We all have toolboxes of one sort or another. Sometimes it’s a literal toolbox, or at least a tool drawer in the kitchen or the utility room. It’ll be filled with hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, and other things that help us accomplish a task of some kind. Maybe we have a job that requires more specialized or technical tools, from the various tools that a mechanic or plumber uses to the variety of food preparation devices that professional chefs utilize.
Sometimes the tools are more metaphorical. I spent 17 years working in a 911 call center as a dispatcher and a trainer. I had plenty of physical tools – headphones, microphone, radio, up to 6 different computer monitors controlled by 3 different keyboards, and more. I also had some of the metaphorical tools. I’ll get back to those in a moment.
People often ask me what my most interesting or memorable calls were during that time. Some calls stand out because they made the news in some way, others because of who the caller was. I worked in Fairfax County, Virginia, near Washington DC. Over the years I spoke to or worked on cases involving politicians, athletes, international war criminals, and Supreme Court justices. A few calls involved a terrible tragedy, others ended in happiness and celebration.
The calls that I remember the most, though, are the ones where I made a connection with the caller. That’s especially important when you’re talking with a caller who is suicidal, or who has barricaded themselves, or who has taken hostages. My toolbox had a lot of those metaphorical tools to connect with callers, and one of the best is one that we can use every day in every part of our lives – listening.
A good dictionary definition of listening is “to give one’s attention to a sound.” As I’m writing, the TV is on in the background. There are sounds coming from it, but I’m not particularly listening to them. Every once in a while a word or piece of music will come from the TV that makes me look up. I then pay attention or listen, to the sounds for a moment to see if I’m interested in what they mean or what story they’re telling. 99% of the time I’m not, and I return my attention to thinking and writing.
The ability to actively listen to someone else is important. There are a few tools we can put in our toolboxes that can help, and plenty of examples in the Bible of God or others using these same tools.
Think, for instance, of Job’s three friends. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar visit Job after his life has collapsed. What is the first thing they do on their arrival? According to Job 2, they sit. That’s it. They just sit in silence with Job for seven days and wait for him to be ready to talk. Actually, the three friends take action before they even arrive. The friends see Job from a distance and they can hardly recognize their friend. They tear their clothes and throw dust in the air and cry aloud, so great is their pain for him. Then they travel on until they are together with Job.
Often when we are with people going through a crisis or people who are grieving, we feel as if there aren’t any words to say. We want to help but we don’t know how. Sometimes the first step to helping someone is to just show up and be with them. This is called the ministry of presence. Being fully present with someone and being willing to wait for them to express their feelings is an important listening tool. One of the key concepts of active listening is to listen first and talk second.
Job’s friends do this. After they sit with Job for seven days, he begins to talk and to share his feelings, emotions, and anger. Once they begin talking the friends don’t respond very helpfully to Job, but they start out well by just sitting and listening, practicing the ministry of presence, listening first and talking second.
Once we have begun listening to someone, there are ways to help narrow down what they’re trying to convey. One of these is emotion labeling. This is exactly what it sounds like. When someone is telling you how difficult their life is, or how frustrating it is to deal with issues they’re working through, you can say something like “It sounds like you’re really upset/angry/worried.” If you’re interpreting what they are saying wrongly, they’ll let you know. In emotionally charged situations they may not correct you in the most kindly way. When this happens, try not to let it discourage you or throw you off. Stay focused on your goal.
This helps whoever you’re talking with know that you’re truly listening and that you’re trying to understand them. Too often we make assumptions about what people want or think. In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother (or sister)…”1
Jesus sometimes confirmed emotions or desires that would seem obvious to us, as in John 5:6 where he asks a man who’s been waiting for healing for 38 years if the man in fact wants to be healed. Jesus was always fully present with those he was in conversation with, and often used illustrations and examples geared directly towards the people he’s talking to. When talking to farmers, Jesus discussed crops and soil; with folks who fished for a living, Jesus used examples drawn from bodies of water or comparisons to fishing.
Something else Jesus sometimes did was to reframe what he heard. Reframing is when we restate what someone has said to us, but put it in a slightly different context or view it from a slightly different perspective. Reframing is used to remove some of the emotion from a statement, or to provide a more positive spin on what was said.
Take a look at John 6:24-35. Through much of this passage, Jesus reframes the questions he’s asked in order to help the questioners move towards the truth of the matter. Early on Jesus perceives that the crowd is impressed by his earlier production of physical food (the miracle of the loaves and fishes.) Jesus wants the crowd to focus not on the physical food, but on the miraculous nature of what has happened and what that means for them. Jesus reframes the crowd’s questions, always in a way that shows he is listening and has heard their concerns and that encourages them to consider things in a new light.
In the 911 setting, my listening was all verbal. I was always on the phone, so non-verbal cues and communication were impossible. When you’re talking with someone in person you have the advantage of seeing their body language. Even a conversation via Zoom or Skype lets you at least see the face of the person you’re talking to and you may get non-verbal clues to what they are feeling or trying to say.
However much you can see of the face or body of the person you’re talking to, pay attention. What are their facial expressions communicating? Anger? Fear? Happiness? What insight does the facial expression give you into the words that are spoken? Is the person closing themselves off to how you are responding by crossing their arms? Are they moving forward on their chair and expressing interest? What emotions are conveyed when one rolls their eyes or checks their watch while another is speaking? Sometimes non-verbal cues like this can help you interpret someone’s words.
While not specifically a part of active listening, an awareness of your own non-verbal cues can encourage others to be more open. I asked earlier about what emotions are conveyed when the person you’re speaking to rolls their eyes or checks their watch. (Sadly, there are no Biblical examples noted of either Jesus, Paul, or anyone else checking their watch.) The question is important whether it’s directed to you or the person you’re talking to. You don’t want to send a non-verbal message that you’re not interested in or not taking seriously what it is you’re hearing.
Non-verbal cues can be subtle. When you face the person you’re talking with squarely you can seem more open than when you’re at a slight angle. If you fidget with your hair or your clothes or a pen, you are sending the message that you’re not really engaged in what the other person is saying. If you’re doing these things when you’re speaking, it can be distracting for the hearer and make it more difficult for them to actively listen to you.
Some non-verbal cues are cultural. My culture is that of a middle-aged (okay, slightly older than that) white male in the United States of America. Here, a firm handshake is a cultural signifier of someone who is honest and reliable while a weak or limp handshake can leave a bad impression. Sometimes it can seem like people are competing with one another over whose handshake is firmer or tighter.
At one of my workplaces, a security guard was from another country. We developed a friendship over time and would shake hands. The guard’s handshake was soft, and he would cup his left hand under our two hands that were shaking one another. This struck me as odd initially, but eventually, I learned that in his original country this kind of handshake signified friendship and respect. Cultural differences matter a lot when we communicate with others, either with words or with actions.
Paul showed the significance of culture in Acts 17. Noting the variety of idols available to be worshipped, Paul points out that there is one idol inscribed “To An Unknown God.” Paul takes the opportunity to use this idol, a part of the culture of Athens, to proclaim the creator God as the only appropriate object of worship.
Paul goes beyond noting this one idol, and in his talk refers to Greek philosophers and poets. In Acts 17:28, the phrase “For in him we live and move and have our being”2 is a quote from Epimenides. When Paul says “For we are also his offspring”, it may be a quote from the poet Aratus (who, like Paul, was from Tarsus) or the poet Cleanthes.
As a result of Paul’s Areopagus sermon, many people became believers. This likely wouldn’t have happened without Paul’s attentiveness to both the culture and the sensibilities of his setting and his ability to draw on his own culture to build rapport with his hearers.
As we’ve discussed, active listening techniques involve some communication on our part to convey that we’re engaged in what is being said. If you’re on the phone, either with a friend or perhaps in a crisis hotline setting, one very simple active listening tool is to use the name of the person you’re talking to. This is particularly helpful when whoever you’re talking to is agitated or excited. In the 911 world, we would sometimes have hysterical callers and had to work to get them below the hysteria threshold so that we could ask appropriate questions and get the necessary information.
Using someone’s name in an emergency situation, particularly someone you don’t know personally, shows that you’ve been paying attention and are viewing them as an individual. It also helps cut through the hysteria or the emotion of the moment. This has probably happened to you in a different setting. You’re walking in a store and behind you, someone says “Sir! Sir!” or “Ma’am! Ma’am!” Do you immediately assume they are talking to you, stop, turn around, and answer them, or do you just walk on thinking that they are talking to someone else? Contrast that with hearing that person say, “Mr. Jones!” or “Ms. Smith!” or whatever your name is. If you hear your name spoken, you will almost certainly stop and turn around to see who is talking to you and what’s going on. You’ll do this because you pay more attention to someone who knows your name and because your name cuts through whatever other thoughts are in your head or whatever other noises surround you.
This reminds us of John 10:3 – “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” The shepherd calling the sheep by name increases their awareness and trust, just as it does with people.
One of the biggest challenges of active listening is to avoid jumping to conclusions or trying to fix things. In some ways, this is similar to the ministry of presence that we talked about earlier, but it requires a little more restraint. It can also be similar to emotion labeling. When we’re talking with someone who is hurting or who is going through a difficult time, we naturally want to make it better. We want to be able to tell the person exactly what to do to fix whatever the situation is so that they can move forward happy and healthy.
Sometimes this is what the person actually wants from us, but often it isn’t. It takes some discernment to know what is actually being sought. It’s tempting to say what we think should be done and move along. If the solution to an issue seems obvious to us, though, chances are good that the person we’re talking to has already thought of it on their own. There may be reasons that we’re not aware of that they can’t pursue that solution, or they may not be emotionally ready, or they may just need to confirm in their own minds what the solution is. We don’t want to impose our own ideas or move too quickly to conclusions, and we don’t want to make assumptions about what a person is feeling or thinking or needs to do. Careful active listening, combined with our next technique, can help the person we’re talking to find the answer that is right for them.
That next technique is open-ended questioning. An open-ended question is one that has a variety of possible responses and allows the person answering it to reply at some length. This is as opposed to a closed-ended question which allows for a limited number of answers.
Imagine I want to know your favorite NFL team. A closed-ended question might be, “Is your favorite NFL team the Chicago Bears?” There are really only two answers – yes or no. I could repeat the question for all of the other 31 NFL teams until I hit on the right one and learn that your favorite team is in fact the Jacksonville Jaguars. An open-ended question would be “What is your favorite NFL team?” This lets you either give me one answer with your one definite favorite team, or lets you tell me about a variety of favorite teams you have – maybe the team you grew up with, the team where you live now, and the team your favorite player plays for.
Good Biblical examples of open-ended questions are in Matthew 16:13-16. Jesus doesn’t just ask “Do people say I’m the Messiah?”. Jesus asks, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and gives room for the disciples to offer a lot of different answers. This they do, saying that some folks think Jesus is John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah, and some a different prophet.
Even when Jesus narrows the question down to the disciples themselves in verse 15, he leaves it open-ended. There were many ways to answer beyond Peter’s declaration that Jesus was the Messiah. Peter hit on the correct answer of course, but it wasn’t the only answer that the disciples could have given as the variety of responses to Jesus’ first question showed.
If we continue to ask open-ended questions, often the person we are talking to will be able to articulate their own answer. Sometimes this answer is the one we were thinking of all along, but sometimes it’s something entirely different. If we jump in at the beginning with our suggestion the person may not ever reach the point where they can work through their own problem themselves to a helpful and hopeful resolution.
There are no 911 call takers in the Bible, but the same principles of active listening that help guide those who respond to emergency calls can also help inform our conversations with others. These include being fully present, emotion labeling, and reframing. It’s important to be aware of non-verbal cues on our part and on the part of the person we’re speaking with, as well as our and their cultural cues and predispositions. In situations where we’re talking with a stranger, it’s helpful to use their name, and we can ask open-ended questions to avoid jumping to a conclusion and instead let the person we are talking with find their own solution.
You may never have thought of Jesus as a 911 call taker, but he would have been a good one. He definitely had the right tools for it.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 98.
- All scriptures are from the New Revised Standard Version.
Jeff Davidson is the pastor at the Polo IL Church of the Brethren and retired from the Fairfax County Virginia Department of Public Safety Communications in 2020 as a Communication Operations Supervisor.