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“Does Anyone Listen?”
Categories: Brent SeifertQuestion: How many people do you think will read this bulletin? If you read this, please let me know so I can get an idea. My guess is significantly less than 30% of the church. Yet, for some reason, we keep writing them. Why?
I am also lucky enough to manage a group of people at work. And I can’t tell you how often I have had people ask for information I already gave them. There have even been times when people complained in group settings about not having information I had sent to the group in written and verbal form. So why do I keep providing information to the organization?
The real problem to the questions above is why I have such a misunderstanding of human nature, that I even ask the question. Does anyone listen – generally, no – and that is normal. Study after study has shown that people are bad listeners. As any type of leader, we should expect to have to say something seven times for most, not even all, of the group to hear what we are saying. However, if we don’t say anything, no one in the group will be able to listen.
The same thing goes for spreading the Gospel. If we don’t say anything, no one will hear it. Jesus was the greatest teacher of all time, yet most people did not believe. And he kept teaching. We also need to just keep teaching, knowing that most will not believe or listen. But some will – and that is why we teach!
