Listening is the ministry

There is a stage in every relationship with a person far from God where the most spiritual thing available to you is to close your mouth.

Not as a tactic. Not as the polite pause before you say the thing you have been holding. Actual listening, with nothing queued up behind it.

My beloved brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. — James 1:19 (OTB)

The order in that verse is a rebuke of how most of us handle these conversations, and it was written to believers.

Watch him do it

Jesus is tired, sitting at a well at midday, and a Samaritan woman comes to draw water. Every social rule in the situation says this conversation should not happen.

A Samaritan woman approached to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” … The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How can You, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) — John 4:7-9 (OTB)

He opens by asking her for something. He is the one in need in the exchange, which puts her, for once, in the position of being able to give.

Read the rest of the chapter and count. He asks more questions than he answers. He lets her raise the awkward subject herself. When she brings up a theological dispute — which mountain, whose worship is right — he does not take the bait into an argument he would obviously win.

Nowhere does he shame her. She brings up her own life; he does not lead with it.

Four things to not do

Do not fix. Somebody describing pain is not requesting a solution. Offering one tells them the pain was an inconvenience.

Do not counter. When they say something wrong about God or the church, let it stand. You will get another conversation. You will not get another first impression.

Do not redirect. If you are steering toward a point, they can feel the steering, and everything after that is discounted.

Do not fill silence. The most important thing a person says usually comes after a pause you were tempted to interrupt.

Two questions worth having ready

“What’s your spiritual background?” — open, unloaded, and it lets them choose how much to say.

“What gives you hope when life is hard?” — this one goes deeper than it looks and almost nobody has been asked it.

Then listen. And at the end, thank them for trusting you with it, because they did.

Recite this

Quick to listen. Slow to speak. In this stage, listening is the ministry.

Try it this week

Have one conversation where you ask a real question and do not fix, counter, redirect, or fill a silence. Afterward, write down what was hardest. It is almost always the silence.

I will listen — only listen — to ________________, on ________________.