In today's ever more polarized world, the aim of the Living Issues Discussion Series is to showcase Cascadia authors able to bridge conflictual stances . To set conversation in motion, typically books in the series include a vigorous statement of position regarding issues sometimes controversial in faith circles. Then, after a book’s main text, a Responses chapter provides affirming and critical commentary.

Setting Living Issues books in the context of responses is important to the series goals in that we at least dream of responses as helping to set the book in a context of mutually respectful discussion within which a.) all perspectives are seen as fallible and open to enlargement through respectful critique and at the same time b.) all are seen as potential treasures from which even opposing viewpoints can benefit.

Discerning God’s Will Together differs from other books in the series in that they tend to focus on intrinsically controversial issues, such as for example an early entry on what the Bible “really says about hell.” In contrast, Ervin Stutzman's volume  is not so much commentary on a given controversial topic as it is a guide to how the church as discerning community draws on discernment-friendly approaches to biblical interpretation to finds its way through difficult issues. Thus respondents have been invited to comment on ways Stutzman has succeeded in providing such a resource and how the book might benefit from respondents' additional perspectives concerning how the church addresses complex discernment matters.

This has led to valuable feedback from respondents, each in some way involved in exploring discernment processes as resources for navigating divisive agenda. Jan Wood, for example, author (with Lon Fendall and Bruce Bishop) of Practicing Discernment Together, sees Stutzman as providing “a rich treasure trove of insights and information” and also still yearns for another resource on the “personal discipleship/faithfulness required to prepare and empower folks to be helpful participants in healthy congregational life and discernment.” Responding through her foreword, Sara Wenger Shenk joins Wood in “listening for the music of the Spirit.”

Amid affirmations, Sally Weaver Glick, author of In Tune with God, notes that it is important for the discipleship in which discernment is grounded to be a response to God’s grace and that talk of “God’s will” can be off-putting to some. She invites discernment to unfold within celebration of “all that gives God delight and is in line with God’s purposes, all that is in tune with God’s song.”

David Brubaker, who works regularly with discernment agenda as Associate Professor of Organizational Studies at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University, underscores that “congregations matter” and that amid the schismatic forces of our era, discernment must prioritize the local community and requires “not only the theology and tools that Stutzman carefully develops but also a firm rejection of Constantinian models of monolithic decision-making.”
—Michael A. King, Living Issues Discussion Series Editor

(Full disclosure: King’s primary work is as Dean, Eastern Mennonite Seminary, a division of Eastern Mennonite University. EMS is in the midst of exenhancing its role as a Discernment Training Center, including as host of a 2014 School for Leadership Training focused on discernment. Such activities may well benefit from resources connected to this book. King also maintains a limited role as Cascadia publisher. To minimize conflicts of interest, revenue traceable to sales connected with King’s seminary  activities will be paid to Eastern Mennonite University.)