The Ministry of Listening

There is a moment in every relationship (every dialogue, every tension, every opportunity for healing) when the greatest gift one can offer is not advice, not a solution, but the quiet, grounded presence of a listening ear. In a world loud with assumptions, distractions, and reactionary postures, listening becomes an act of resistance, a spiritual practice, and the heartbeat of true ambassadorship in Christ.

James 1:19-20 (NRSVue) offers a clear imperative: “You must know this, my beloved brothers and sisters: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. For human anger does not produce God’s righteousness” Proverbs 18:13 (CEB) warns us that “those who answer before they listen are foolish and disgraceful.” These are not polite suggestions. These are sacred instructions. Listening is not a passive detail, it is a vital ministry. It is the first language of love and the most underrated tool of the gospel ambassador.*

You Cannot Serve What You Will Not Listen To

The empire trains its emissaries to speak quickly, shout loudly, and defend violently. When I think of people who fit this mold, I think of care sales people. They always seem to have an answer to a customer’s question or concern. There sales person is really not listening but are lying through their teeth in order to make a sale. 

When I was in graduate school for my clinical counselor training, active listening was constantly reinforced as the best technique to gain the client’s trust and offer a safe and inviting atmosphere where, maybe for the first time, in a long time, they experience feeling heard. My professors and supervisors told us to open ourselves up to the full array of our God-given senses (auditory-sound, visual-sight, olfactory-smells) and let our senses invite us into the story of the person filleting themselves open so we could see everything. We were taught to silence our thinking, take our foot off the “what am I going to say next” accelerator pedal. If we are thinking about what we are going to say next then we are not actively listening to the person in front of us and we will inevitably caused harm and damage.

The gospel of Jesus calls us to posture of active spiritual listening. If we are truly ambassadors of Christ, our first responsibility is not proclamation, it is offer the presence of Christ. We cannot proclaim good news into a life or community we have not first listened to with reverence. What the spirit of a person has to say is highly important and it should never depend on what skills, talents, or finances they bring to the table. 

James later writes in chapter 3 that the tongue is a flame of fire, capable of setting an entire forest ablaze. Ambassadors who are careless with their words burn down bridges before they ever get a chance to build one. In fact, verbal accosting can cause hell fire to burn and annihilate everything in a once peaceful place. The ministry of listening teaches us to steward our words with wisdom, to wait before we speak, and to discern the holy spaces where silence is the most faithful response.

When we are quick to speak and slow to listen, we are not practicing diplomacy; we are participating in destruction. As ambassadors of Jesus, we must embody a holy stillness that creates room for the Spirit to move, for others to feel seen, and for wounds to begin healing.*

Practicing the Non-Anxious Presence of God

Real life transformation often begins not with grand gestures or eloquent speeches, but with calm, compassionate attention. Consider the ministry of chaplains in hospital trauma units or mental health professionals in crisis counseling. They are trained to bring what Edwin Friedman called a “non-anxious presence” and what my first counseling supervisor adapted and said a “godly non-anxious presence”. This presence is a steady, grounded spirit that creates safety without rushing to fix or minimize.

Imagine someone in your local community who has been spiritually wounded by the church, racially profiled in their workplace, or dismissed for their gender identity. They are not looking for a theological treatise. They’re looking for someone to sit with them, to listen without defense, to witness their pain without needing to explain it away. In that moment, your listening becomes holy. Your quiet presence, godly non-anxious presence, becomes the cupbearer’s offering of healing.*

The Prophetic Necessity of Silence and Space

Psalm 65:1 reads, “God in Zion, to you even silence is praise. Promises made to you are kept.” In silence, my friends, no lies can be spoken. Silence makes room for God. In an empire that commodifies noise through media, politics, and religious posturing, silence is a prophetic act. It refuses to entertain the demand for spectacle and returns us to the holy ground of simply becoming. 

Now, silence doesn’t mean to allow rude, passively aggressive, and egotistical people run over you or simply ignore you. Silence means you do not need to respond, in kind, but we still have an obligation to stand firm on the foundation of holiness and love as guided by the most high Spirit of God. Wisdom is most effective when one can think before speaking, while, at the same time, having the readiness of the peace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to advocate in defense of what is righteous. 

The prophetic tradition has always valued the wisdom of restraint. Elijah met God not in the whirlwind but in the still small voice. Jesus often withdrew to quiet places. Ambassadors who refuse to fill every gap with speech begin to understand the value of pause. Silence interrupts the rush to judgment. It disarms the rhetoric of violence. It becomes the vessel in which truth and grace are carried to those whose ears are weary from the shouting.*

Listening as Resistance to Propaganda and Noise

The world does not lack voices, have we noticed that by now? What it lacks is attentive ears. In an age of curated outrage, echo chambers, and viral misinformation, the act of truly listening is an act of rebellion. Philippians 4:8–9 offers a framework for how to filter what we consume and how we focus our minds: “whatever is true, whatever is holy, just, pure, lovely, worthy of praise…think on these things.”

This passage isn’t just about what we think. It is about what we listen to and absorb. To resist propaganda is to discipline our attention. It means choosing not to be manipulated by fear, flattery, or spin. It means refusing to let algorithms shape our theology. Listening well requires focus. It requires emotional regulation. It requires curiosity over certainty. 

Our attention demands focus and one practical way to focus your attention on what is important is to turn off all unnecessary notification on your cell phone. You don’t need to know when ever piece of junk email enters your inbox. You really don’t need to know when someone across the street or 2,000 miles away commented on your social media post. When we choose to allow the next Candy Crush or Wordle notification interrupt a conversation with an actual person standing in front of us, we start worshipping the idol of confusion and inattention and this completely destroys the ministry of active listening. 

In clinical counseling, especially trauma informed care, understanding what pulls our attention away from the important, means becoming aware of our own triggers and avoiding the impulse to project or control. Techniques such as active listening, reflection of content and emotion, and tolerating discomfort in the client’s story help cultivate deep empathy. A trauma informed listener does not assume, fix, or have a need to rescue. They stay present, offer validation, and listen for what is not being said, as much as what is spoken.

A good listener becomes a mirror, not a megaphone. They offer clarity by refusing to add distortion. Now, this mirrors how Christ listened to those around him, he did this with undivided attention and holy presence. He met people’s questions with more questions, which means he was actually listening in order to ask appropriate questions. He drew out their stories rather than redirecting them.*

Relationship Precedes Proclamation

It’s important to remember that effective preaching, proclaiming, and serving require active listening. When someone dismisses your words or directives with a simple “yeah, okay,” first of all, that’s rude and secondly, it sends a message that their concerns and needs are not valued. This can create a barrier to building a strong community where everyone feels heard and supported. Before Jesus sends the disciples, he spends years with them, walking, teaching, and listening. Just as Paul speaks in Acts 17, he first listened to the philosophers, observed their idols, and walked through their cultural spaces.

Open and Relational Theology reminds us that God does not coerce but relates with creation. Thomas Jay Oord writes in his book, The Uncontrolling Love of God, that this view of “love by definition is noncoercive. This view arises from the deep intuition that love never controls others entirely…and this view entails that God cannot control others entirely. If love is inherently uncontrolling and God loves necessarily, God is incapable of coercion” (The Uncontrolling Love of God, pg 180). God does not demand allegiance through fear, but lovingly persuades through engagement. As ambassadors, our effectiveness is not based on how much we know but on how well we relate.

Listening creates relational trust, and without trust, the gospel becomes noise. Think of someone in your life whom you profoundly trust. Chances are, they listen well. They don’t rush you or try to control the conversation. They allow your truth to emerge, and in doing so, they hold space for transformation. 

Ineffective listeners think they know better and can do whatever they want to do. They speak without pause, dismiss nuance, and ignore the emotional current beneath the words. Their presence can become an annoying pest and also a barrier rather than a bridge, not matter how nice they are or how much they smile. In contrast, gospel shaped listening surrenders the illusion of control in order to truly understand. It slows the pace, softens the tone, and becomes the fertile soil in which healing and reconciliation can take root.*

Compassionate Attention Builds Bridges

Bridge building, it does not start with theology, it starts with attention. Noticing others emotions, facial expressions, words of concern, etc… It requires is to be present and listen with compassion. Compassion is more than empathy. It is the willingness to be moved and changed by another’s suffering. When Jesus saw the crowds, scripture says, “he was moved with compassion.” Not pity. Not superiority but compassion.

When ambassadors of Christ move with compassion, they create safe relational space for others to be vulnerable. That space becomes a bridge. Over that bridge, the gospel can travel, not shouted across a divide but carried hand-in-hand.

This is the antidote to the culture of outrage. Compassion is how we dismantle the strongholds of division and despair in your local community. It does not begin with louder voices. It begins with softer ears.

Imagine a church community known first and foremost not for its youth programming or entertaining music or financial security or political stances, but is known for how well it listens. Imagine neighbors saying, “I don’t agree with everything they believe, but when I speak, they really listen.” This is what credibility looks like in the reign of God. You can’t buy God with neon lights, smoke machines, loud praise bands, or a list of 15 pastors on staff. You show God by compassionately and actively listening and loving regardless of viewpoints. This is what Christ ambassadors do in the ministry of listening.*

A Final Word to Ambassadors

Ambassadorship is not about how many people we convince. It is about how many people we connect with. It is not about winning arguments. It is about winning trust. The loudest person in the room or even the one you constantly see is rarely the most faithful. But…the one who listens deeply, responds slowly, and embodies the peace of Christ is the one who bears fruit.

James closes this passage with a reminder that true religion is not measured by performance but by love: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God…is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (NRSVue) Listening is how we stay unstained. Listening is how we remain responsive to the cries of the vulnerable. Listening is how we discern the voice of God in the noise of empire.

So, my friends, listen before you speak and this includes me. Listen long enough to understand. Listen as if someone’s healing depends on it, because it just might. You, as ambassadors of Jesus, carry the ministry of listening, so, carry it well. Amen.