Learning to Listen

I love making my own bread and once or twice a week I make two loaves of fresh bread for my family, one for the table and one for the freezer to be eaten later or given as a gift for a friend.  The fascinating thing about bread is that it has only four ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, nothing more, nothing less.  Leaving out any one of these ingredients makes it impossible to make bread.

Once, in an absent-minded hurry, I forgot to add yeast.  I pulled a ‘loaf’ out of the oven that was about an inch thick and hard as a rock.  Without yeast, the least of the four ingredients, the bread does not rise, and you end up with a brick.  I have not forgotten to add the yeast since!

Jesus frequently used the elements of common life to illustrate his message and one of his favourites was yeast.  He said, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that leavens the whole lump,’ (Luke 13:20-21).  I like to think of the work of the Craighead Institute as being like yeast, announcing the kingdom in small but deeply significant ways, enabling individuals to ‘rise’ to the call God has placed on their lives.

Like bread, there are four elements to the Craighead methodology and in the following posts I’ll look at each one with a view to understanding the whole.  The four elements are:

» Listening

» Social Analysis

» Bible

» Prayer

At Craighead our first aim is to teach people how to listen to one another.  Listening is a rare and precious gift, especially in today’s world.  But it remains a practice essential for developing genuine human community. One cannot hear others nor be heard without both an intentional effort to listen and a willingness to share.  Practicing listening to one another trains the heart to listen to what God is saying.  It takes time and humility and patience, all steeped in the conviction that God speaks among us and within us.

There are several mistakes we make when trying to listen to other people that are easy to recognise.  Some of them include on-off listening, red flag listening and glassy-eyed listening.

On-off listening happens because it takes approximately four times longer than thought, meaning when listening to others ¾ of our time is spent thinking while only ¼ is spent listening.  This means that a listener has 45 seconds of thinking time for every minute another person is talking.  Is it any wonder that our minds sometimes wander in conversation?

Red flag listening is when we hear words or phrases that trigger thoughts and emotions that may have nothing to do with what is being said.  We hear the red flags and stop listening to the remaining context and worse, start preparing our response, often interrupting before the speaker has finished talking.

Glassy-eyed listening is giving the appearance of listening when your mind is far away.  It is not difficult to discern when someone is listening without hearing anything you’re saying.  We are looking at the speaker but only pretending to listen.

Don’t rock the boat listening is approaching a listening exercise while remaining unwilling to hear things that may contradict one’s own deeply held feelings.  We simply turn off when we hear something we don’t want to hear.

These are but a few of the common mistakes we make when listening to one another.  True, deep listening means being aware of some of these pitfalls and learning to work past them to genuinely hear what the other person is saying.

In addition to listening is, of course, the willingness to share our own thoughts and feelings.  As Jesus said, ‘don’t hide your lamp under a bushel,’ (Matthew 5:15).  We all struggle with feelings of intimidation, embarrassment or insecurity and all too often discount or dismiss our perspective as irrelevant or somehow less important than those of others.  A Craighead essential then is learning to value our own contributions to a conversation.  Each of us has a unique place in the Kingdom and may see or understand things that no one else does.  In our courses we strive to establish a safe place where everyone’s contribution is valued.

Listening skills are important in any organization and in all human relationships.  While Craighead aims to draw people into a deeper relationship with God, we also conduct courses for groups that are not directly faith based.  In the church, in the boardroom, in our homes, listening is essential for flourishing community and flourishing lives.

For further information, please see the Courses heading on this webpage or contact us by email at: craigheadinstitute@gmail.com