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Humility and listening

Lynne Baab • Friday March 27 2015

Alison is a Presbyterian minister who has worked much of her career as a hospital chaplain. She described several obstacles to listening, beginning with the urge to be efficient and productive:

Listening is not time efficient. Meetings at churches have deadlines. Maybe we need to map out a Sunday school curriculum today, but if God isn’t speaking today, we still need to decide. If we put off the decision because we don’t hear God’s voice today, we would have to meet again,and the youth director is just about to leaveon vacation.

She also noted that good listening requires an inner self-discipline that keeps...

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Listening wisely to people’s stories

Lynne Baab • Thursday March 19 2015

Recently a friend of mine had an emergency surgery. On her second day home from the hospital, I phoned her. I asked if she had the time and energy to talk, and she said yes. So I asked her about the lead-up to the surgery. How did she decide to go to the emergency room? What happened there? What tests did they give her? I tried to keep her talking for a while by using those small sounds called minimal encouragers that indicate we are listening: “hmmm” and “wow.” I tried to reflect back what I heard, using brief phrases to...

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My journey as a listener

Lynne Baab • Thursday March 12 2015

I am not a natural listener. I was a talkative child, and in most settings I am still a talkative adult.

My family still chuckles over the humiliating comment on my first grade report card: “Lynne talks more than enough for one.” I remember Sunday afternoon car trips in late elementary school. In those days before seatbelts, I would lean forward and spread my arms on the back of the front seat, sticking my head between my parents’ heads, and tell them the plot of the latest Nancy Drew book I was reading. In great detail.

I had a best friend in childhood,...

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“Holy curiosity” as a way to think about effective listening

Lynne Baab • Friday March 6 2015

Albert Einstein coined the term “holy curiosity” in the 1940s to describe the freedom of inquiry he considered to be important in science education. People of faith have adopted this phrase because it evokes so much about effective Christian ministry. In order to meet needs, we must be curious about what they are. In order to give aid or help, we need to be curious about the ways to do it most effectively and in forms that empower the recipient. Our curiosity needs to have a holy quality about it, centered in God’s gentle and insightful love.

Curiosity can take two forms....

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