The Church Renewal Podcast

The fastest way to derail a church decision is to treat discernment like a technique instead of a spiritual life. We sit down to name the uncomfortable truth: community spiritual discernment depends on the kind of people we are together, especially the character of leaders. When a team prizes productivity over love, or when a leader cannot admit a need for forgiveness, humility dries up and the room becomes unsafe even if the doctrine sounds right.

We walk through the traits that make shared discernment possible: gospel humility, graciousness, self-awareness, and other-awareness. We dig into why harsh leadership often comes from a harsh view of God, how the performance treadmill fuels control, and why the impulse to “correct” can reveal dissonance and pride more than biblical faithfulness. Then we get practical about church conflict and courageous conversations: how to approach an elder or ministry leader you perceive as ungracious, why prayer matters before you speak, and how a coaching posture and open-ended questions can open a door that accusations will slam shut.

From there, we talk about reading the room, calling a timeout when “us” is breaking down, and why the Fruit of the Spirit is mostly measured by what others experience from us. We close by contrasting daily repentance and faith with the counterfeit Christianity that promises comfort at a low cost. If you lead a church staff, elder board, nonprofit team, or ministry, this is a grounded guide to healthier leadership and wiser decisions. Subscribe, share this with a fellow leader, and leave a review with the trait you most want the Spirit to grow in you.

"community Spiritual discernment" — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching

The Fruitful Life — Jerry Bridges, NavPress

The Gospel Waltz — Bob Flayhart and Holly Mackle, Gospel-Centered Discipleship/GCD Books

Why Do You Feel the Need to Correct Me? — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching (working title; unpublished)

Know/Care Difficult-People Diagram — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching (unpublished)

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Most leadership teams don’t fail because they lack information. They fail because we walk into the room needing to be right, needing to be seen, or needing the conversation to go our way. We’re naming that problem straight on: community spiritual discernment depends on the spiritual character of the people doing the discerning, and nothing shapes that character like gospel humility.

We talk through a simple but revealing framework we call the love and truth paradigm. When a church drifts into high truth without love, meetings can feel sharp and defensive. When it swings into high love without truth, clarity disappears. And when both love and truth are low, comfort becomes the real god. From there we lay out five traits that make discernment possible: gospel humility, self-awareness, other awareness, gentleness, and an active pursuit of obedience to God’s will.

Most of our time sits with the first trait, because one proud person can hijack a whole elder board, staff team, or pastor search committee. We unpack what gospel humility actually looks like, why pride is so sneaky, and how to tell the difference between being truly humbled by grace versus having your pride merely crushed. Then we ground it in Scripture with Ephesians 4:1–3 and Paul’s own testimony, and we connect it to Romans 5 where grace grows bigger than sin so we stop performing or pretending.

If you want healthier church leadership, better church meetings, and a culture where unity of the Spirit is protected without losing truth, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a leader in your church, and leave a review so more pastors and teams can find it.

"community Spiritual discernment" — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching 

The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness — Timothy Keller, 10Publishing

Addressing Pride in Your Life — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching

The Gospel-Centered Life—“Shrinking the Cross” diagram — Robert H. Thune and Will Walker, Serge

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Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

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Praying together can either soften a church toward God or become a polished way to avoid Him. Matt and Jeremy dig into a tension we see everywhere in church leadership and congregational life: we ask for discernment, but we come with a preferred answer, idle curiosity, or a plan we want God to bless. That posture sounds spiritual, yet it quietly refuses obedience. So we slow down and ask what faithful corporate spiritual discernment actually requires when a community may not yet be willing to follow. 

We ground the conversation in biblical wisdom from James and the lived example of Acts 15. Discernment is not chasing vague impressions; it’s seeking wisdom from above in prayer and conversation, then welcoming God’s invitation with open hands. We talk about “indifference” as a positive habit of surrender, what it looks like to disagree while still bearing the fruit of the Spirit, and why churches often cling to comfort as a hidden idol. We also name the “golden calves” that can harden a church’s spiritual arteries, stealing missional flexibility and replacing Jesus’ priorities with ours. 

Then we address real risks: discernment can be weaponized by manipulative leaders, dominant personalities, or communities that follow the spirit of the age instead of the Holy Spirit. We offer a clear guardrail: any discerned direction should be defensible from Scripture, not just asserted with spiritual language. Along the way, we connect church renewal to group sanctification, and we face the reality that wisdom from God can be disruptive and uncomfortable, especially when fear is driving decisions. 

If you care about church renewal, biblical discernment, and healthier decision-making in your leadership team, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend in ministry, and leave a rating or review to help more churches find the show.

"community Spiritual discernment" — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching 

Ambassadors — Paul David Tripp, Paul Tripp Ministries

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Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

56 churches a day closing while Jesus still calls the fields “ready for harvest” should make every pastor and church leader stop and ask one question: are we actually listening to Christ? We’re Matt and Jeremy, and we dig into why church decline is not only about culture, budgets, or attendance, but often about a deeper failure of spiritual discernment and missionary focus.

We talk about Jesus’ real-time evaluation of churches, from Romans through Revelation 2-3, and why a congregation can be doctrinally “sound” yet still drift into self-preservation. Along the way, we challenge a common reading of Matthew 28:20. The promise “I am with you always” is precious, but we argue it is tightly connected to the Great Commission itself: as we go and make disciples, Jesus is with us. When a church stops going, it should not assume a blank-check assurance.

From there we get practical. We draw a clear line between discernment versus decision making, explain why leaders often fail to switch modes, and show how tools like honest evaluation and strategic planning only help when they are paired with prayer, humility, and a missionary lens. We also share the personal formation behind this approach, including lessons from team dysfunction, biblical teamwork, and what changes when our identity is secure in Christ so we do not need the conversation to go our way. We point to Acts 15 and James 1:5 as anchors for community spiritual discernment that is biblical, testable, and not driven by vague impressions.

If you care about church renewal, church revitalization, and leading healthier elder boards and staff teams, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a leader who feels stuck, and leave a rating or review so more churches can find the help they need.

"community Spiritual discernment" — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching 

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni, The Table Group

Decision Making and the Will of God — Garry Friesen and J. Robin Maxson, Multnomah

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Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

Some church decisions feel routine until they quietly become make-or-break: hiring a pastor, reshaping a ministry, closing a beloved program, reallocating resources, or choosing a direction when the “right” path is not obvious. We open season five by naming what we think is missing in far too many leadership rooms, not more information but shared, prayerful wisdom that comes from Jesus. We call it community spiritual discernment, and we argue it may be the most crucial skill a leader can learn. 

We talk through the biblical foundation in Acts and James 1:5, where God invites a group that lacks wisdom to ask and promises to give generously. We contrast ordinary decision-making with discernment that requires slowing down, humbling ourselves, and listening carefully to one another as members of the body of Christ. Along the way we offer practical “leading indicators” that your process is breaking down, including prayerlessness, unheard voices, and meetings that end with a recorded outcome but no real buy-in. “Decided does not mean discerned” becomes a diagnostic for teams that keep moving while trust erodes. 

Then we zoom out to the church’s mission and the stakes. If the church exists to proclaim the gospel and make disciples, what happens when a congregation drifts from Jesus’ purposes? We wrestle with Revelation 2–3 and the warning that Jesus can remove a lampstand, and we clarify how seeking the Spirit’s wisdom fits within both cessationist and continuationist settings without claiming new revelation. If you lead an elder board, pastor search committee, nonprofit, or ministry team, this conversation gives language and a framework for wiser, calmer, more faithful decisions. 

Subscribe, share this with your leadership team, and leave a review if it helps. What consequential question is your church trying to answer right now?

The Eighth Letter — Mark Barnard and Kenneth Quick, ChurchSmart Resources

Rethinking Session Communication — Matt Bohling, Walt Coppersmith, Jon Price, and Robert Q. Benedict, Flourish Coaching

"community Spiritual discernment" — Matt Bohling, Flourish Coaching 

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

When you get to the end, you wanna be able to say, just like the Jerusalem Council said, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." Mm-hmm. That is the hallmark of whether community spiritual discernment happened, that the solution that they walked out of on that day in Acts 15, nobody brought into the room.

And the Lord works in such a way in the group through the conversation that everybody goes, "Wow, that's it." 

Could a church disagree honestly and still recognize the leading of the Holy Spirit together? Acts 15 does not give us a room without conflict. It gives us people who listen long enough to be changed.

James, the one who taught that they must be circumcised, probably caused this problem. 

That may be the most surprising part of the story. No one had to pretend the disagreement was small. 

In the midst of this no small debate and dissension- Right ... they disagreed, but bore the fruit of the Spirit towards each other.

Through this listening to each other- Yep ... the Holy Spirit worked. Nobody came in with that solution. This is a, a very, very surprising statement coming from James's mouth. 

They had to trust God could work through the people in the room. 

James was convincible. He didn't insist on his own way. He was willing to be shaped by the Spirit.

He was willing to be previously wrong. And James here does not insist on his own way. Love does not insist on its own way, and I think that that is a major feature that's needed in people that are gonna do community spiritual discernment. 

Remember, the first episode arrives Thursday, October 1st.

Subscribe so it is waiting for you. Bring a friend who's been asking how a church can hear God together, and we will see you then.

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

Your viewpoint actually is not valuable because I'm superior to you. 

Have you ever watched a church meeting end in agreement only to hear the real opinions beside the cars? 

If the real conversation can't happen in the room, the leaders in the room have made it impossible. 

That conversation after the conversation may tell you more about the room than the vote did.

What happens is we have a fauxversation. Okay. It has all of the appearances- Mm-hmm ... of a talking with. Mm-hmm. But it is not a talking with. It's a talking at, it's a talking over. People are not listening to hear, they're listening to respond. They're not listening at all. We're not realizing this is a big enough thing that we ought to admit we don't have the wisdom right off the bat.

It reminds me of pilots. When they're in the air and something goes wrong, what do they do? They pull out their notebook, and they flip to the page that says, "Checklist for this event." Not because they're not trained, not because they're not prepared, but this is what you do when you encounter this. 

Right.

You turn to the guide. Right. And the guide will then tell you, "Here's how you make this decision." 

Yep. 

So join us next week for season five of the Church Renewal podcast. Maybe bring the person you normally talk with after the meeting. Subscribe now so neither of you misses it.

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

Hasn't this idea already led to spiritual abuse? 

Here is a question most churches do not ask until something has already gone wrong. What happens when a leader enters discernment with the answer already decided? 

It certainly can, done wrong. It's dangerous in the hand of a manipulative leader. It's also dangerous if even one person doesn't open their hand and be genuinely open to how the Lord would work in the group.

The words may sound spiritual, and the room may agree, but is anyone still free to hear something different? 

You're fundamentally saying that at least a major reason that CSD is not happening in a congregation is in fact because of the leadership. 

Yeah, absolutely. If the leadership is not all Gospel humbled, they're a danger to their own sheep.

Hmm. That is scary, scary business. Yeah. Doctrinally orthodox people could actually be a danger to the very sheep that they're trying to teach the right doctrine to. 

That is the uncomfortable part. A leader may mean well and still make discernment unsafe when being right matters more than being changed.

What's the difference between that Gospel humbled person and a person whose pride has merely been crushed? 

Yeah, so a Gospel humbled person, they know themselves to be a very great sinner, in fact, the worst sinner that they know, but also marvelously received by the Father. And so they're amazed and grateful, and as a result, they're a gracious person.

That's the Gospel humbled person. 

Season five launches in two weeks. Subscribe before you forget. And if a leader came to mind while you were listening, send this their way, then come back and listen with 

us.

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

Lots of churches close every year, 15,000 or something crazy like that, which is bananas. Sometimes Jesus has just left the building, and He takes the light with Him. 

Last season on the Church Renewal podcast, we looked at how anxiety shapes a church and the people trying to lead it. This season, we're asking what happens when a hard decision needs more than good judgment?

How do we know when we have made a wise choice? And how do we know when we have actually listened for God? That is where season five begins. 

We're not asking because we don't want it to be different. And in fact, if somebody tried to tell us, we would get upset with them for disrupting the stasis. 

If your church has a hard decision in front of it, we made this season for you.

You know, what color on the walls, what computers to buy, I don't believe that those need to be discerned. Mm-hmm. They can just be decided. Some of it is on, on us as leaders of teams, where they don't realize we just walked into something that ought to be discerned- Right ... and I haven't helped the team slow down and switch modes.

What He threatens to do in Revelation 2 and 3, He actually makes good on. People don't seek Him and don't want His will. They want their way, then they're happy for a church to close as long as they got their way, which is very sad. 

Season five begins Thursday, October 1st. Subscribe now, and if someone helps carry those decisions with you, send this their way.

We'll meet you there.

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.

Start here if you’ve ever wondered why church renewal efforts stall even when the plan looks solid. We trace a quieter, deeper path: personal differentiation rooted in rest in Christ, and how that inner work can transform the emotional climate of a whole congregation. Across a season’s worth of conversations, we unpack the tools, the cautions, and the hope that come with applying family systems wisdom alongside gospel-centered formation.

We share practical resources leaders can trust, from Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Emotionally Healthy Relationships to Christian introductions to Bowen family systems that make patterns of anxiety and triangulation visible without turning people into projects. You’ll hear why these tools are descriptive rather than prescriptive, and how they serve the larger work of discipleship: defining yourself clearly, staying connected without control, and leading with a calm, non-anxious presence. Two core ideas keep surfacing. First, complementarity: when you change, the system shifts. Second, contagion: anxiety spreads, but so does differentiation and rest. Ground your identity in Christ, and watch how meetings, conflicts, and ministries find a steadier rhythm.

We also pull back the curtain on Flourish Coaching—what coaching is and isn’t, why so much of our current work focuses on transitional pastoring, and how churches can navigate liminal seasons with courage and clarity. Looking ahead, we preview a forthcoming book and season five’s focus on communal spiritual discernment shaped by Acts 15 and the wisdom language of James. Think pastor searches, vision work, and complex decisions approached with shared prayer, humility, and Spirit-led wisdom that is pure, peaceable, and open to reason.

If you’re ready to move from managing crises to shepherding culture, this conversation will give you a path and the posture to walk it. Subscribe, share with a fellow leader, and leave a review with one question you want us to explore next. Your curiosity helps shape what comes next.

Resources

Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality

Peter Scazzero & Geri Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Workbook + Streaming Video

Peter Scazzero & Geri Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Relationships Workbook (Expanded Edition)

Roberta M. Gilbert, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory

Support the show

Please connect with us at our Website, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
If you'd like to support the work of Flourish Coaching you can click here to make a donation.

Connect with Jeremy to discuss podcasting.