I want to tell you about a conversation I wish I could get back.
It was the end of a long Sunday. I’d preached in the morning, then led a small group for another hour and a half. By the time I got to my office I was wiped out. Honestly, I was already driving home in my mind.
That’s when a woman in our congregation followed me to my office door. She said she wanted to tell me something personal.
Standing right there in the doorway, she told me that she had cheated on her husband.
Cheap Grace
Here’s what I said: “I won’t think of you or treat you any differently.”
And that was it.
I thought I was being gracious. I really did. But what I actually gave her was cheap grace (really cheap grace).
Over the following months she became distant. A little snarky in online conversations. And I had no idea why. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to put two and two together. Years, actually.
She had come to me carrying a burden, hoping to set it down. She wanted words of grace and forgiveness. And deep down, I think she was looking for guidance. How do I repair my marriage? Where do I go from here?
But I wasn’t listening. So I didn’t hear any of that.
Why Wasn’t I Listening?
A few reasons, if I’m honest.
- I was going through an extremely difficult season that consumed most of my mental, emotional, and spiritual energy.
- I was younger and didn’t yet have the wisdom to recognize what she actually needed.
- And I was exhausted from a very full day.
None of that excuses my response. But it tells me something: listening isn’t only about willingness. It’s also about capacity.
“Is This a Spirit-Filled Church?”
Here’s a smaller example, and a more recent one.
A woman visiting our church asked me after worship, “Is this a Spirit-filled church?” And I’ll admit I felt a little triggered. I’d had some negative experiences with so-called “Spirit-filled” Christians back in my college days, and her question landed on an old bruise.
So I answered fast. “Of course we’re a Spirit-filled church. The Holy Spirit is here!”
Thankfully, it didn’t come across as curt as it felt coming out of my mouth. We developed a good relationship and had great conversations about all of this later on.
But do you know what I should have said?
“Tell me what you mean by that.”
Thingification
Every January, the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary publishes its trends for the year ahead. This year, director Jonathan Page put it about as plainly as it can be put:
“Finding space for deep listening is an essential task for church leaders in 2026.”
He asks church leaders where they’re actually participating in deep listening in their neighborhoods. What excites or concerns the people in your community? He even names one of his nine trends “Incarnation will outpace programs,” wondering what it would look like to prioritize consistent gatherings with two to four people rather than occasional gatherings of twelve or more.
My gut reaction? Of course.
Y’know, I’ve spent years warning churches about thingification, a word I picked up from Thomas Groome. In Sharing Faith, he writes that thingification “takes various forms, sexism, racism, class bias, age bias, and so on; all are, at root, refusals to treat some people as persons.”
That’s what happens when a leader sees people as consumers of the latest plan or program. And it’s also what happens when we don’t listen to each other.
Which means listening is the cure for thingification. It forces us to understand people as people.
Groome asks a wonderful question: Why does God listen? God certainly doesn’t need to. And his answer is that it’s in God’s listening to us that God breaks through the hardness of the human heart.
Think about Hagar. Abraham and Sarah used her and then disposed of her like a thing. But God met her out in the wilderness, and do you know what God did? God asked her a question. “Where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8)
That’s God’s way of saying, “Tell me what’s going on, Hagar.” God was fully engaged and ready to listen to Hagar.
So What Do We Do?
Two things, I think.
First, listening is spiritual work. The spiritual journey is one of listening: to God, to each other, and to ourselves. We learn that through prayer, through Scripture, through contemplation, and by processing with a spiritual director, a therapist, or a trusted friend. That’s the well we draw from. I had nothing in the well that Sunday afternoon.
Second, listening is a skill. Research on active listening is clear about what it takes: give the person your full attention, reflect back what you heard before you respond, ask open questions instead of assuming, and pay attention to the feeling underneath the words.
(Neither one works without the other, by the way. Technique without presence is just a performance of listening. And presence without skill is what I offered that woman in my doorway.)
Ask One More Question
If you take nothing else from this, take this.
Before you answer, ask one more question.
Almost all of my worst pastoral moments happened in that half-second between hearing something and responding, the moment I quietly filled in what I assumed the other person meant.
Is there anyone in your life who needs you to ask one more question?
May we become the kind of listeners who really listen. Who are fully present to those around us. And through whom our people will sense the presence of God for them.
CLICK HERE to order Thomas Groome’s Sharing Faith: A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.
Jonathan Page’s full list of nine trends is available at the Lewis Center for Church Leadership.
