Listening - coaching our champions where it really counts! |
Jul 31, 2009 |
There seems to be a lot of dialogue these days about the skill of listening, what it means, and how to do it well - or not.
What does listening mean to you??
Fundraiser Jeff Brooks in his article, 'Easier Said Than Done: Three Laws of Fundraising Dynamics' says that listening - and I paraphrase - is partly a matter of shutting up so that you can hear donors talk. Hmm. As ministry supporter or champion, would you feel warm and fuzzy about chatting over coffee with this guy??
Then there's John Haydon's posting titled "Are you tired of 'listening?' (file this under b****-rant)" The title alone - I didn't make this one up - caught my eye but not in such a good way.
But I'm glad I forged ahead to read this. He observes that articles about listening in the social media context usually focus on this skill as a means to jump in at the right moment to accomplish our fixed agenda.
Examples? Listen to make a sale. Listen to do some market research (to make a sale). Listen to get a donation.
Haydon questions how we use the word listening:
"It seems that much of the buzz around 'listening' is about take, take take - me, me, me. We know that listening is not talking, but do we know that listening is not taking?"
I’m with Haydon so far. We need to be reminded of what it means to listen (and I’ll do that in my next posting.)
But hold up a second! Brooks and Haydon highlight listening done by staff members. That’s good. But in the context of discipleship and Transformational Giving, it’s not enough.
We’re interested – yes – in how we listen better. But we also want to coach our champions to listen better. And not just to us!
To best serve our champions, we need to coach THEM to listen to God about what He wants them to do next in relation to our shared cause. Encourage every champion to pray and listen to God’s direction! As I wrote in my blog posting last week:
"God speaks to us in prayer and we are accountable to listen for His guidance related to giving."
Can you imagine how different – and exciting – our champion interactions would be if we listened – together with each individual - to God’s leading for our shared cause?
Stay tuned for next time. We'll get back to our original question of what listening means - and what we can learn about listening from scripture.
