One of the most unpopular ministries is the ministry of listening; far more popular is the ministry of speaking, isn’t it?  We don’t usually get praised for listening, do we?  We get recognition for speaking.  One day Henri Nouwen drove through Los Angeles and saw so many billboards’ offering drivers, “Buy me, drink me, sleep with me”; it’s like driving through a huge dictionary, Nouwen says.  Everybody is so busy saying something that no one has the time to listen.  Even when we are listening to someone, we can’t wait to say something.

In his classic book, The Psychology of Counseling, Clyde Narramore points out something that has been missed in ministry: talking to people individually.  “Wonderful teaching and inspiration can be found in books and lectures,” he says, but to help somebody we must talk to him individually, and this requires listening.  And to listen, we must learn to be silent.  Silence is as much a part of communication as talking; it is when we are silent, we listen better.

It is when we listen, we focus on the individual, on her thoughts and struggles, on her dreams and disappointments.  Interestingly, it is when we listen, we also begin to understand ourselves; we begin to see our own thoughts and struggles, our own disappointments and dreams.  In other words, it is when we listen to others, we start to listen to ourselves, not what pops up in our heads, but what is reposed in our hearts.  And once we begin to know ourselves—our fears, our needs, our wants—can we, then, begin to be truer with our motives and more accurate with our words.  We communicate. 

You see, “to communicate” comes from the word “to commune,” which means “together” and this word comes from the Greek word, koinonia, fellowship.  Words, silence, listening are to serve a single purpose: to draw us close to each other.  There is no other purpose!

Pastor Paul