If you visit The Global Conflict Tracker website you can see active hotspots around the world.
Every conflict carries its own issues and particulars, like the raw power grab of Russia against Ukraine, the genocidal cowardice of Hamas/Iran in the Middle East, or the religious purges inside Afghanistan, Africa and Iraq. And yet, each conflict has a common theme: “You aren’t hearing me.”
“You aren’t hearing me” is at the core of most conflicts today in business, politics and even churches in the West.
The failure or unwillingness to hear and understand people means troubles, and not only in nations and in wars, but in communities and organizations and families as well. The conflicts in organizations like the New York Times, Twitter and church denominations like the United Methodists and the Southern Baptists are all underpinned by “Not hearing me”.
At the other end of the spectrum is understanding. Grasping someone else’s story, really “getting” them is almost magical in its ability to soothe people and groups. (A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs 15:1-18)
I’m not trying to sell you some mushy rendition of “Can’t we all just get along?” Most folks reading this post probably agree with me about the futility of understanding and reasoning with the likes of the Hitlers, the Stalins, the Bin-Ladens.
But here’s the thing: Most of us are not in charge of wars, diplomacy or foreign policy.
Most of us are in charge being individual disciples, and of living our lives next to people around us who are not quite like us.
As individuals we usually are not in charge of initiating wars, changing national policies or actually having broad impacts on society at large . My duty rather, as a disciple of Christ is hearing and understanding people. For example, apologetics is often used as spiritual ju-jitsu, to knock down someone who isn’t thinking my way. Yet in fact apologetics is not merely debating or condemning others in hopes of winning. Apologetics is designed to understand and then to reason with people who are convinced you actually want to understand them.
If you thought I just suggested “don’t disagree with people who push back on your faith” you missed me. Christians are not programmed to run muted. Yet our first mandate as disciples is to understand the person across from us. For examples, see passages like Proverbs 18:13 and James 1:19 and Colossians 4:6.
“You aren’t hearing me” is one of the top-five reason people walk off their jobs today. (See Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace Report, Society of Human Resource Management, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those are leadership failures, caused by tone-deaf leaders who can’t hear. Or won’t.
And the Nones, Dones, Dechurched and Deconverted? Yep. “You’re not hearing me.” Another leadership loss, caused by leaders allowing a culture of think/act this way to snuff out the ability to listen to people. See for example Dr. Todd Hall’s “The Connected Life”, The Gospel Coalition’s “What is The Great Dechurching?” and Dr. John Marriott’s “The Anatomy of Deconversion”.
We are hosting conversations about the implications of “You aren’t hearing me” on our episodes of The Disciple Dilemma:
- Set Adrift!
- Stumbling
- The Connected Life (coming later this October)
Failure to understand is all around us. The angst and fears and the exits of so many believers tie back to this need for understanding—or the lack of it—which is what relationships are designed to address. Leadership is responsible for building communities that foster individual relationships, just as much as fostering great teaching and activities.
Listening is the art of getting to know people, of hearing someone else so well that they would agree “You get me”. This is especially relevant in the West where leaders are conditioned to operate on production metrics and headline results while the loners and solo Christians actively wonder if there’s really any difference between their church and any other club.
The traditional Western inertia of lectures, groups and activities, then calling that discipleship is partially biblical, partially commercial, and largely ineffective. Setting the priorities of listening, especially for leaders will require changes in the course of local Christian culture—meaning local churches to impact this dilemma.
Interested in getting deeper into this conversation? Join us at The Disciple Dilemma to meet, chat and to consider whether or not we “get” you.
Dennis Allen and his wife Karen live in the Washington DC area and are members of Reston Presbyterian Church. Dennis is the Author of “The Disciple Dilemma” and works as a CEO, specializing in corporate turnarounds