There’s hope for decisions that take a long, long time

This encouragement is written by Tanner Smith, Chief of Consulting and Culture at The Colossian Forum. 

When decisions take longer than we expect, we usually measure discernment by one question: Have we reached an answer yet? But healthy discernment is measured differently. Its clearest sign is that the people involved are growing.

My colleague Sarah recently walked through the college decision process with her daughter. As the months passed, Sarah wondered whether anything was actually happening. Then a friend helped her see what she’d missed. Her daughter had narrowed twelve schools to four, could name what mattered most, and their family was asking better questions while becoming more honest about their fears. The decision hadn’t been made, but the discernment process had already begun changing them.

Churches and leadership teams often overlook this kind of progress. 

When we’re anxious for resolution, we tend to measure progress by the calendar. How many meetings have we had? How long have we been talking about this? Why aren’t we further along? Those questions rarely tell us whether discernment is happening.

Healthy discernment changes us and our organizations. People become more honest about what they’re afraid of. Assumptions that once went unquestioned or unnamed begin to surface. The community grows clearer about what matters most, and people begin listening to one another more intently.

One image that has helped me think about this comes from biology. Healthy bodies metabolize what they receive, transforming food into energy that strengthens them. Healthy communities do something similar with conflict. Instead of recycling the same fears and disagreements, they process them until they produce greater honesty, clearer priorities, and deeper wisdom. Communities that become stuck lose that capacity. The conversation begins looping instead, returning to the same anxieties without producing new understanding.

It’s possible that your community really is stuck. If that’s where you find yourself, don’t confuse recognizing that fact with failure. Naming that stuck pattern is often the first move toward discernment. As a leader, you can help your community move out of avoidance and into action by naming the reality. Someone has to be willing to ask, “What are we missing? What’s at stake here? What makes this decision important?” Those questions can interrupt the cycle and invite the community back into curiosity, honesty, and prayer.

When a decision feels slow in coming, pay attention to the ways God is already at work among you. Notice where fear is giving way to honesty, where assumptions are being questioned, and where the community is growing in wisdom. Those moments may not feel like progress. Yet they are often the first signs that God is already at work.