Listening and Caring Skills

by Savage, John

• ISBN13: 9780687017164
• ISBN10: 0687017165
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-01
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

The secret to leadership and transformation of a group--or of another person--is the quality of the relationship one person has with another. The effective group leader or counselor will be the person who learns how to listen to other people. By studying and employing listening skills, church leaders will engage others more compassionately, allowing them to feel that their needs are being met. These skills can be used with persons who are terminally ill, inactive at church, going through a divorce, in a family with a severely ill person, unemployed, seeking a new church, grieving, traumatized by catastrophe, going through teenage adolescence, in marriage counseling, or leading a ministry team.John Savage offers eleven specific and teachable listening skills for improving relationships among those who do ministry in small-group settings or when offering counsel to others. The skills are taught through oral exercises and unfailingly helpful examples from actual congregational situations. The skills include paraphrasing, productive questions, perception check, expression of feelings and emotions, fogging, negative inquiry, behavior description, and story listening.

Author Biography

John Savage, an ordained United Methodist minister, is president of L.E.A.D. consultants in Ohio, a leadership, education, and development training firm.

Table of Contents

How Ministry Teams Can Use This Book	p. 7
I Think I Know What You Mean: The Interpersonal Gap	p. 11
Paraphrase	p. 23
Productive Questions	p. 29
Perception Check	p. 39
Expression of Feelings and Emotions	p. 49
Fogging	p. 57
Negative Inquiry	p. 63
Behavior Description	p. 69
Story Listening	p. 77
Story Polarization Listening	p. 101
Life Commandments	p. 117
The Linguistic Bridge	p. 141
Index	p. 150
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.