Incarnational Listening

Where we listen matters.

It’s hard to listen to your neighbor when you’re sitting in a church pew, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying.

A few folks have asked me if I have any advice for hosting community listening sessions at their church. I’ve been reluctant to write something up because I’m not convinced this is the best model for listening. I’m certainly not opposed to hosting community listening sessions. Bringing multiple community stakeholders together as opposed to interviewing people individually has some clear advantages. Stakeholders will build upon one another’s answers, the model emphasizes that community transformation requires cooperation, and it sends a message to the community that your church is listening.

However, most of the community listening sessions I’ve seen have been located at the church at a time that was convenient for the congregation.  They put the burden of communication on the community. A subtle message is communicated that if the community wants to be heard, then they must come to us. I guess I’ve been fully indoctrinated into Fresh Expressions theology because my natural inclination in community engagement is that it should be incarnational.

Incarnational Listening Defined

In incarnational ministry we follow the lead of Jesus’ earthly ministry and go to the people in our communities to be in relationship with them. The opposite of incarnational ministry is attractional ministry, and it’s so deeply ingrained in the psyche of the American church that we fail to realize it. For so long, churches in a context of Christendom were able to build beautiful buildings, craft thoughtful sermons, and hire talented musicians and people would come to them. Those days are passed, but old habits have made us comfortable in our buildings and anxious when we stray too far from them.

In incarnational listening, we go to our neighbors to listen to them. We enter into the spaces where our neighbors live to ask them questions, to observe their contexts, to see the world through their eyes. We put the discomfort on ourselves, not expecting others to enter an unfamiliar space. By going to our neighbors, we demonstrate our desire to learn from them and our willingness to walk alongside them in their everyday lives. Incarnational listening will help you gather important information about your neighbors, but it will also help you begin to form lasting relationships.

Three Practical Ideas

Over the past few years, I’ve seen some incredible examples of incarnational listening:

1. A few members of a church I’m working with in the Midwest set up a tent at a pride festival. On the table they set out recipe cards and asked, “How can our church support you as LGBTQ persons?” People stopped by to write down answers and talk to the women at the table. One young woman paused as she handed the card over. The church member asked her if there was something she didn’t write down that she would like to tell her. All of a sudden, the floodgates opened, and she shared her life story. It was a holy moment of vulnerability and compassion and it only happened because the church members moved out of their comfort zone.

2. Brecksville United Methodist Church in Ohio is one of my favorite listening churches. They have jumped headfirst into listening since being introduced to the Spiritual Listening Plan and it has brought a renewed sense of excitement to the congregation. One of their community listening activities was creating a community survey and putting a link to it in the high school football program by buying an advertisement spot. This helped them gather valuable input directly from their neighbors to inform their ministry.

3. When I do Spiritual Listening Plan consults with churches that want to embark on an intentional listening plan, I always emphasize the importance of neighbor interviews. These 1 on 1 meetings happen in the community, either in a neutral place like a cafe or at the person’s home or place of work. They’re less than an hour and the church member asks 3-5 good open-ended questions. One of the most important questions is at the end: “Who else would be good for me to talk to?” The more of these interviews you do, the further into the community you will get, and the deeper your understanding of the neighborhood will be.

4. A year ago, I was invited to attend a community listening session hosted by Covenant Community Church*, a United Methodist congregation in Asheville, NC. Instead of hosting the session at their church (which is a nice, modern facility) they hosted the event at the nearby high school auditorium. At the listening session, they gave community stakeholders an opportunity to share with small groups within the congregation.

How we listen matters. The questions we ask matter. And where we ask them matters as well. Church buildings are a blessing, but only if we are willing to leave them. We are a people who gather and scatter, gather and scatter, gather and scatter. If we lose this balance, we lose our ability to be the salt of the earth and we drift from our mission. So go out and listen well.

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*Covenant Community UMC is at the frontlines of disaster response in Asheville, NC. If you would like to make a donation to help those impacted by Hurricane Helene please consider making a donation to them below.