We often struggle to differentiate between God's voice and our own. A group that listens well can receive our thoughts and our emotions and assist us to sift them for the presence of God. It was at such meetings where people could come together and without the pressure to make a decision, share their thoughts and questions and opinions, gain information regarding the facts of the situation, and get a sense of where other people were coming from. Time was then spent over the course of the week, carefully holding this awareness in a prayerful attentiveness to the fullness of the issues involved. Besides listening well, and reflecting back thoughts and emotions, a community can best discern God's voice by knowing each other well.
Language is tricky.
We believe it communicates clearly, but the world and experience of the speaker colors the words with one underlying meaning, while the world and experience of each listener colors them with potentially different values. Communicating clearly requires us to know one another well, to have spent time together, to have become familiar with the world of the speaker, so that the meaning of their words are communicated more clearly. This might mean that full church business meetings will have to trust some of these smaller groups. Perhaps such trust will allow community business meetings to have time for the listening, sifting, weighing, and prayerful silence that is necessary for group spiritual discernment. But it allows us to truly function as Christ within our communities.