Consensus decision-making; A move of the Holy Spirit?

[Dafydd]

There is an increasing trend in many parts of the Church (including the boards of Christian charities), and to a lesser extent in certain secular situations, of replacing the 'majority opinion' model of decision making with consensus. For the Christian, a form of consensus emerges logically as the best approach. A group of Christians coming together as "organs" in the corporate Body of Christ must, ipso facto, be united in the Mind of Christ IF THEY MEET AS THE CORPORATE BODY OF CHRIST AND NOT SIMPLY AS INDIVIDUALS. If they meet as the latter, they may reach "secular" consensus, but if they meet as the former, they can pass beyond mere consensus and arrive at the true Will of God in any situation. Such "Christ-centered consensus" is reached when each member of the group becomes inwardly convicted of God's will concerning the matter in hand. The decision reached is no longer merely that of a meeting (at the mere human level) but is the decision of Christ Himself working through His corporate Body.

I believe that it is through such a means that Christ will one day rule the nations and that the rising interest in this form of decision-making that we now see is the Holy Spirit moving the Church toward something that will eventually pass beyond the Church into what will become an increasingly Christian "secular" world.

The practice has long been a feature of Quaker decision making. More at;

westernfriend.org/media/quakr-style-method-governance

quaker.org.uk/documents/how-quaker-meetings-take-decisions-2006 

oikoumene.org/resources/documents/eden-grace-on-quaker-business-practice