Listen Before You Lecture: How to Lower Conflict and Build Rapport
I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I'm here to encourage you with tips and strategies to help you deepen your faith, build stronger relationships, and do the most with your life in Christ. I hope that you are well and safe wherever…
Notice what happens between people
I am your host, Chris Emerson, and I'm here to encourage you with tips and strategies to help you deepen your faith, build stronger relationships, and do the most with your life in Christ. I hope that you are well and safe wherever you might be today.
That is certainly just a pleasantry that has been said for years, but in our current climate, I mean really, I hope that you're doing all right.
Listen beneath the surface
And they sensed that pride and they didn't listen, and I really wish I could go back and have those conversations again, because I think I may have been committing a grave mistake. I'm going to give you the definition of patronize, and when you turn on the news tonight, whether you're listening to a politician speak about their side, or you're listening to a news program that supports your side, listen for patronizing language.
Here's what it means treat in a way that is apparently kind or helpful, but that betrays a feeling of superiority.
Choose a better response
One thing I want you to take home today is this if the point isn't peace and unification, if we're not saying it to try to draw someone from the other side closer to us, closer to God, what's the point? Well, social media, we make our bold proclamations, and all of our friends applaud us with likes and loves and amens and the like, and it does nothing to help what's broken.
I just think that having real conversations, getting to know people, learning, listening, and loving is the only way.
Practice it in real life
There's no rapport, there's no conversation, there's just a monologue, and sometimes it's perceived as a monologue from someone standing over them, which is the definition of patronization. And to give you some tip today, let me give you a few things to think about as we close.
Make sure if someone is labeling you a lecturer and deciding not to listen, that it's actually the word of God that they are rejecting, not some white guy from Lindale, age 41, who read a couple of articles and now he knows the answer to how to fix everything that's wrong in our world.
Take the idea with you.
- 01Where does the central idea of “Listen Before You Lecture: How to Lower Conflict and Build Rapport” show up most clearly in my life right now?
- 02What does this episode call me to believe, stop, start, or handle differently?
- 03What is one specific action I can take today instead of merely agreeing with the idea?
Listen to the original episode
This article was adapted from Listen, Not Lecture. Continue with the podcast for the original teaching in Kris’s voice.
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