listen.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 10:11PM Tonight I wrapped up teaching one of our September offerings for Journey Bible Classes. Afterwards, one of the guys in the class asked what steps he should take if he thinks he might teach some day. Among other things, I said this:
Be the best listener you can be. A teacher earns the right to speak by listening well.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who thought they knew what you were going to say, and so they kept completing your sentences, only to find out that they were wrong each time? It’s a frustrating experience, right? I think we do this as teachers.
First, we do it to the Bible. If we grew up in Church or have had any kind of Biblical training, it can be difficult to let the Bible speak for itself. We keep finishing its sentences, expecting any verse that begins with “the Gospel” to end with a reference to what some people call “substitutionary atonement”. We assume that any given verse in our Bibles is trying to answer the question, “How do I get to heaven when I die?” when very little of it may really have been written for that purpose. We turn to the Gospel of Luke and, because we’ve already read Matthew, expect the Beatitudes to speak to purely spiritual realities (“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” says Matthew). We’re unable to hear the very physical sense of earthly poverty that Jesus is speaking to in Luke when He says, “Blessed are the poor”. It all amounts to very poor listening skills. And a teacher earns the right to speak by listening well.
But we also do it to the people we’re addressing. I imagine most of us have sat through a sermon and thought of the preacher, “this guy has obviously not had a real conversation with anyone in this room! No one is asking the questions he’s answering.” I’m the chief of sinners on this front. Every gifting carries with it a unique liability, and preachers are no different. We’re wired with a passion to speak the truth, but if we’re not careful, we roll over people like a bulldozer with all of our right answers and leave them worse off than they were before we spoke. I shudder to think of how often I’ve done this to an individual or a crowd.
Daniel Boorstin is one of my favorite historians. He wrote, “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.” I would push back slightly and say that knowledge is not all illusion, but he makes a good point. The more we think we know, the less we listen. At least I think that’s what he’s trying to say.
To listen is to seek to understand, and so listening is an act of love. I’ve had the ongoing privilege of working as an understudy to a few incredible teachers. Mark Beeson, Rob Wegner, Mark Waltz, and Bob Laurent exhibit a love for the people they teach that convicts me deeply and challenges me to be a better man. I wish every one of you could know how seriously these men believe that to teach is to carry a sobering responsibility on one’s shoulders. They ooze with pastors’ hearts as they prepare and deliver. They listen and love well. I want the same to be true of me. And whether you’re teaching in a church or school or just opening your mouth occasionally to speak to your friends, I hope you’ll listen well, too.
Reader Comments (4)
This morning I was just talking with a friend who is serving in St. Petersberg, Russia. Yeah, way out there - in more ways than just distance. She was saying that a guy from Crossroads International Church in Amsterdam spoke to one of their recent conferences. She thought I would have loved him because he, like me, is so 'right-brain' and 'out there' and that his cutting edge ideas for ministry were amazing. But then she turned around and said that, for the people s in the Eastern block countries who have still not moved beyond modernity, she wasn't sure how they were supposed to process this information for their ministries. You basically said the same thing here.
So many leaders and churches, in the name of wanting to reach the culture of today, aren't really listening to the culture. Sure, they understand post-modernism vs. modernism and listen to all the writers, theologians and philosophers who speak to that. They subscribe to the polls and the predictors. But they aren't really on the ground listening to the people they actually supposed to be reaching. When we are truly among the people, we find that their ideas and questions are not so easily categorized into such categories as modern or post-modern. Being incarnational in our ministry is not about being up on the philosophies of how people are thinking. It's about being in contact with the people themselves and asking them what they are thinking. Thanks, Jason.
Thanks for the reminder of how I need to refocus my teaching to include more listening. I'm awful at it, especially when I think I have the "right" answers. I hope that through listening more, I'll be able to hear what my students are REALLY trying to tell me and not what I THINK they're trying to say.
It is refreshing to see a teacher that recognizes this tendancy. I think that listening is a "lost art" in our culture. Just like it takes much effort to love others it takes much effort to listen to others. I mean really listen, not to just what they are saying with their words but everything - body language, emotion, etc. If we really value others, shouldn't we value them enough to listen to them? I had not thought of this in context of listening to God. So thank you for helping me see the same principle that I apply to people should be applied to God.
The message you taught on "Sin" last month has changed my married life. I was to go to divorce court tomorrow (oct 28) to end my marriage and I decided to go to your teaching. I was so humbled. I felt as if my entire perspective changed. Toward my husband and sin. Toward my attitude on sin. And especially toward Jesus Christ. Wow! I can't believe how much I learned in just 3 classes. I grew up in a Pentecostal church so I was/am very religious. I had been praying to God for so long to change my life and thoughts towards the scriptures and the Gospel because I just didn't get it. My marriage was falling apart and my part in it was judging him, not the sin nature. And how Christ treats us. It was awesome. I too am learning how to approach the scriptures because I did it religiously just as you said. Anyway, I am really grateful to your obedience to God to teach this lesson on Sin. It really changed my life, the life of my marriage and my business. People are actually telling me that I look at peace. And content. This is because of the freedom from the scriptures through Jesus Christ. Thank you Jason.