Listening
We invite you to explore a variety of resources. We have categorized them by activity, and they represent a variety of approaches to living a Christian life. This menu is not designed as a “to-do” list, but rather as an offering for individuals to sample and find the activities that bring them closer to God in this particular practice.
When we listen, we are attentive to God’s voice in a world of distraction and noise. We also learn to be fully present and responsive to the holiness in all God’s people by listening to those around us. In truly listening, we hear and reflect the love of God.
“Let me set this before you as plainly as I can. If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he’s up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate. The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. They won’t follow a stranger’s voice but will scatter because they aren’t used to the sound of it.”
Watch
Fuller Studio: Jude Tiersma Watson, associate professor of urban mission, reflects on a culture of distraction and shows how we can cultivate the spiritual practice of attentiveness, especially in urban contexts. (3 min)
Befriending Silence: In this message, Pastor Rich Villodas briefly explores the importance of silence for our life with God. This is followed by a powerful “silent sermon” that will give our community an experience with silence that will deepen our relationship with God. (35 min)
Read
Meditation / Sermon Preached by the Rev. Robert A. Arbogast
Celebration Fellowship, Ionia, Michigan / February 26 & 27, 2018
Barriers to Hearing God / Article (book excerpt) by Dallas Willard
”The ideal for hearing from God is finally determined by who God is, what kind of beings we are and what a personal relationship between ourselves and God should be like.”
Spiritual Conversations with Children: Listening to God Together / Book by Lacy Finn Borgo
”When children have a listening companion who hears, acknowledges, and encourages their early experiences with God, it creates a spiritual footprint that shapes their lives.”
The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction / Book by Adam McHugh
How would our lives change if we approached every experience with the intention of listening first? Listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. But it is more than that: listening is a way of life.
Listen
This Bible Project Podcast offers an introduction to the Hebrew word "Shema". What does it really mean to listen? (28 min)
When we go on the Way of Love, we cross boundaries, listen deeply, and live like Jesus. Whether God calls us to go across the street or across the world, we are sent beyond our circles and comfort to witness to the love, justice, and truth of God with our lips and with our lives. (18 min)
“The soul is contained in the human voice,” says David Isay, founder of StoryCorps. He sees the StoryCorps booth — a setting where two people ask the questions they’ve always wanted to ask each other — as a sacred space. He shares his wisdom about listening as an act of love, and how eliciting and capturing our stories is a way of insisting that every life matters. (51 min)
Do
Five Ways to Practice Listening with Your Family
Dwell At Home
As a faith practice, listening involves training our attention to recognize God’s voice (John 10:1-6) in the midst of all the other voices calling for our attention. It involves learning to be fully present with God and with our neighbor. The ideas below will help your family practice listening, even in the busyness (and noise!) of everyday family life.
Liturgical Reflections
Fuller Studio
Take 5 minutes to sit with images and words reflecting God’s presence in and among us. Listen for God’s voice in places expected and unexpected.
Shema Bible Study
Bible Project
In this Bible Study, we’re looking at the Hebrew word “shema,” which means to listen. But it’s more than that. Shema is an urgent call to not only hear Yahweh with our ears but to also respond to him with our whole lives. In the pages of the Bible, we see how Yahweh is the one who hears and responds to the cries of the oppressed.
“All we have to do is listen to how God is beginning the conversation and we will then know how to respond. As big as God is, the conversation will sometimes begin in the smallest and simplest of ways….through the beauty of a flower or a strain of a Beethoven symphony. It could be through the cry of an infant or an epiphany that is born out of sheer silence.”
Reflect
Listening to God
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
BCP, p. 225
Listening to One Another
From Many One: A Conversation Across Difference
The Episcopal Church
“From Many, One: Conversations Across Difference” is a campaign inviting Episcopalians and our neighbors to engage in one-to-one listening and sharing across the many differences that separate us. Echoing the Latin phrase on the U.S. seal – E Pluribus (“from many”) Unum (“one”) – and following in the footsteps of Jesus, we trust that the spiritual practice of conversation across difference can help to knit us all into a diverse, more perfect union.
In a cultural moment shadowed by pandemic, fractious politics, and deep division within families, communities, and nations, we have the opportunity as people of faith to partner in simple ways to celebrate difference, listen with curiosity, and promote healing. Each of us can make a difference.
It all starts with four simple questions:
What do you love?
What have you lost?
Where does it hurt?
What do you dream?
Anyone can join in these life-changing conversations, by engaging one on one,
exploring the questions in small groups, and talking with people of different ages and backgrounds. In so doing, we begin to discover how our differences make us stronger as the human family of God.
