Listening

As an old wag has said, “God has given us two ears and one mouth, so we need to spend twice as much time listening as speaking”.

From the very outset of this round-the-world trip, we often found ourselves listening to some incredible stories. Beginning in the home of some dear friends in Blue Ridge, in the American state of Georgia, which we reached by day four of our trip from Ireland, we heard the first of multiple testimonies of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Then there were those awe-inspiring stories that I heard sitting at the feet of some heroes of faith in the missions community in Goroka, in the highlands of PNG. There were testimonies of great pain and suffering as these men and women of God stood strong, believing, and in many cases, seeing their dreams fulfilled and their prayers answered in remote tribes forgotten and abandoned by many.

One of the things that I have always loved about Simply the Story (STS) is the emphasis on "listen and respond." So often it has been said by many whom we try to reach for Christ on the streets of our cities that, "Christians do not listen to us; they just preach." The training in STS to help people listen to the audience, whether it be one person or hundreds, is such an important foundation for effective evangelism.

STS teaches that we need to listen to the story (God's Word), to our audience and to the Holy Spirit.

Some of the most effective moments of ministry, as I think back on this trip, were when I started conversations with Uber drivers, air hostesses, people in need, waiters, and many more. I would just listen to their stories. As I heard those, I would often think of a Bible story and sometimes get opportunities to share those stories with my "audience." On many of these occasions, people were drawn to Christ, healed by His power, and broken by His love for them as we would pray.

May we indeed be "quick to listen, slow to speak" as we interact with family, friends, and strangers.