Listening reminds people of their dignity.
You are special, enough, important in my eyes.
So important that I am willing to give you my full attention.
To hear you fully, seek to understand you. Your needs, longings, desires.

Listening says I see you and affirms your human story.
Listening communicates you are beautiful in God’s eyes and in mine.

I remember the day it dawned on me that I didn’t really love people.  At least not in the way you would imagine a woman who was married for nearly 25 years at the time, raised 3 children and was a pastor’s wife should love.  I put a lot of pressure on myself to do good in hopes of loving people, working hard to find that “JOY” in life by serving Jesus, Others, Yourself…. as the acronym suggests. 

The recent confessions of several well-known pastors pointing to their past moral transgressions, affirms what I am discovering in the second half of life and ministry:  Hurt leaders hurt people.

I certainly do not have all of the answers, however what I observe is that the current hurried church and ministry culture is catching up with leaders’ hurting inner lives. In my experience as a church leader, I found very few safe spaces to unpack my hurting inner world. Every person alive has some sort of injustice, relational pain, physical or emotional abuse, or unmet need from childhood that sooner or later, catches up with them.