Listen and Learn
I’m not sure if many people are very good at listening. If we were, perhaps there would not need to be so many counsellors and therapists.
Yet, we love to be listened to. It makes us feel valued and respected and people who listen well and check they have understood by asking questions enable us to unjumble our thoughts. It helps us solve problems.
When we listen properly, we can understand how someone else feels. When we speak and someone else listens, they can understand how we feel. So, listening helps us to understand each other.
Have a watch at this clip from The Big Bang Theory!
However, often as Christians, we fail to listen to others outside the church before we make decisions about activities and support that we want to bring to the community. Our intentions are good and come from a caring heart, but without first listening to the needs and pain of the people around us we are in danger of jumping to the wrong conclusions.
If we do not listen to people, not only may we miss their real needs, but we will also end up treating them as passive targets of our compassion, rather than as people like us. We end up denying people respect and worth if we just do things for them rather than with them. In fact, we may even end up helping people in order to meet our own needs (to feel needed; to feel we are doing something worthwhile; to alleviate guilt) rather than theirs.
Attitudes
Jesus interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well (John Ch 4: 1 – 42) is a great example of good listening and interaction. Jesus treats the woman with full dignity and respect, talking to her on her wavelength, addressing her issues and responding to her needs as he listens. He was also willing to break the norms of his own culture to speak with her at all. He also met her on her own ground.
When Nehemiah returned to the crumbling ruins of Jerusalem (Nehemiah Ch 2: 11-16), he must have been tempted to get on with what God had called him to do – the rebuilding of the walls. After all, the need as he rode into the city could not have been more obvious. Yet, his first action is to investigate the walls, assessing the need. He looks before he leaps!
Ownership
Ownership is crucially important for us all. It is the feeling of being included, of having a say, of being heard and of having some responsibility for a community initiative. Without ownership, people easily become uninterested and disillusioned and may even try to sabotage the task.
Church Community Transformation
Thrive Ireland is very involved in supporting people in a listening process with those in their local community. It’s a vital and important part of the STOP, LOOK, LISTEN, WALK journey. It takes your church through a guided listening process which involves many in the church.
It’s not intimidating. You start with people you already know. Have an informal conversation over a cup of tea or coffee. Chat to the carers in your parent and toddler group. Use people in your church who are good with IT to help dig into the Census data from your local area. Identify the best people to talk to in your community about the local needs– like the head teacher at your local primary school or your elected representative, a GP who might even be part of your church. Listening helps you to begin to build meaningful external relationships and discover what the real needs are.
The CCT process also helps you to structure this process, ask the right questions and provides tools which can be used when listening and how to record and communicate the information gathered.
“Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise- up the age-old foundations. You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” Isaiah 58: 12
If you are interested in knowing more, just contact Diane at Thrive Ireland for a chat.