Resources to help you discern your vocation
Please see this page for Methodist events and supported discernment programmes including Exploring Ordained Ministry Days and the Explore and Encounter courses: https://www.methodist.org.uk/for-churches/ministries/vocations/discerning-vocation/connexional-vocation-exploration-opportunities/
Discernment resources for groups and individuals
These resources start with smaller activities, before offering more in-depth discernment work: but all draw us deeper into working out what God is calling us to be and to do.
Golden circles: discerning our why to work out our how and what
Golden Circles discernment activity, for use on your own or in a group.
Sailboat activity: prayer and centering ourselves with God
Reflection on discernment - sailboat activity for use on your own.
'Called To Be?' Postcards
Called To Be postcards These free (+p&p) postcards can be:
• Used in small groups as conversation starters.
• Used in worship.
• Used on your own as you wonder about a calling to serve within Methodism The cards all have a beautiful image on the front and then some reflection questions on the back.
Have you seen these Methodists talk about how they love their calling?
Youtube playlist: Methodists who love their callings
Journalling: 'This time, this place' - what is my vocation here and now?
This Time : This Place A reflective journal for individuals to jot down, or draw, their responses to some reflection questions on God's calling for us in our lives right now. £1 + p&p
This journal asks questions of your sense of calling in the whole of your life and not specifically about any one calling or callings within church life.
This Time: This Place aims to help us explore what ‘Follow me’ means in our lives right now. By considering the reflection questions in this booklet, we are asking ‘What is my vocation here and now?’ For all of us this changes over time, and will depend on the place we are at in our lives.
Pick and mix: small but significant changes to develop a culture of vocation
Pick and Mix : A Vocational Planning Resource This free (+p&p) resource seeks to ignite your imagination, in your own context, whether in your local church, circuit or district, or as an individual. It seeks to encourage you to choose to make small but significant changes which create a culture that builds confidence to respond to God’s invitations.
The resource is also here as a PDF (remember to view it in 2-page view)
The Discernment Course: a vocational discernment course for leaders
Sometimes, our discernment is corporate. The Discernment Course exists to help leaders listen together to God’s invitation when making decisions. Made up of four 90-minute sessions, it can be undertaken online or in person.
The choices that church communities struggle with are generally not between good and bad options, but often between two or more good things from which we seek to discern the particular choice that God calls us to. God desires us to be free and flourishing, not weary and overburdened. God’s invitation, then, is not to try and do everything, but to choose to focus on the particular ways and places that God calls us to in our unique contexts. The Discernment Course seeks to help leaders listen carefully to what God is doing in their context, to develop tools to support decision-making and to learn how to make good and prayerful decisions together.
Going deeper - two good books!
Gordon Smith (2022) Your Calling Here and Now: Making Sense of Vocation
Whatever stage we're at in our lives, this book helps us to discern the answer to the question: what is it we are called to at this time, and in this place?
Julia Mourant (2016) Listening to Your Life: 30 ways to discern direction for your future
This book contains thirty simple spiritual discernment exercises for helping us to discern our God-given inner wisdom.