Why Good Pastors Stop Hearing God
For staff, elders and pastor cohorts · 4 conversations
Team Discussion Guide
One conversation for each Part of the book. Read the chapters before you meet, open with the line from the book, and choose the questions that fit your team. What is shared in the group stays in the group, and no one is required to share anything personal.
Part One · Introduction and Chapters 1–4
The Silence Beneath the Sermons
Fluency in spiritual language can conceal a loss of spiritual receptivity.
Chapter 1 · The Pastor Who Had a Word for Everyone but Himself
When did you last receive a word from God that was for you, not for a sermon or for someone else?
Chapter 2 · When God’s Voice Becomes a Professional Subject
How can teaching about hearing God slowly take the place of actually listening to Him?
Chapter 3 · The Ministry That Never Stops Talking
Where in a normal week does our team leave room for silence? Where is there none at all?
Chapter 4 · What a Pastor May Be Afraid to Hear
Why might a leader prefer not to hear what God could say? What makes that fear understandable?
Try this as a team
Each person privately finishes one sentence: If God spoke to me about my own life this week, I suspect He might say… Share only if you choose.
Part Two · Chapters 5–9
How Faithful Ministry Displaces Attentiveness
The immediate demands a reaction. Prayerful leadership asks for a response.
A note for the leader. Chapters 8 and 9 deal with unanswered prayer and deferred conviction. Keep this conversation general. Do not press anyone to share grief or a private conviction in the group. Those belong with God and, if needed, one trusted person.
Chapter 5 · The Seduction of Being Needed
In what ways can being needed feel like being faithful? How would we tell the difference?
Chapter 6 · When Competence Replaces Dependence
Which parts of our ministry could we now do well without praying at all? What does that suggest?
Chapter 7 · The Tyranny of the Immediate
Think of a recent urgent demand. What would a response, rather than a reaction, have looked like?
Chapter 8 · When Prayer Seems to Meet Silence
In general terms, how do leaders tend to cope when prayer seems unanswered for a long time?
Chapter 9 · When Conviction Is Repeatedly Deferred
Why is it easy for faithful people to postpone obedience? What usually keeps us putting it off?
Try this as a team
Before the next meeting, pause once each day before answering the most urgent thing on your list, and ask God one question about it first. Next time, talk together about what changed, if anything.
Part Three · Chapters 10–13
Learning to Listen Again
Listening requires willingness to receive. Discernment requires willingness to be wrong.
Chapter 10 · Speak, Lord: Recovering the Posture of a Listener
What would it look like for each of us to come to God this week ready to listen, rather than ready to ask?
Chapter 11 · The Shepherd’s Voice and the Shepherd’s Word
How does Scripture keep our listening anchored? Where have we seen listening go wrong without it?
Chapter 12 · Testing What We Think We Hear
How willing is our team to say, “I may have heard that wrong”? What would make it safer to say?
Chapter 13 · Hearing That Becomes Obedience
What is one thing God has already made clear that is still waiting to be done?
Try this as a team
Spend the first ten minutes of your next meeting in silence with an open Bible. Then let each person share, briefly, anything they sense, and let the group gently test it together.
Part Four · Chapters 14–18 and Conclusion
Leading from a Listening Life
A church that listens wisely is a church where people are not afraid to tell the truth.
Chapter 14 · Returning to an Unhurried Life With God
What is one change to our rhythms that would make an unhurried life with God more possible?
Chapter 15 · Bringing Questions to God Before Bringing Answers to People
Which decision in front of us right now have we not yet brought to God as a question?
Chapter 16 · Changing the Ministry That Keeps You from Listening
Is there something we do as a team that keeps us from listening? What would it take to change it?
Chapter 17 · Teaching a Congregation to Listen Wisely
Is our church a place where people are not afraid to tell the truth? How would we know?
Chapter 18 and Conclusion · The Pastor Who No Longer Needs to Have Every Answer
Where would it be a relief for you to say, “I don’t know yet, but I am listening”?
Try this as a team
End by praying for one another by name: not for more answers, but for ears to hear. Keep the prayers short, and let silence come first.