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Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor
Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor
Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor
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Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor

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Only when pastors hear beyond the words, can they care-fully minister. Pastors listen all the time. Or do they? Listening is more than a developed skill; it is an awesome gift of hospitality offered to others. According to Dr. Emma Justes, hearing beyond the words signifies an intimate relationship characterized by humility, thoughtful availability, vulnerability, and mutuality. Listening requires focused attention and openness. To help the reader learn this essential skill, the author includes exercises at the end of each chapter to build needed competency for this healing ministry.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 1, 2010
ISBN9781426719646
Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor
Author

Emma J. Justes

Emma J. Justes is Distinguished Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Emma Toussant Chair in Pastoral Theology, at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio. She has taught at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Garrett-Evangelical Seminary, Perkins School of Theology. In addition to her role as professor, she has served as a pastor and counselor both here and abroad. Author of many articles and book chapters, she wrote the book, Hearing Beyond the Words: How to Become a Listening Pastor. (Abingdon Press).

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    Hearing Beyond the Words - Emma J. Justes

    Hearing Beyond the Words

    i2

    Abingdon Press

    Nashville

    HEARING BEYOND THE WORDS:

    HOW TO BECOME A LISTENING PASTOR

    Copyright ©2006 by Emma J. Justes

    All rights reserved.

    No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or emailed to permissions@abingdonpress.com.

    This book is printed on acid-free paper.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Justes, Emma J., 1941-

    Hearing beyond the words : how to become a listening pastor / Emma J. Justes.

    p. cm.

    Includes bibliographical references.

    ISBN 0-687-49499-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

    1. Pastoral theology. 2. Listening--Religious aspects--Christianity. I. Title.

    BV4319.J87 2006

    253'.7--dc22

    2005037378

    All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

    06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

    To those who have blessed me

    by being students

    in the courses I have taught

    CONTENTS

    Acknowledgments

    Introduction

    Introductory Exercise: Noticing When You Are Heard

    Exercises to Get Started .

    Chapter 1    Listening as Christian Hospitality

    Exercise 1: Attentive Listening

    Chapter 2    Preparing to Listen: Humility in Listening

    Exercise 2: Partners in Listening

    Exercise 2a: My Plan for Preparation

    Chapter 3    Listening for What Is Not Being Said: Thoughtful Availability in Listening

    Exercise 3: Silence in Listening

    Exercise 3a: Not Asking Questions

    Chapter 4    Listener Beware: Vulnerability in Listening

    Exercise 4: "Not That Issue!"

    Chapter 5    Listening for the Voice of God: Reciprocity in Listening

    Exercise 5: Taking on a Role

    Epilogue

    Notes

    Bibliography

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Anumber of years ago I came across the book The Lost Art of Listening by Michael P. Nichols.¹ The book awakened me to the vital role that listening plays in our lives, and particularly, in ministry. It has been a part of my teaching ever since that time. I would say that The Lost Art of Listening transformed my teaching of pastoral care. I owe Nichols a deep debt of gratitude for his truly wonderful, thorough, and insightful book. My journey with his book has led me to the point of writing this book especially for people in ministry and the church.

    The support of my colleagues in teaching has been unflagging, especially Dr. Claude Mariottini and Dr. Douglas Sharp. The pastoral theologians of the Chicago area are a community of support and substance. Our joy in working together is an always reviving inspiration. Within this group Dr. Lee Butler has offered continuing support. Members of the staff at Northern Seminary were always ready to provide encouragement and assistance, especially Barb Wixon, Marilyn Wiley, Scott Bruce, and Dwight Hawley. Special thanks to my former colleague Dennis Groh, who has added inspiration to this work, and to my teacher James N. Lapsley for his faithful encouragement.

    To the students who have studied with me over the years, I owe tremendous gratitude. You have continued to teach me as I have been in the role of teacher. You have helped me see where I need to grow and how I could do my work better, and have often brought to me the word of God. You remain in my heart and continue to prompt me toward growth. Here I name a few without trying to be inclusive of all who have been so important to me: Darlene, Patti, Gloria, Richard, Joe, Jeremy, Linda, Brenda, Theresa, John, Jeff, Gail, Roxanne, David, Ron, Fernando, Kathy, Tom, Lilliana, Gideon, Kelly, Mark, Dee. I want to include my deep gratitude to the students, Kleppie, Thami, Thabiso, Andile, Thandi, Spetla, and Viada, and colleagues I have worked with in South Africa.

    The encouragement of my friends in the writing of this book has been invaluable. They witnessed the birthing of this book and stood by, listening to me through the experience. I thank especially Jacqueline Grossmann and Jeanette Repp, who enthusiastically and tirelessly read and reread portions of this manuscript even in its most ragged forms. Thanks to the people and ministers of the two churches that welcome and receive me into their families: Saint John African Methodist Episcopal Church of Aurora, Illinois, especially Pastor Jesse D. Hawkins and my beloved colleagues in ministry there, and Bethany Baptist Church of Christ in Evanston, especially Pastor Brenda J. Little.

    Very special thanks to my editor, whose patience with me and faith in me have been beyond comprehension.

    INTRODUCTION

    The problem with listening is that it is so easy not to do. None of us, myself included, listen as consistently well as we might. Listening is very hard work. Listening affects all aspects of our everyday lives from the smallest one-to-one relationships to family, group, committee, congregational, and workplace relationships, as well as community, governments, and even international relationships. Listening plays a vital role in ministry in all of its forms: caregiving, education, chaplaincy, mission, administration, evangelism, and preaching. Effective ministry requires us to be able to listen well. We can't avoid the need to be able to listen care-fully in order to relate effectively.

    Communication surrounds us and intrudes on our lives. People speak loudly into their cell phones in public places. Technology makes it possible for us to be in communication with people anywhere, at any time. We are deluged with communication around the clock. People talk over one another, even on public television. This amount of communication and the number of so-called talk shows would lead one to think that a lot of listening is going on. Not necessarily. Quality listening is not taking place. Outward signs do not ensure inward realities. In spite of all this connection with one another, what we are missing is feeling connected. We have adapted to the babble by blocking out a lot of the interference with which we are constantly bombarded. Even cutting down on this interference does not mean that we will be able to listen more deeply in today's world. It is a paradox that we are surrounded by continuous communication and yet feel disconnected, isolated, and alienated.

    The cell phone commercials that feature the man who travels into every kind of setting asking, Can you hear me now? symbolizes for me the state of communications among those longing to be heard and the constant search for someone who will hear me now.

    We long to be connected with one another. Part of this deep longing is to be listened to, to be received by another person and feel connected in a way that is not superficial or minimal. Whenever I have deeply heard someone's pain or struggle and have been able to reflect that hearing back to the person effectively, the response of the person who is heard is often deep relief. When I have experienced someone deeply listening to me, I have known that response of relief and found a feeling of connection. When we are heard, we experience being seen.

    Longing for the connections, and the belonging that listening offers to us, draws us to community. Communities of faith in particular, ideally, are places where we are received and feel connected; where we are nurtured and we take the risks of growing. Being welcomed, received, and heard builds the realities of community. Within community—as part of community—people learn to speak and learn to listen. Listening is not acquired without community. Community is not created without listening.

    Across cultures we cannot hear one another without struggling with the cultural differences within and surrounding what is said. Males and females have difficulty hearing one another across acquired and reinforced gender barriers.¹

    Children and their parents have great difficulties in listening to one another across generations. It is also true that pastors and parishioners do not hear one another much of the time. Nonlistening happens even in situations in which listening is the thing that is intended, such as in pastoral care and counseling, and for parishioners, in listening to sermons.

    Assumptions we make, expectations we have, and stereotypes we hold about others and their circumstances affect how well we listen to them. Past experiences of listening and current issues with which we struggle are factors that influence our listening.

    True Listening

    The focus on listening here is on truly hearing another person, deeply listening. I use different phrases throughout the book to make it clear that I mean a different kind of listening—true hearing, caring listening, effective listening, pastoral listening, and healing listening. I will use such phrases to emphasize that what is being addressed is not simply the act of listening to words to which we are all accustomed. The hearing of words and the receiving of the speaker are far from being the same thing; most of our listening takes place somewhere in between these two extremes.

    Teenagers today have an interesting way of expressing their understanding of what they have heard: I feel you. The question form, which asks about whether someone has been understood (heard), is, Do you feel me? Or in its abbreviated forms, You feel me? or even, Feel me? These young people seem to have grasped a dimension of listening that may be less consciously available to adults. Hearing does not enter into the feeling realm unless it is truly listening. The teens' way of saying they have heard acknowledges the feeling dimension to the deep listening and authentic understanding that this book encourages.² The feeling content in what is spoken and what we hear may be more important than the words used for speaking.

    Listening and Hospitality

    Over the years, I have encouraged students to think of listening as an act of receiving—making use of the gesture of an open palm, facing up, extended as if to receive something. The use of this gesture became the impulse for me to explore the connections between hospitality and listening, since the basic movement of hospitality is also receiving. As I have thought about listening, experienced listening and being heard, and as I have taught the importance of listening, I began to see the power of a connection between listening and hospitality. This connection was enhanced by my discovery of the great value given to hospitality in scripture. Hospitality and listening fit well together, and I believe that listening can be enhanced by some gifts found in understanding hospitality.

    Because of the centrality of receiving in listening, listening can be understood as an act of hospitality. Listening, like hospitality, not only involves receiving another person, but includes being welcoming and open to the speaker who is in our presence. Ability to listen is rooted in the person or character of the listener, as is hospitality.

    Neither listening nor hospitality is lodged solely in practice, but each is also a matter of being. Listening is not a matter of precise procedure, nor is it entirely a matter of Whoever has ears let them hear.³ As this saying indicates on the surface, there is a need for ears in order to hear. However, having ears doesn't always mean we hear.⁴ Whoever has ears otherwise may mean "those who welcome me and my words into their lives, or those who recognize the true meaning of what is said and welcome it." Receiving, whether in the practice of hospitality or in listening, does not happen with closed hands, crossed arms, or a clenched heart. Being able to receive another with listening hospitality requires willingness and ability to be open to the other—with hands, arms, and hearts open and ready to receive.

    A Story of Missing Listening

    A woman came to my house weekly over a period of months. This woman never invited me to tell her about myself, or left me any openings in which to do so. I would listen as she struggled to bring the gospel, as she understood it, to me and convince me of the correctness of her faith and the importance of my accepting it. She had no idea who I was or what I already knew about God or already believed. I wanted to see if she would ever ask.

    Finally we met under other circumstances and she discovered that I was a seminary professor. She didn't return to our house. I did not remain silent about myself to embarrass her or in any way diminish her faith. I didn't intend to make this experience an experiment. It was only after many visits that it dawned on me that her approach was clearly general and did not include the specifics of my life and me. I have long believed what Carroll Wise said in defining pastoral care, which points toward the particularity of the individual. I realized that I was curious about what this woman brought and was impressed with her diligence and enthusiasm, but I did not feel touched. What I suspect is that my visitor made assumptions about me and who I was, and from these assumptions she brought her message. This visitor helped me see how very important listening is, before evangelism.

    The generalized approach taken by my visitor is much like the approach of the pastor who described a hospital visit, I offered some words of comfort and then left. Maybe those same words of comfort had been offered to every hospitalized parishioner in that pastor's ministry experience. Within failures to listen are assumptions about what people need, which always are just that—assumptions.

    The Heart of Caring Ministries

    We identify ourselves as people who love to tell the story, which was clearly my visitor's approach. It is important to remember that in order to tell the story effectively, we need to know the person to whom we tell the story—to have some sense of where that person is on their faith journey. This cannot be discovered apart from listening. Carroll Wise's definition of pastoral care as communicating the gospel to persons at the point of their need has been a staple in my teaching of pastoral care.⁵ If we are to effectively provide pastoral care, it becomes necessary to first know what a person's point of need happens to be. Otherwise, care becomes a generalized shot in the dark with no target and no consideration of the individual to whom care is being offered.

    Pastoral Listening

    Pastoral listening takes place in a variety of contexts. First, pastoral listening occurs in the context of all of the functions of ministry, which are located in the contexts of a wide variety of human communities. Pastoral

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