On behalf of the session at Lake Forest Park Presbyterian Church, it is my joy to endorse and recommend the ministry that Renewal Ministries Northwest provides to churches who are engaged in a process of discernment. As part of a discernment process in which we were engaged, we invited RMNW to lead us through the particulars of the process so that we could discover a means of affirming the clear leading of Christ in our situation. Rev. Kunce and Rev. Easter provided a comprehensive foundation that outlined the goal for our time together and the method that would guide our discernment. In the spirit of appreciative inquiry, Rev(s) Kunce and Easter fostered an environment of gracious listening to one another and for the leading of Christ. During our time together, session members were able to speak and to hear one another shed light on various aspects of our topic, and while the topic itself had the potential to raise the emotional temperature of the room, we never experienced discomfort in our candid dialogue. In fact, instead of “heat,” we experienced warmth in terms of commitment to one another and in maintaining the unity of the Spirit we believed paramount to any way forward. Though there were clearly different viewpoints that surfaced over the course of our process, once we came to the moment of decision, the direction of our conversation and agreement can only be attributed to the leading of Christ. As pastor, I was profoundly moved by the elegance of this process and its outcome. My sense of our experience is to say, “this is how it ought to be when followers of Christ discern His leading.” We are grateful for the direction we received from RMNW; I believe that any church earnestly seeking a way forward through challenging circumstances will find their leadership beneficial.
Reverend Frank Baresel, Pastor – Lake Forest Park Presbyterian Church, Lake Forest Park, WA