of being listened to?
- What might this experience suggest for your discernment?
Encountering Call in Scripture
| Call Story | How does God call? | How does the person respond? |
|---|---|---|
| Samuel | ||
| Esther | ||
| Paul |
The important question isn't simply “What happened?” but: What do these stories teach us about the ways God calls people?
Recognizing Patterns of Call
Calling is not always a lightning bolt. Sometimes it is a voice we slowly learn to recognize. Sometimes it is a disruption we did not expect. Sometimes it emerges through circumstances, relationships, gifts, wounds, questions, or opportunities. And sometimes we recognize our call because someone else helps us see what God has already been doing in us.
Today we begin by remembering that your call does not have to look like anyone else's call. The task of discernment is not to find the “right” biblical story or to prove that you have a call. It is to become attentive—to God, to yourself, and to the community around you—as you continue to discover where the Holy Spirit is leading.
God calls → people respond → community helps discern → calling unfolds over time → our story is part of this larger story.
Nurturing Call through Spiritual Disciplines
Ministry flows from a life rooted in relationship with God. Ministry is not simply something we do for God. It is something we learn to do with God. Before we talk about preaching, leading, serving, or caring for others, we need to ask: How are we cultivating our relationship with God?
For John Wesley, spiritual formation was never simply about becoming a more spiritual person. It was about being formed in love of God and love of neighbor. Wesley spoke of the works of piety—prayer, Scripture, worship, fasting, Holy Communion, and Christian fellowship—and the works of mercy—serving others, feeding the hungry, visiting those who are sick or imprisoned, caring for those who are vulnerable, and seeking justice. Both works of piety and works of mercy are means of grace, and for Wesley, holiness is both personal and social.
| Personal | Public | |
|---|---|---|
| Works of Mercy | Acts of Compassion | Acts of Justice |
| Works of Piety | Acts of Devotion | Acts of Worship |
After a diagram by Steve Manskar, Discipleship Ministries.
Practicing the Examen
The daily exam was developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. In the Examen you look for God by looking at your life in the last 24 hours. Start by shutting out distractions, breathing deeply, and closing your eyes. Then follow the steps:
- Ask for the grace to see your lives through God’s eyes, not your own. Where did I notice God’s presence?
- Give thanks. Gratitude for God’s gifts is the context for the whole prayer.
- Look back on day you have just lived. Where was God was especially present? Where did I experience joy, peace, or love?
- Look for what’s wrong and the ways you have fallen short. Where did I feel disconnected from God or others? Ask God for forgiveness when you are at fault, and ask God to show you ways to improve.
- Look at the day ahead. How will you love God and other people tomorrow? Where might God be inviting me to respond differently
Close by asking: “God what are you showing me?”
Before Session 1
Continue to Explore & Practice Spiritual Disciplines.
Between now and our next discernment group, spend time exploring how spiritual disciplines are shaping the lives of people around you and your own relationship with God.
- Learn from Others - Talk with one or two people about the spiritual disciplines they practice. Ask:
- What spiritual disciplines or practices are part of your life?
- Why are these practices meaningful to you?
- How have they shaped or nurtured your relationship with God?
- Has a particular practice been especially important during a season of discernment, change, or challenge?
- Reflect on Your Own Practice - Consider your own experience with spiritual disciplines.
- What practices have nurtured your faith and helped you become more attentive to God's presence?
- How have these practices shaped the way you love God, love your neighbor, and live out your faith?
- Choose a New Practice - Choose one spiritual discipline that is not currently a regular part of your spiritual life and practice it intentionally for the next month. As you practice, pay attention rather than judging your experience. Notice:
- What do you experience?
- What is easy or difficult?
- What do you notice about yourself?
- What do you notice about God?
- Does the practice change the way you relate to others or engage the world around you?
Spiritual disciplines are not about earning God’s favor or completing a spiritual checklist. They create space to become more attentive to God’s presence and available to God’s transforming work.
Read Answering the Call, Chapter 5: Vocation, Call and Gifts.
Complete Reflecting on Your Call Session 1
- When did you first become aware of God’s presence in your life?
- What experiences have most shaped your relationship with God?
- Are there specific people, moments, or places that helped you grow in faith?
- What spiritual practices (e.g., prayer, worship, Scripture, service, silence, etc.) have sustained and formed you?
- Was there a time you resisted or questioned your call? What did you learn through that experience?
- What spiritual gifts, leadership strengths, and life experiences do you bring to ministry?
Complete the River of Life activity (instructions below) ¹
River of Life Activity
Begin with a blank sheet of paper. Before you put anything on the paper, think briefly about the course of your whole life. If you were able to compare your life with a river, what would the river look like?
- When and where are the smooth, flowing waters – those times when events and relationships seem generally positive of there is a sense of ease about your life?
- When does the river take a sudden turn (and what caused the turn), or change from smooth waters to rough, tumbling rapids or to an excited rush of water?
- Are there rocks or boulders falling into your river – unexpectedly landed there, changing its direction forever?
- Are there points at which it flows powerfully and purposefully or seems to slow to a trickle?
Instructions
A. Draw your river of life with its bends and turns, its smooth waters and rough spots, its strength/ vitality, and its direction.
- Write in your approximate age, and/or dates, along the flow of your river.
- Identify on your drawing the various key “marker events” in your life – the boulders in the river, or places where the river changes course – that shape your story.
- If you were able to divide your life journey into sections, where would the section divisions occur? Give names to each of the sections of your life river.
B. Now think about the various people who have accompanied you along this river’s journey.
- What relationships have been the most significant at different point in your life?
- Who has most shaped you?
- Have there been significant losses of relationship along the way?
- What groups or communities of people were most important?
- Record these key relationships and losses in the appropriate places on your river of life.
- If you wish, you might also want to jot down some of the thoughts and feelings that go along with these relationships.
C. As you look over the diagram of your life river, think about the different ways you have experienced and understood God across your life.
- Who or what was God to you at the different times depicted in your diagram?
- What caused you to feel closer to, or more distant from, God at these different times?
- What places or situations were encounters with the Sacred for you?
- Have you faced situations or experiences devoid of any sense of God/the Sacred?
- Decide on a way to note these matters, with words and/or symbols, and place them into your river.
D. In relation to your life’s journey,
- Are there times of significant pain or suffering – yours or others’ – that shape the flow of your life river?
- What has happened along the journey of your life that you associate with evil?
- Add these elements to your river.
E. Rivers do not exist in isolation but are always part of a larger ecology. So, too, is human life situated in a larger world.
- What was going on in the world – local, regional, and world events – that shaped the flow of your river?
- Using words and/or symbols, place these events in the appropriate locations on your river.
F. As you reflect on your river of life,
- What values, commitments, causes, or principles were most important to you at a given point in your life?
- Toward what goals, if any, were your primary energies directed – or, metaphorically speaking, what purposes and ends helped to shape the flow of life waters at a given time in your experience?
- Note these on your river.
Taking a Step Back
Look over the whole diagram. Do its symbols and words seem to portray how you think and feel about the whole of your life? Is some important element left out? Make adjustments as needed. Remember that no drawing can possibly capture all that shapes a person’s journey. This is a beginning point for reflection and/or conversation, not a comprehensive depiction of your life. In the next session you will have 3 minutes to share reflections on your River of Life.
¹ Taken from Joyce Ann Mercer, Girl Talk, God Talk: Why Faith Matters to Teenage Girls – and Their Parents (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 135-136.