Listening Builds the Relationship That Leadership Needs

On the quiet act that turns listening into trust, and trust into leadership.

Someone sat across from me last month, trying to work out what a call to church leadership might actually mean for them. For most of the hour, I didn’t say much. I know it’s hard for some people to believe, but I really wanted to listen more than I wanted to talk. What they needed was room to think out loud, and to know somebody was following what they said instead of just waiting for a pause to jump in.

What if I listened like that even more often in my role with the church? People come into discernment carrying all kinds of things: grace, fear, a bit of a sense that God is asking something of them they can’t yet name, and a pile of questions about whether they’re even allowed to want it. Part of my role is helping them find language for what’s already there. That only works if I’m listening.

Not everyone comes equipped with their own language for it. Sometimes what happens is that someone walks in the door and tells me, “I want to be a licensed lay minister because we only have part-time clergy. Someone told me I should ask you how to do this. What are the next steps?” I could just answer that, hand over the process and the paperwork, and send them on their way. But the real work starts before any of that, with a simple question: is this your call, or is it something somebody else handed you and told you to run with? A lot of people can’t answer that right away, but at least we can start there.

What if we listened more as fellow parishioners, not just in formal discernment circles but in coffee hour, in vestry meetings, in the narthex (lobby) after the 10 a.m. service. Someone mentions, almost in passing, that they’ve been thinking about joining the prayer team, or that they’d like to teach a few curious kids how to become acolytes. It’s easy to nod and move on to the next thing. Stopping to really hear it, instead of shrugging it off, can be the moment someone gets lifted into what they’re being called toward.

What if we also trusted the people listening to us? It’s a weird kind of vulnerability: saying out loud what you think God might want from you before you can claim it with blessed assurance. When someone actually hears you, not just waits politely for their turn to talk, it feels like care. It’s the kind of care that comes from someone willing to sit with you while you figure out who you’re supposed to become. Imagine that.

Let’s try it this week. Let’s listen a bit longer than feels natural. How about we also let someone in and be honest about what you don’t have figured out yet. Allow them to listen to you too, and you might find more people are ready to listen with care than you expected, waiting for the chance to be asked.