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Should We Trust the Experts?

In our polarized society, it’s easy to line up experts on either side of an issue. Who are we to believe? Should we even listen to the experts?

I think there’s no question that we should listen to experts. What that means is that we should listen to people who know a lot about a subject. For example, if I am going to build something, I am going to ask my friend Mark Smothers who has worked in home construction for decades. If I’m going to apply for the PPP loan, I’m going to ask my friend Bob Chesser, an accountant, who has spent countless hours studying this issue for his clients. This seems clear and obvious.

So, why is it that people balk at listening to experts when expert economists or scientists speak on a subject? One reason is that these people are presented as infallible sources whom we should believe if we are in favor of “science.” Reinhold Niebuhr noted that the rise of science in Western culture “gave modern culture a special animus against ‘dogma.’ But unfortunately it was not prepared to deal with the hidden dogmas in prescriptions of science itself” (The Self and the Dramas of History, 114). Continue reading “Should We Trust the Experts?”

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A Protestant Virtue Ethic

What’s the right way to act? What is good and just and worthwhile to pursue? What will give meaning to life? What will enable us to flourish? These are the questions of ethics.

One way to look at this is from the perspective of norms. Norms tell us what people ought to do. This includes things like, “obey the government”; “do not kill”; “honor God”; and so on.

Virtue ethics looks at ethics from the standpoint of the person. It looks at character and character traits or virtues should be present in people. These include wisdom, justice, love, patience, etc.

The question is, which of these characteristics deserve the most attention and the most focus? What characteristics are most important to human prosperity and functioning? Continue reading “A Protestant Virtue Ethic”

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Love Is Patient

[Listen to an audio version here]

Imagine a community that is deeply divided. There are numerous factions all vying for their interests. This confused state allows some people to break the rules in the most flagrant way and other rules to be enforced with exacting rigor. Everyone wants their gift to be recognized. The rich feast, and the poor go hungry, even in the same church.

Such a place was the church of Corinth. It was a highly polarized church. It was out of control. What did they need?

The Apostle wrote his first letter to the Corinthians to help them work through all these issues and try to bring about some semblance of order. It was clear that there were two things that would make a huge difference: to find their boast in Christ not in themselves and to let that shape them into loving people.

Paul calls love “the most excellent way,” the surefire way to restore community. He refers to three great virtues: faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these, he says, is love.

Paul writes about love in 1 Corinthians 13. It is justly one of the most famous chapters of the Bible for its beauty and power. We should remember that he wrote this to a congregation that was deeply divided. He wrote it to a community that needed to be restored.

When community needs to be restored, we can turn to this chapter for wisdom on how God builds community. And how does God build community? He creates the virtues within people that build the community. In this series, we are considering some of these virtues: being a listener, being patient, being humble, and being a servant. In 1 Corinthians 13, we discover the importance of patience.

Love is patient
In 1 Corinthians 13, there is a beautiful description of love. We can define love as an affection for someone and desire for union and communion with that person.

If you wanted to describe love, what word would you use first? The Apostle Paul begins, perhaps surprisingly, with patience. “Love is patient.” He says.

Patience and love are deeply connected in Paul’s mind. He says elsewhere: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (Eph. 4:2). Love and patience go together.

This fits well with the rule that we discussed last week. James says that every one of us should be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. What this means is that we can’t rush getting our ideas and thoughts into a conversation. We have to go through the process of carefully listening, understanding, and interacting. This takes time. This requires patience.

Why does it require patience? Because the reward of community doesn’t come immediately, and there are obstacles to bringing it about. We will have to work through them. For this, we need patience!

We have opportunity to grow in patience every day. It took me a long time to realize that when you work with physical objects like putting a desk together or fixing a printer, nothing fits together exactly right. You’ve got to have the patience to overcome these obstacles. I’m still learning that. Relationships are no different. It takes time to build relationships, and it will involve obstacles.

Can we accept that community is a process and embrace it? When we do, we will have learned that love is patient.

Love is a process
What I mean is that love is not a mere feeling. It’s certainly not a one-time thing. It is a process of bringing people together. Relationships aren’t built overnight.

Aristotle said that to have a good friend, you have to eat a pound of salt together. He did not mean that you could magically build a friendship by sitting down and eating a pound of salt together in one sitting. He meant that you had to have enough meals that the salt added together would add up to a pound. Relationships take time. They take patience.

Our expectation is so often that relationships will come quickly. We come to a new place or church or family, and we expect it to be like the place we left. The trouble is that we have forgotten how much patience it took to build the relationships we had before. We’ve forgotten the process. We’ve forgotten how many pounds of salt we ate together to get the relationships that we have.

James warns us against being quick to speak and slow to listen. Sometimes, we think we can get heard quickly. This is not true. It’s a process. With people, fast is slow, and slow is fast. Relationships take time. Are we willing to engage in the process?

To do this two virtues are necessary. The first is perseverance. Perseverance is the virtue that enables us to continue doing good in spite of the fact that it gets boring or hard. It means that you keep doing your devotions, even when you don’t feel like it. You keep going to small group. You keep practicing an instrument. You keep exercising. The virtue that enables us to do this is perseverance.

Patience is a little bit different. Patience is the virtue that enables us to put up with obstacles and pain in pursuit of something good. Patience enables us to stick with people even when they disappoint us. It enables us to continue serving a community, even when it hurts us. It enables us to keep playing the guitar, even when we can’t seem to hit the F chord correctly. That’s patience. It is crucial for community. Why? Because love involves pain.

Love Involves Pain
When we enter into the adventure of community, it will involve obstacles, and it will involve pain. This requires patience, a willingness to endure for the good goal of community.

Let’s be honest, though, many of the things that hurt us aren’t because people do us wrong. Community is a challenge because people are different. They have different views that they come to at different rates than we do. They have different gifts that lead them toward different activities. They have different priorities. This requires patience.

What helps us with patience? It is re-envisioning the community. Differences are actually an asset not a hindrance to community. We are a body with different parts. Our differences show we need one another, not that we should break up into factions. Here’s how God shows us this in 1 Cor. 12:18–20:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

It’s a familiar image, but one we need to take in deeply, if we are going to develop the patience we need.

But we will not only experience differences. We will experience offences large and small. Coming together will hurt us. This requires patience. A willingness to forgive and bear with wrongs is going to be a big part of building community. This is how the Bible speaks of these virtues in Colossians:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Col. 3:12–13).

People will say things that hurt us. They will disappoint us. Can we move forward in the face of these and keep going? Sometimes we should confront, but sometimes we should forgive and just move forward.

One of the most challenging and rewarding examples of this came within my former Presbytery (a regional group of churches). The Presbytery was completely polarized. At the heart of it was the disagreement between myself and another Pastor over important theological issues. It started there, but it spiraled out of control.

After a time, the Lord did some things in me that caused me to look at that relationship differently. At one meeting, we were able to talk. Over the next year and half, we entered into the process of slowly unraveling several years of hurts and mistrust. Eventually, we became close friends and are to this day (you can read the whole story here). It took a lot of patience, on both our parts. I need to remember this lesson as I engage in a variety of relationships, even in ones where there has not been as much polarization.

Love Is Rooted in God’s love
So, how do we get the strength to patiently endure? How do we get the strength to love?

When the Apostle Paul thought of patience, I imagine the first thing he thought of was God’s patience. Here’s what he said to his associate Timothy:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life (1 Tim. 1:15–16).

When we consider our own guilt before God, we know our own sin better than anyone else’s. This can lead us to see ourselves as “the chief of sinners.” When we see ourselves this way, it will cause us to be amazed at “His immense patience.” This amazement will make it easier to be patient with others.

In this world, there are many righteous causes. We need to stand for righteous causes. It is important to fight for justice and righteousness. However, we also need to recognize the imperfection of our own righteous causes. The doctrine of justification by faith alone teaches us that both we and our opponents stand condemned before a holy God and are justified only by grace. This should moderate our feelings of antipathy to a degree and give us a feeling sympathy for our fellow human beings. We need both perspectives to retain balance. In this way, as Reinhold Niebuhr said, we can be both in the battle and above it.

When we understand our own sin, we can grasp that God has been more patient with us than we will ever be with others. Can we bear with others as He has born with us?

Conclusion
So, here’s what I would like you to do and what I will endeavor to do by God’s grace. First, I will recognize that building community is a process. This mean that I will try to do the little things day by day that will build the community and that I won’t be deterred because it takes time or is difficult.

Second, when I encounter obstacles or differences in relationships, I will not give up. I will remember that love is patient. Obstacles are part of the process not an end to it.

Third, I will believe that patient building of community will produce fruit. I will believe that God wants to use me to build community, and I will submit to His process of doing that with full hope that it will make a difference.

Finally, I will take in deeply of how many obstacles our Lord Jesus overcame to bring us to Himself, remembering these words:

And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Heb. 12:2–3).

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My Doctor of Ministry Experience

A few weeks ago, I was talking to some friends about completing my Doctor of Ministry degree from Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). I realized that with graduation ceremonies cancelled, I had very little to mark this milestone. It gave me great sympathy for the hundreds of thousands who have missed out on a variety of milestones this year, including graduation.

Last week, my wife and church helped me celebrate that milestone. This fulfilled my desire to have a marker for this transition in my life, but there’s one more thing I want to do. I want to write a summary of my experience in the Doctor of Ministry program at RTS.

My thoughts and prayers about entering the Doctor of Ministry program began in 2014 at a leadership conference. It was there that I really felt God leading me to pursue this degree as a next step in my personal growth.

The problem was that in the summer of 2014, I was living in Western South Dakota, a long way from schools that offered the program. But in January 2015, I moved to Tennessee to serve as Pastor of Evergreen Presbyterian Church. About five months after I moved to Tennessee, I got an email about the Doctor of Ministry degree from Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS). I looked over the program and thought that it would be a good one for me. The four core courses were Leadership, Applied Theology, Church Growth and Revitalization, and Spirituality in Ministry. In addition, the degree required four electives and a project or thesis. I applied and was accepted to the program in May 2015. RTS has multiple campuses. I chose the Atlanta campus because of its proximity and because a friend of mine lived there with whom I could stay for free.

My first class was in July: “Church Growth and Revitalization” with Dr. Tom Wood of Church Multiplication Ministries. Prior to each class in the program, the student had to read 2,000 pages of assigned books. I thought I read quite a bit before, but I realized that I hadn’t read very much! Reading 2,000 pages in a month is a lot! The week before the class started, I was reading all day long for a week trying to get everything done before the class started.

The class was outstanding. I learned so many things from the books, the lectures, and my time with Dr. Wood. I also learned a lot from the two papers that I wrote. My key takeaway was that church ministry had to be oriented outwards. Out of this class arose the idea for my church’s current mission statement:

Love. Nurture. Send. Each member of the Evergreen family, rooted and grounded in the love of God in Jesus Christ, will seek to love and welcome all whom God brings our way; nurture them in the truths of the Gospel, practical wisdom, and use of their gifts; and send them out to love their families, neighborhoods, and communities, joining what God is already doing in bringing redemption and restoration to the Sevier County area and beyond. Love. Nurture. Send.

The italicized part of this statement in particular was the result of this class. I would not have suggested this emphasis without it.

After this first class, I was extremely enthused about the program. Then, I got the news. RTS was changing the curriculum. They would no longer require the four core classes that were a large part of my entering this program. Instead, they would have two tracks: expository preaching and Reformed theology in ministry. They also closed the D.Min. programs on all campuses except Charlotte and Orlando. This meant that I was transferring to the Charlotte campus. All of this required a lot of mental adjustment on my part, but I am glad that I stuck with it. One positive part of the change was that they gave those students who had already begun a great deal of flexibility in how they completed the program.

After completing my first class, I decided that God was leading me to take classes in Orlando . . . in January! I decided to take two classes back to back. My time in Orlando was simply amazing. I stayed at Canterbury Retreat and Conference Center about 2 miles from the campus. This was such a peaceful place for contemplation. The whole staff was so hospitable and glad to have everyone there. The retreat area is on a small lake with a lovely walking trail around it. Every day I would walk around the lake and reflect on the day’s teaching. I could not have had a better place to be and experience those classes.

The two classes I took in January 2016 were Applied Theology with Dr. Steve Childers and Christ-Centered Preaching with Dr. Bryan Chapell. The first class broke a lot of new ground for me. The second was more of a reminder of a lot of key points of preaching that were worth reviewing and reflecting upon again, though with some new things, too. In both cases, I was happy to be a part of these classes and get to know the students.

In Applied Theology, I read two works by Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life and Renewal as a Way of Life. These two books offer a view of life that emphasizes piety and a Protestant theology of revival and renewal that manifests itself in all areas of life. I found these books extremely helpful. Lovelace also got me thinking for the first time about American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Lovelace writes:

Kierkegaard, Reinhold Nieburh, and Tillich are not wrong, however, in suggesting that anxiety is at the root of much sinful behavior, since the unconscious awareness of our independence from God and unrelieved consciousness of guilt create a profound insecurity in the unbeliever or the Christian who is not walking in the light. This insecurity generates a kind of compensatory egoism, self-oriented but somewhat different than serious pride. Thus much of what is called pride is actually not godlike self-admiration, but masked inferiority, insecurity, and deep self-loathing (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 88, emphasis his).

I was so fascinated by the idea of seeing anxiety as being the occasion of sin that I wrote a paper on it which was eventually published in the Mid-America Journal of Theology. You can read it here. I would also return to Niebuhr later in the program.

In July 2016, I took my only class at the Charlotte campus, the campus at which I was enrolled. The class was Preaching from the Gospels with Dr. Robert Cara. While this class was also more of a review, I enjoyed being part of it. I especially appreciated how Dr. Cara took a personal interest in us. He invited all of us to go out to lunch each day, and we had a great time interacting with him. I also had a great evening riding roller coasters at Carowinds.

For me, the most important class I took was in Pastoral Counseling. I took this class in January and February 2017 with Dr. Jim Coffield. Once again, I returned to Canterbury Retreat Center. Dr. Coffield basically went through a variety of counseling issues that we face as Pastors and gave us advice for dealing with them. Much of this was new to me and extremely practical. He also exposed us to a variety of counseling situations. He gave us opportunities to do counseling, receive counseling, and interact in a small group with direction from one of his counseling students. This really helped add a new dimension to my ministry, and it gave me a variety of ideas for new reading that eventually led to my doctoral project.

Because of the change in the program after my first class, RTS gave me (and other students who enrolled under the older organization of the D.Min. program) the flexibility to to do two directed (i.e., independent) studies. This amounted to 3,000 pages of reading with a lengthy paper under the direction of an advisor. My first directed study was on the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. My advisor was Dr. Bruce Baugus of RTS Jackson. We were able to meet in person when I attended a Pastor’s conference in Jackson, MS (at Twin Lakes Conference Center, pictured). He was extremely helpful and encouraging. I thoroughly enjoyed reading works on and about Niebuhr and ended up doing a paper on Niebuhr’s view of the problem of racism (read it here).

The second directed study was in counseling issues. My class with Dr. Coffield had given me a thirst to study these issues at greater depth. I really appreciate my advisor for this class, Dr. Jim Newheiser of the Charlotte campus. Even though we had very different views on Christian counseling, he was gracious and helpful, inviting me to hear a different perspective while also encouraging my development. When I took this class, I was wavering between doing my Doctoral Project on counseling or Niebuhr. After this class, I was convinced to go in the counseling direction.

My final class was actually a preparation for the doctoral project, so it too was an independent study. One of my regrets is that I didn’t get an opportunity to take more classes where I could interact with other students and a professor on campus. I hope to remedy that in the future because all graduates are allowed to audit D.Min. courses for free. I plan to take them up on this! At any rate, I took the class. This class was designed to help students complete the whole program. The outcome was a proposal for the D.Min. project. My proposal was to take the insights of family systems therapy and apply them to ministry. This proposal was accepted.

I have to admit that when I began my project I was not quite sure what I was doing. My first stab at it was a failure. My advisor, Dr. Don Fortson, graciously pointed this out, but he encouraged me to keep going and gave me some ideas. Eventually, I realized that I had to narrow my topic. I took one topic from family systems therapy and applied it to ministry (differentiation of self, if you’re interested!). This focus helped me complete the project. I really began this work in earnest in January of 2019. Once I had clarity, I was able to move through putting together this paper. Thanks to some time off given by my elders, by January 2020, I sent my paper to a friend for proof-reading. This was completed on a sabbatical at a condo in Myrtle Beach (view pictured). In February 2020, I sent in the rough draft to Dr. Fortson. On March 13th, the last day the campus was open before the COVID-19 lockdowns, I went to the Charlotte campus for my oral defense of the project. This was sustained. After that, I had to make some corrections to get it to a place that was ready for a final printing. By May, this was complete (you can read my project here). I was set to graduate.

I had originally planned to graduate on Saturday morning, May 23rd. Because of COVID-19, the graduation ceremony was cancelled. However, the school did a good job of making it special. They sent the graduates a box of gifts that included (for me) letters of congratulations from Dr. Fortson, my advisor; Rev. Ken McMullen, my faculty reader; and Dr. Michael Kruger, the president of the campus. On Sunday, May 31st, the church honored me and other graduates from our church for our accomplishments. It was a great day.

In the summer of 2014, I felt God leading me to the D.Min. I now can see why. My life has been immeasurably enriched by the reading and writing I did as well as by the interaction with fellow students and professors. It was a long journey, but I loved every minute of it (except perhaps the hours of revising footnotes!). I am better equipped to interact with the world and to be a better human, husband, father, friend, pastor, and Christian because of the program. I am thankful to God for leading me in this direction and for all the support He gave me through my wife, friends, elders from our church, and the professors and fellow students at RTS.

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Quick to Listen

[Listen to an audio version here]

In light of the pandemic, I have thought more about the flu than I have at any time in my life. I realized Sunday that I need to think about it a lot more. As I described my understanding of the flu to a friend, she realized that I had confused what is called “the stomach flu” with the actual influenza virus. She told me that the flu vaccine does not help with the stomach flu. I had a brief moment of pain and flash of embarrassment as I realized that I had assumed something to be true that was actually wrong.

I quickly recovered and did a little reading on the subject. It turns out that the stomach flu is not a flu at all. It is caused primarily by what is called a norovirus. It is spread through surfaces and not primarily through the air.

This was a good thing to know because I’ve actually experienced the debilitating effects of this disease, gastroenteritis, many times, and it was horrible. When I had it, I felt like I was on the edge of death, even though I wasn’t. So, I am happy to gain clarity on it and be better empowered to avoid it.

Now, here’s the point of all this. I have many gaps in my knowledge like this. I have all sorts of things that make sense to me but aren’t true or aren’t clear. This is why it’s so crucial to listen! Our knowledge is really quite fragmentary, and we have to listen to God, to other people, and to reality in order to gain knowledge. There is much more that we don’t know than we do know. So, listening should be the fundamental stance of the human being.

There are other tremendous benefits to listening. Nothing builds connection and community like listening. When people listen, they show they care. When people feel heard, they feel that they are part of the community, even if people disagree with them. Listening builds the community. When people are listeners, they are community builders.

Quick to Listen
In light of this, I want us to consider a wonderful rule and aspiration from the Epistle of James: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). This little phrase encapsulates tremendous wisdom for individual growth in wisdom and community building. It is a sort of summary of everything we find in the wisdom literature of the Bible.

The importance of being a listener is stated throughout the Bible. Here’s just a few examples. “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Proverbs 12:15). “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame” (Proverbs 18:13). “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent” (Proverbs 17:28).

Being slow to speak is necessarily connected with being quick to listen. The Bible continually warns about too many words. James has some of the strongest warnings. “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless” (James 1:27). He goes on to say, “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6). Wow.

Now notice here that this does not mean that we should be silent. We should be slow to speak but not refrain from speaking. There is a problem of speaking too much, and there is also a problem when a person is not allowed to speak. When someone is constantly forcing their viewpoint forward, interrupting and not listening, this must be confronted. A relationship requires both sides to communicate their thoughts. What this verse means is that each of us should show deference to God, to others, and to reality as we formulate our thoughts. Listening first. Quick to listen; slow to speak.

When we hear something that doesn’t seem right or seems like an attack, it’s easy to let our anger take over. That’s why this passage urges us to keep control of our anger, be slow to anger. There is nothing wrong with anger in and of itself. It is an emotion that helps us respond to injustice. However, we need to be angry at the right things, for the right reason, to the right degree, and for the right time. All of these things must be in accordance with godliness, reality, and righteousness. When anger gets out of bounds (quick not slow), as our text warns us, it does not bring about the righteousness of God.

Why Such Bad Listeners?
If listening is such a good thing, why are we such bad listeners? Well, in many ways, we are not. When things are calm, we can listen, though even here we can all stand to improve.

The problem comes when things get intense and anxiety goes up. As anxiety goes up, the brain shuts down. As the authors of the wonderful book Crucial Conversations put it, when we need to be at our best, we are at our worst.

Why can’t we listen when our anxiety goes up?

We feel insecure. When your boss calls you in and criticizes you for the job you are doing, it may make you feel like you could lose your job. This may make you wonder, how am I going to take care of my family? This makes us want to defend ourselves or withdraw rather than listen carefully.

We feel attacked. If someone says, Donald Trump is a terrible president, you may feel attacked personally, if you support him. If someone says, Donald Trump is a great president, you may feel attacked, if you disagree. What’s our first inclination? To immediately say why he is or isn’t. It’s not to ask that person to explain their thinking.

We feel pressed. When we feel like we don’t have much time, we feel like we want to make sure we get what is important to us heard. This leads us to try to force our view into the conversation. The problem is that with people fast is slow and slow is fast. You can’t rush the process of mutual understanding.

We feel out of control. When we feel that we understand things, then we feel in control. When someone questions our understanding of things, it’s easy to feel as if our hold on the world is slipping. When we don’t know what’s going on, we feel much more afraid. It’s easy to view a different perspective or a questioning of our perspective as a threat to our control. That’s one reason we hold onto our ideas more tightly than they deserve.

Our feelings of insecurity, fear of rejection, impatience, and lack of control all make us less willing to listen. So, what are we to do?

Listen to the Gospel
We’ve got to listen to God. We’ve got to listen to the Gospel. We need to find our security in Christ not in circumstances. We need our identity to be rooted in Christ not other people’s view of us. We need to rest in God’s control not our ability to manage and understand things.

The world’s provisions, other people’s approval, and our own understanding are flimsy foundations. There are too many contingencies, too many disagreements, and too many gaps in our knowledge. When we see that God is in control, then we can be OK with not knowing. We can be OK with not defending ourselves. We can be OK with not getting our point across.

Again, this does not mean that we should be doormats. For the good of a relationship, we need to be able to speak. If others won’t let us speak, we should confront this issue. We just need to be willing to submit to the long, slow process of listening and building trust that is community building. We don’t need to rush it because we know that God is in control, and He will provide what we need.

Our anxiety makes this very difficult. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put this well: “Without freedom from anxiety man is so enmeshed in the vicious circle of egocentricity, so concerned about himself, that he cannot release himself for the adventure of love” (The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2.272).

How do we get over our anxiety and stop trying to force people to listen to us? Listen, listen, listen to the Gospel. Hear from God that He loves us and will take care of us. Hear from God that He is in control for our good. Hear that we can wait because God is bringing good things. That’s how we find power to listen. That’s how we let go of our anxious desire to be heard.

Applying It
Besides listening to the Gospel, let me suggest two things that will help us become quicker at listening and slower at speaking and getting angry.

First, become more self-aware. Try to notice when you become angry. Pay attention to when you stop listening. Notice what sets you off. Notice when you start thinking you have to take control of the conversation.

Other people can help us with this. I remember at a Session (church leader board) meeting, one of the elders told me, “When elder x said this, you changed. I could see it in your face, you went into defensive mode.” That was great. I didn’t see that clearly. It helped me become more self-aware. It didn’t cure me, but it made me more aware that this happens. Now, I can look for it and take steps to calm myself.

Second, approach people with curiosity rather than judgment. When someone says something that is different, that is an opportunity to learn. If we ask for help in understanding, we open the door to a relationship. If we respond defensively or attack, we further the polarization.

Let me say something here to my primarily white Christian audience on the subject of race. Like you, I struggle with the issue of race, and I often feel like I don’t understand the issues. I also wonder, what can I do that really makes a difference? Here’s what we can do, listen.

Many of our Brothers and Sisters in Christ in this country have very different perspectives on race than many of us do. Can we approach that fact with curiosity? Can we listen? Can we make an effort to be quick to listen on race issues? We can listen today, even if we don’t have an opportunity to have an actual conversation. Pick up a book. I would suggest starting with the Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Curiosity won’t solve all the issues, but it’s a start. And it will make a difference.

I remember a woman said to me about Tennessee, “I love the place. I can’t stand the religion and the politics.” She was from New York, and she did not know I was a Pastor. I told her that I was, and I said, “I’d love to hear more about your struggles. I’d love to get your perspective. It would help me.” And she told me. I listened. Then, she wanted to hear what my thoughts were. I didn’t convince her to embrace evangelical Christianity that day, but I think we made one small step away from polarization and toward community.

That’s what God can and will do through us, if we become a people who are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Amen.

________

Photo by Joshua Rodriguez on Unsplash

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