Conversation Tools
“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt,
so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”
Colossians 4:6 (NIV)
When Briarwood’s annual global ministries conference was held a few months ago, I fully expected to hear stories of God’s work being done all over the world. What I didn’t expect was to also be given a very practical tool for my women’s ministry toolbox.
During the conference our Sunday School community hosted a potluck dinner for two visiting missionaries. Both shared stories and challenges from their different ministries in Europe. During our question-and-answer time, our Greek missionary shared his strategy for engaging in meaningful conversation with potential and new church visitors.
“I have my four H’s,” he said before quickly listing them.
What’s your history?
What’s your hurt?
Where’s your heart?
Where’s your hope?
That conversation strategy resonated with me over the last two months mainly because I meet a lot of new people as I speak and teach. Sometimes it’s hard to engage in any meaningful conversation beyond the weather, marital status, jobs, and children. I was recently privileged to speak at a women’s retreat in Virginia and I met and talked to several dozen women during the three-day retreat. As I did so, I attempted to keep my newfound 4H conversation tools in mind and committed to active listening.
According to experts, active listening is one way to listen better by making a conscious effort to engage fully with what someone’s saying and to try and understand what they really mean. Five steps to active listening include paying attention; showing that you’re listening; providing feedback; deferring judgment; and responding appropriately.
Most introductions begin with a name. We honor that person when we remember his or her name.
My host and I were traveling through the Shenandoah Mountains on our way to the retreat center. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, my seat belt buckled, when I struggled to turn around and see the three passengers sitting in the minivan’s back seat.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Michelle, but I usually prefer ‘Me-che,’” replied my new friend.
An older woman announced that her given name was Dorothy, but everyone calls her Dottie.
I couldn’t see the last responder, but her accent was beautiful as she announced, “I’m Ileana.” Her beautiful name literally rolled off her tongue and sounded like music as she said it.
“Ileana, what is your country of origin?” I asked. “Your name and your accent are both lovely.”
“I’m impressed,” she responded enthusiastically. “Nobody ever gets my name right on the first try. I was born in Puerto Rico.”
What Ileana didn’t know is that years ago I attended author Margaret Feinberg’s talk at a local church. During her remarks, Feinberg stressed the importance of remembering someone’s name as a way to honor them. Attending Wake Forest University as an undergraduate, Feinberg once took a class under the great author and poet Maya Angelou. The first three weeks of that class were spent learning each classmate’s name and addressing each classmate as Ms. Feinberg or Mr. Smith. At the end of the three weeks, Professor Angelou asked a simple, but unforgettable, question:
Why did we just spend the last three weeks getting to know each other’s names? Why did I just spend nearly 20% of our very valuable class time together making sure you knew each other’s names?...Because your name is a sign of your dignity. When you recognize someone’s name, you recognize them, not just as human, but as a person. One of the greatest ways you bestow human dignity on someone is by calling them by name.
I added a fifth H to my conversation toolkit: honor. We honor a person when we use and remember someone’s name whether it’s a new friend at a women’s retreat, the cashier at the grocery store, or the mailman who delivers our mail.
Too often most of us are too busy looking down at the screens in our hands and not engaging with the people right in front of us. Active listening requires us to give our undivided attention to the people right in front of us.
Most of us could probably use some help with our conversational skills. Honor; history; heart; hurt; and hope: five H’s in our conversation tool chest that, if used appropriately, could help us heed the Apostle Paul’s wise counsel and know how to respond to each person.