Webinar III: Listening Skills for the Small Group Leader, Part 1

Chip: Well, welcome to Living on the Edge. If you’re new, my name is Chip Ingram. I am the senior pastor here at Venture Christian Church and the teaching pastor at Living on the Edge.

And with me is my friend and buddy here, Jim Blazin. He is over all of our discipleship but has a long history in developing small groups, teaching small group leaders, and it’s good to have you.

Jim: It’s good to be here!

Chip: I want to jump right in. Let me just tell you, Jim is the expert. I will be your host. I might add a little color commentary. I’ve done small groups all my life.

The second thing is is that I want to welcome over eight hundred of you from over fifteen countries so…

Jim: Wow, that’s great.

Chip: But it’s great to have you guys. So are you ready to roll?

Jim: Yeah! We’re good. Let’s do it.

Chip: Okay. You know what? Could we all pause? Lord, will You please, right now, wherever anyone is, would You open our mind, open our heart? We are going to talk about listening. Will You help us to listen to You? Holy Spirit, would You have extraordinary freedom? Will you fill Jim with wisdom and insight and would You give us ears to hear to know: So, what is the next, even baby step to take to become better listeners and leaders? In Christ’s name, amen.

Well, you’re ready.

Jim: Good.

Chip: Why is listening a key component to discipleship? It’s not just about a successful small group. We are really talking about making disciples. Why is listening so important?

Jim: Yeah, I think from maybe a high-level perspective, number one, I don’t know how we lead someone in a direction – Matthew 28 says, “As you go into the world, make disciples.” So there is this sense of intentionality that we have got to discover where someone is coming from. We have got to hear their story to some degree, we have got to hear their worldview to understand where they are in their spiritual journey so that we can actually intentionally lead them in a direction.

Chip: Well, if I was going to press you, because we really believe that Scripture is our baseline. It’s our truth. Where do you see this modeled in Scripture? Where and how does listening really become an: I have to know where a person is so I can lead them in terms of their pursuit of Christ?

Jim: Sure. Yeah, I think of Acts 8 with Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch and the part that jumps out at me that, to me is so powerful, is that Philip comes alongside the Eunuch and he says, “Hey, what are you reading?”

Chip: Yeah.

Jim: He asks a simple question, “What are you reading?” “Do you understand what you’re reading?” is what Philip basically says. And he says to him, “How would I know unless someone explains it to me?” The door is opened right there with a simple question and listening.

Chip: Yeah. I think one of the things that all of us, we are going to touch on this tension, Jim. But it’s like, Okay, we are doing a study. It could be a book study, it could be studying a book of the Bible. It might be a Living on the Edge small group study. And there’s, okay, there’s all these questions to get through. Why do we use questions? What is it about questions that help people listen?

Jim: First of all, what I heard you say, they were twofold in questions. One is: Why the questions? And I think the questions become a rudder or a steering wheel to lead us toward a desired outcome. So that’s one thing.

Why questions are so important is because I think they position people before God to think, to feel, and they position people horizontally with others in a group to leverage and to share what is actually going on in their hearts and in their lives at a given time.

Chip: You know, we believe, Jesus taught, “You’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free.” And I think some of us have such a commitment we want content. We want them to get through the study and one of the things I have heard you say is that when we listen, we can hear people’s fears. We hear their beliefs. We hear where there is anxiety. And sometimes we think God’s Word is just – jam it in them.

Jim: Yeah.

Chip: It’s delicately allowing the Holy Spirit to take this study and what you’re doing as the facilitator is, How do I help them get the truth that they need in the amount that they can handle…

Jim: That’s right.

Chip: What do you do, when a group is starting or like someone is new where you don’t want to – maybe you do – but how do you get a feel for where people are coming from without the whole thing just being like, Wow, everyone shared their story. We read one verse.

Jim: Yeah. Well, I think it’s important and often there’s a lot of tension around the fact that people overtalk in small groups. And let’s be honest, everybody wants to talk about themselves and share their story.

So the reality is, if everybody wants to share, how do you position the group so that there’s enough conversation that allows people to discover what one another are about? And even more importantly, what they believe about God that includes everybody but the greatest way I know to do that is to have some guidelines or some boundaries on the front end.

Chip: Okay.

Jim: So if I were to start a group, I would just say, “Hey, look, we all have passion about a certain thing in our lives. We all want to discover, we all want to share. The way we are going to be able to do this in the given time that we have in the format that we have is to honor an awareness of how much time one is speaking within the group.” And so as a facilitator or a leader, I’m going to set that pace and cadence and it may be that you have passion that runs a little longer than what affords everybody else a chance. So I might ask you to just hold that thought or I might affirm what you shared and then move the question on.

But I think if we have those discussions on the front end, it really helps us address some of the issues that come up when people just run away with stuff.

Chip:  Good. The second question here is what would you say are important skills to learn about listening? So it’s one thing to say we need to learn to listen. So what skills? What skills do I need? How do I do that and how do I do it better?

Jim: Yeah, one of our mutual friends said something a few weeks ago when were literally listening to him. And he said, “Good listening is not waiting to talk.” And I think right away that sets a heart, that sets a framework to say, “Do I really care about you? Do I really want to discover? Do I want to learn what is going on in your life? Or am I in such a hurry to tell you what you need to know that I just run right over who you are as an individual?”

So I think it’s very active in nature. I think there is eye contact, there is body positioning, there’s non-verbal nods and leaning in. There’s appropriate clarity questions that you can ask. There are a number of ways to affirm what it is that you’re sharing, Chip, is important to me. And so I think those are just basic listening skills that would enhance any of our relationships whether it’s in a small group or with your spouse or kids.

Chip: So eye contact, facial expression, body language, leaning in, and holding back when you hear something, Oh, I now see what they really need to hear is this.

Jim: Yeah.

Chip: You’re not waiting for, If you would just shut up then I can tell them the great truth that I have. It’s really, I want to listen. There’s a real trust element in the Holy Spirit working, isn’t there?

Jim: Sure. And I think even feedback to say, “This is what I heard you say.” And then just sitting there and the person saying, “Yeah, that’s what I said.” And you go, “Hm, okay.”  Sometimes a simple, “Okay.” You’ll do this with me. You’ll ask me a question and then I will respond and then you’ll, “Hm.” And when you do that, you force me to go, What did I actually say right there and did it make sense?

Chip: I like that idea too of, we could play with this, but, “Is this what I heard you say?” That’s a phrase you might jot down. You are listening. Don’t assume, that because you heard the words, you got the meaning.

Jim: Mm-hm. Well, and some people verbally process and when you give them back what they said, then they go, “Well, no, that’s not what I meant.”

Chip: Right.

Jim: And they will autocorrect, “This is what I really meant.” So sometimes it’s just helping them communicate in a more clear fashion.

Chip: So what we have said so far is: Listening really matters, listening makes people feel loved and affirmed. We have said that you can’t take people anywhere until you know their heart, their fears, their concerns, where they are at, because listening is a means of discipleship.

And it’s a skill. “He who gives an answer before he hears – it’s folly and shame unto him.” That’s Proverbs 18:13.

And the third question I have for you is: How does listening create opportunities for good questions? What is it about listening to people in the dynamic of a group or even one-on-one that really creates opportunities for good questions?

Jim: Well, I think about Jesus on the road to Emmaus, the disciples are talking with one another. He comes up alongside of them and He says, “Hey, what are you guys talking about?”

You taught out of Genesis on this same thing with God in the garden too. Questions that are just like, “So what are you discussing?” And that whole story is interesting because as you track with it and follow it, you find that Jesus really challenges them to get out of their funk. But what is their response? He listens, He asks questions, He challenges them where they are. They invite Him in. They want Him to come and spend time with them.

And I think so often that is a process that we go through with people. It may not be as instantaneous as that story reveals but I think it’s very relevant.

Chip: I would, as a small group leader, facilitator, or if you’re coaching leaders, I think one of the things you always want to ask is, I call it: What is your talking versus your question quotient? How much are you talking versus how much are you listening? And not that you want to literally do this, because for some of us it would be painful, but if you recorded your entire small group and then every time you talked you wrote down all the minutes and every time there was discussion you wrote down the minutes, you would probably be surprised. And whether we like it or not, people feel loved and like it was a great group when they got to talk.

Jim: That’s right.

Chip: They got to share. And so if you’re a teacher, the challenge is: How do you hold back? Right?

Jim: Yeah.

Chip: If you’re an exhorter or a counselor it’s like, Oh, I just heard that. I want to fix that. So if it’s prophetic it’s, “That’s wrong, dude! You need to stop it right now.” And I think one of the things we want you to hear is: Asking questions that allow you to really hear what’s going on will also allow people to process: What do I think? What do I believe? And it’s amazing: when people learn by discovery, convictions are formed. When people learn just by being talked at, they will intellectually agree, but convictions bring life change.

What’s the most difficult situation for you to be a good listener?

Jim: Probably when I see someone who is manipulative or taking the group in a direction that either will cause another person to stumble or they are just checked out and they just derail the group. That’s the hardest. Those are the hardest, I think.

Chip: You shared earlier, we were talking and praying and thinking about, Lord, help us to share with you all. And Jim shared a story that, was it last week or a couple of weeks ago?

Jim: I think a few weeks ago, yeah, uh-huh.

Chip: Yeah, tell that story, because I think it’s really important for people to hear.

Jim: Well, what happened was a person in the group shared, I have been listening and I have heard a few times an undertone of perhaps looking at another denomination through a lens that is not particularly healthy.

And so my shepherd part of wanting to protect everybody else in the group, I chose to speak directly to it. And I asked the question: “What do you have against this particular denomination?”

And I blew it in the sense that I should have gone one-on-one. I asked the question in front of a group. And the person really got hurt as a result of me asking it the way that I did. So I don’t have this all figured out.

My heart as a shepherd was to go, “I really don’t want everybody else to think that what that person is saying is right.” The question is: How do I correct that in a way that honors the individual and still puts truth on the table?

Chip: And there are two or three things about this story that I think are really good. One is “This guy is slamming people.” And actually, he got angry. Down deep it was like, I can’t let this happen in the group. And so you called him, lovingly, but you called him out and he didn’t respond really well. One is I don’t think that’s always wrong, but in his case, maybe offline. Usually offline is way better.

Jim: Yeah, it would have been. Sure, it would have been more honoring to him.

Chip: But I think there’s something, I just wanted to pause. We are on listening, listening, listening, listening.

The other part of this I want you to get is, yeah, we listen, we listen, we listen but that doesn’t mean you compromise your responsibility. There are times where you stop listening and you say, “Hey, hey, Bob! You know, there is something behind that level of anger toward that group,” and “Maybe you and I could talk about that afterwards tonight or later. But I’m not sensing that that really is honoring the Lord here. Maybe we need to move on.”

But you can’t just say, “Hey, I was listening to this webinar and I am supposed to be a good listener,” and you just keep listening to poison coming out of someone’s mouth.

Jim: Well, and not only that but if you continue to just listen and you don’t have a desired outcome in mind, then the group is not going to go anywhere and people aren’t going to come back. So often listening becomes a tool for us as leaders to come alongside someone one-on-one at a later time. There are things that we hear that trigger ideas that we may have to help a person. And so we can return.

I might say to Chip, “Hey, you know the other night, Chip, I heard you say this. Or this is what I heard you say the other night. Help me understand what you meant by that.” And that’s a way to do it one-on-one where I’m not putting the person on the spot in the group.

Chip: Yeah. The skill behind that is, just in terms of the principle that I hear Jim saying is: When you are listening, you recognize people have problems, they may have an issue in a relationship, and asking a question will cause them to begin to get self-aware of what is going on and people will open their heart.

Jim: And the other thing is how we ask the question. If my heart isn’t in a good place because someone has lit my fuse, then wisdom would say I would deal with it later because if I come back with a cutting question or they feel like they are on trial, then everybody else in the group is going to go, Whoa. If I say something stupid, the leader is going to shut me down.

Chip: Here’s a little skill that I have learned in very delicate situations and this is maybe offline, but sometimes you can do this in a group. I just did it yesterday. It was a very intense situation. And I thought I had a sense of what might be going on in someone’s heart.

And I felt like what needed to be addressed is what was going on in their heart, not the issue. I thought the issue was a set of circumstances. And, yet, it would be like to go there would be really risky and, Do I really have that permission?

I said, “I could really be wrong, but I sense there might be something deeper.”

“And I would only, with your permission, would I like to maybe ask a couple questions or make a comment that I think might be helpful, but I could be wrong and it could be sensitive. So I would have to ask your permission.” And then I got one of those looks that said… I think I would be open to that. And when I got that look then I said, “Do I have your permission to share what I think possibly could be behind this?” And the guy looked at me and he goes, “Yeah.”

Jim: That’s great.

Chip: And it was a powerful, powerful moment and it happened to, in that one, it happened to be part of a past life history and as we shared that, he went like, Oh wow. And then it was, we didn’t fix anything. But it was like, there was a bond that got created and there was awareness that happened.

There was an implication for God to work in his life. It wasn’t like, Oh, thank you. Now I do A, B, and C.

Jim: Right.

Chip: But it was a precious moment that came from, I heard his words, but it was one of those things where the issue was a twenty-five dollar issue and he had a twenty-five thousand dollar response.

Jim: Yeah.

Chip: But it wasn’t a twenty-five dollar issue to him. But it was big because of other things that had happened. And making disciples isn’t just about getting information in people’s heads. It’s discovering. We are to be delicate. What is God doing in this man or this woman’s heart? And how do I steward that and how do I help them and move them, by grace, and sometimes grace is very kind and loving and compassionate. And sometimes grace is: Would you allow the truth, like a surgeon’s scalpel, to go to a hard place? And I think the body language has to say: And I will go there with you.

Jim: Yeah. That’s good. I think it’s important that we have an ear towards God and an ear towards an individual because I do and have experienced many times where the Holy Spirit will tell me something that I need to listen to and not overdrive with my passion or zeal for fixing someone.

Chip: Questions reveal something interesting. And I think it’s how God’s grace always flows downhill. In other words, humility. Listening requires, you know what? I don’t know it all. Listening is: What you have to say matters.