Do you remember the K-car? I owned this ‘reliant automobile’ shortly after Bible College. Among its many quirks was an aversion to rain. When water splashed up from the road it shorted out the cables. This required a side-of-the-highway stop—always in a rainstorm—to pop the hood and spray the distributor cap with WD-40.

The K-car let us know when it was time to pull over—instead of running on four cylinders, one would cut out, leaving three to carry the load. The car chugged and lurched along, always threatening to stall completely. Four-cylinder vehicles were never meant to run on three.

In Pentecostal Prophecy, I argued that prophecy involves five components—cylinders, if you will. Prophets recognize, receive, discern, release, and experience. It’s that middle component, discernment, that keeps acting up. Without discernment, prophetic ministry shudders along, threatening to stall out. My goal in this article is to suggest a fix for that faulty component.

A Gift in Decline?

I was a Section Pastor in a past life. I still remember our District Superintendent, Lorrie Gibbons, urging us to make our churches “pentecostal again.” By this, Pastor Lorrie was mourning the perceived lack of spiritual gifts operative in our churches.

About one third of the Old Testament is prophecy. That’s 17 of the 39 books in our English Old Testament if you’re keeping track. You can’t escape it! The New Testament doesn’t include prophetic books but makes it clear that the church is empowered by the Spirit to be a prophetic community (Acts 2:16–18). Prophecy and the pentecostal experience developed hand-in-glove since the birth of the movement.

So why are spiritual gifts like prophecy missing in many of our churches? Why does prophetic expression feel more like an unsettling interruption than a work of the Spirit? Could part of the answer be that our lack of effective discernment practices is stalling out the gift?

Biblical Discernment

I clearly remember the Sunday service when a beloved member of the congregation delivered a prophecy that left me unsettled. Nothing the person said was wrong, but nothing felt particularly right, either. In the week that followed, I discussed the situation with one of my board members to see how she processed the situation. Her answer was a perfect reflection of our individualistic Western culture: “I just pray and ask Jesus if that word is for me. If it’s not, I let it go. Maybe it’s for someone else.”

Discernment means deciding whether a message is from God for that moment and it’s an essential part of biblical prophecy. People I’ve spoken with describe discernment in different ways:

• Some just “know in their spirit” that the message is from God.
• Some rely on others to confirm the truth of the message.
• For some, the intensity of the message is discernment enough.

There is, however, one big difference between the way we practice discernment today verses the way it was practiced in scripture. Biblical discernment engages the entire community of faith. If we want to be biblical, prophetic messages should be discerned together. It’s simply not enough to ask whether the message is for me.

We see this in the Old and New Testaments. Consider Jeremiah’s message: “Surrender to Babylon and live!” The false prophet Hananiah attacked him with a biblical message rooted in the Davidic covenant. Which prophet was right? The community of faith had to decide which prophet they would follow. Would they remain in the city or leave the pseudo-safety of their walls with their hands up?

The church in Corinth was a chaotic prophetic mess plagued by competitiveness and self-promotion. Paul corrected them by emphasizing the need to discern together. “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said” (1 Cor 14:29 NRSV, emphasis added). The people (plural) who hear the prophetic message are responsible for judging the message.

The Informal Liturgy

One of the ways we practice discernment is to urge would-be prophets to share their message with the pastor first. This involves both the prophet and pastor in the discernment process. Two are better than one, but that’s still a far cry from the entire worshipping community. As a risk-averse Canadian, this procedure is comforting, but is it biblical? Can you imagine Jeremiah, mud caked onto his robe from his latest imprisonment in a waterless cistern, asking King Zedekiah for permission to urge the surrender of his people?

The informal liturgy of informing the pastor first also short-circuits the experience of prophecy. We tend to justify this practice by proof texting Paul: “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor 13:32). That is, if God’s given you a message, you could put it on hold and deliver it later. Research muddies this interpretation. Prophecy is often a spontaneous event where the prophet feels (like Jeremiah) that there’s a message burning that must be released quicky.

To be blunt, elevating the pastor as the sole arbiter of true and false prophecy in the congregation is a biblically unfaithful capitulation to our individualistic society.

Individualism and Collectivism

The culture of the Bible was not individualistic. In fact, some of the major problems in Corinth were rooted in individualistic impulses that harmed the worshiping community. People in collectivist cultures are more concerned with how they relate to the group; how their actions impact the health of the community. When people in collectivist cultures hear a prophetic word, they ask, “what does this mean for us?”

You might notice how different this type of discernment is from the individualistic pastor-centric models we default to today. Perhaps we could learn something from indigenous people who live in a far more collectivist societies:

In the same manner, only two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh what has been said. But if anything is revealed by the Spirit to another who is seated in the circle, the first should stop speaking and give way to the other.” (1 Cor 14:29–30 First Nations Version).

The circle envisioned in this translation is miles away from rows of people facing the stage.

A Culture of Discernment

How do we ‘fix’ our discernment problem? Let’s start by admitting that it won’t be easy. Practical theologian James Seager is right: “new practices may require a significant break from the past – almost a rebellion against the current social and ecclesial order” (Practical Theology 16.6). There are no Band Aids available to slap onto our existing individualistic practices. We need something new, or should I say, very old.

Pastors, it’s up to us to create a new plausibility structure where hearing and discerning God’s voice together in community is normalized. Instead of pausing awkwardly or uttering an ‘amen’ and moving on, the congregation must be given the opportunity to evaluate the prophetic message every time.

Imagine the benefits of this type of culture. People crushed into silence by the weight of daring to speak for God may be encouraged, knowing that the congregation will pray about the message together. Predatory prophets will lose some of the personal power that comes from declaring, “thus says the Lord.” Pastors might breathe easier, knowing that the weight of discernment is shared. Most importantly, every single believer will have the opportunity to mature in their faith by practicing their anointing (1 John 2:27). So, what might this look like?

A Curriculum for Discernment

For prophecy to be discerned together, people need to talk to each other. I suggest that we gather in small groups (the only size that can facilitate conversation) and discuss the following four questions after hearing a prophetic message:

1. How did you feel when the prophetic message was delivered?

This question recognizes that prophecy is not just the transmission of a word, but the communication of God’s heart, his pathos.

2. How does the message build up the congregation?

“Build up” is one of the key functions of prophecy (1 Cor 14:3). I’m not suggesting that every message should be happy-clappy. Prophets often call for repentance! Even so, the purpose of New Testament prophecy is not just to tear down. Restoration is always in view.

3. How does the message encourage us to love each other and God more fully?

This centres the gift of prophecy on love, as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 13. No “clanging cymbals” allowed.

4. What are some practical ways that we can respond to this message together?

This challenges the idea common in many of our churches that thinking correctly is what matters. It motivates people to put feet to their faith. If we truly believe that God has spoken, we had better figure out how to obey!

Contexts & Conclusion

The size and diversity of our congregations complicate this proposal. Small group discussion is all well and good in a house church of 25 people. Large churches with multiple services and tight timelines may not be able to facilitate collective prophetic discernment in the moment. Still, creative solutions may be found. Perhaps the message could be brought to a prayer room following the service or even to mid-week small groups.

It’s not easy to shift a culture, but if our goal is to make room for the Spirit to speak in our worship services, then collective discernment is biblically non-negotiable. Without it, prophecy sputters, threatening to stall out. I’ve suggested one potential path forward that’s biblically faithful and culturally aware, but it’s certainly not the only solution. The Bible instructs us to discern together but doesn’t tell us how to do it. I would love to hear from pastors and leaders who have wrestled with this issue—what are your ideas?

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My research on prophecy as been published as Pentecostal Prophets. I’m currently working on a new book that will help everyday Christians explore prophecy with the help of some Old Testament guides. Please consider joining my mailing list if you’d like to keep in touch with my latest writing projects. I promise not to spam you!