The Power of Listening: Building Skills for Mission and Ministry

by Lynne M. Baab

Listening skills, and the perspective gained through careful listening, are more important in congregations than ever. Many factors make attentive listening a significant contributor to healthy congregations. As we enter into a post-Christendom culture, the people coming into congregations, as well as the people in the wider community, are less likely to be operating from a shared set of assumptions. With world-wide migration reshaping our communities and congregations, diverse perspectives coming from varied cultural backgrounds are also more common. The breakdown of many support structures in society has created profound pastoral care needs, making listening increasingly significant for both ministers and lay leaders. Polarization over so many issues and the increasing emphasis on story-telling in the journey of faith are two additional reasons why listening matters today. Careful and loving listening nurtures care, connection and depth, which contribute to congregational life and health.

Listening to God is another aspect of listening which is gaining increased attention today. Many congregational leaders have become weary of church as a business and are looking for authentic experiences of God’s guidance. Congregations are increasingly engaging in communal discernment. Many listening skills used in human interactions are also building blocks for listening to God.

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

I was born in Washington, DC, and moved at 18 months to Athens, Greece. That would be the first of 12 moves in my first 15 years. My dad was in the military. Two of the few constants in my life were church attendance and reading.

As a kid I loved Nancy Drew, the Little House on the Prairie books, and the Moomin books by Tove Jansson. Probably my most favorite were the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. Betsy was so sure she would be a writer when she grew up, and I thought I'd like to do that too.

My writing career began in earnest at midlife. I've read a lot of biographies of writers, and they seem either to start young (like Georgette Heyer who wrote her first book as a teenager) or at midlife. I did write a couple magazine articles in my twenties and a couple more in my thirties, but I started focusing on writing in my late thirties.

It took me a year to write my first short story ("A Garden of Living Water," the title story in my collection of short stories published for kindle). in my late thirties, I wrote a handful of short stories, mostly focused on themes of "what am I going to be after being a stay at home mom"). In my early forties, I wrote four novels. I have recently published two of them for kindle ("Dead Sea" and "Deadly Murmurs").

I was 45 when I got my first book contract (for "Personality Type in Congregations"). More books followed every year or two after that. Every one of them is precious to me. Equally precious are the three Bible study guides I wrote, for which my husband, Dave, did the background research into each biblical passage. It was fun to work with him. My Bible study guides are "Sabbath," "Prayers of the New Testament," and "Prayers of the Old Testament."

My strongest selling books are "Sabbath Keeping" (which has been chosen to be a "book of the day" at the Urbana Conference December 2018), "Fasting," and "Personality Type in Congregation." My latest book focuses on Christian care, "Nurturing Hope." It's the first book I've ever been asked to write, and it's the "anchor volume" for a series of books on pastoral care.

Dave and I live in Seattle, and our two sons live here, too. One of them is married and the father of our beloved granddaughter. Our other son is a journalist with the Huffington Post, writing long and interesting articles using the pen name Michael Hobbes. It's easy to find his articles online because they are read by millions of readers. It is a thrill to have a writer son with such a big audience.

The topics of my books continue to be very real in my own life. I keep a weekly Sabbath, and I engage in a variety of Christian spiritual practices. I try to care for the people God puts in my path.

Thanks for reading my books. I am deeply aware of the privilege of being a writer, and writers depend on readers. Please visit my website where I blog every week: lynnebaab.com.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend Lynne Baab's The Power of Listening: Building Skills for Mission and Ministry. This book helped me become aware of the many aspects of listening, such as listening to the unspoken, to God, to those within my church, and for the purpose of mission. My favorite chapter was "Listening to God Together Through Spiritual Practices." One of the things I enjoy most about Baab's books is her thorough and helpful discussions of various methods and practices of prayer, and that is exactly what I found in this chapter. Overall, this book did an excellent job of explaining listening skills and their importance in maintaining healthy congregations and nurturing spiritual growth.

[Steve Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to research, most of us are poor listeners. Baab believes this sharply limits our effectiveness in carrying out the ministry and mission God has given us in the Church and in the world. Fortunately, she also believes listening skills can be taught and learned. In "The Power of Listening" she attempts to give leaders and educators the vision and tools to equip people to listen better and also to build a culture that affirms the value of listening.
Following the pattern in many of her other books, Baab draws heavily on interviews (63 of them for this book), anecdotes, and personal illustrations to explain and discuss principles, concepts, and skills that pertain to listening. This approach has the great advantage of keeping her books rooted in real life. This is not a book on the theory of listening but a collection of practical insights and tools to help each of us become better listeners. As I read the book, I found myself again and again saying, “I wonder if I do that?” or “Perhaps I should try that approach.” I was constantly thinking of ways I could apply her insights in my own ministry.
Baab explores listening needs within the congregation, listening to the local community, and listening to God. Two areas that I especially appreciated were her discussion about congregations learning to listen to their local community in order to carry out effective mission (Chapter 4) and her discussion on how listening pertains to consensus and to discernment, two different approaches that are commonly used in listening for God’s guidance (Chapter 5). The story of Eileen in Chapter 1 is a powerful illustration of how good listening advances the mission of the Church.
Baab also discusses numerous obstacles to good listening. One that I found especially interesting was the anxiety we feel in nearly every conversation. Unless we learn to recognize and manage that anxiety, it will get in the way of good listening, and Baab shows us how we can address that. Her extended illustration about Sandra (a church leader) and Mary (who brings a complaint to the church board) is very insightful in describing several obstacles to listening in a common ministry situation.
With this latest book of hers, "The Power of Listening," Baab has added another valuable tool to the toolboxes of pastors, Christian educators, and active laypersons.