Hearing God's Word Through Ecclesial Listening

This project dissertation was designed to enhance ecclesial listening when sermons are preached at the Hillcrest Church of Christ. The challenge of listening to the Word of God in a way that forms community is not unique to Hillcrest. It is a common problem for preachers and churches today. Our context, marked by shifts in church membership, societal division, and the isolating effects of digital culture, calls for a renewed emphasis on listening as a church community. This project explores the ways in which we can cultivate practices that encourage ecclesial listening—a way of hearing the preached Word that draws us closer to one another and deeper into the life of Christ. To do this, a diverse group of Hillcrest members was chosen to participate in selecting which practices were found most effective. The group met together in the fall of 2023. The practices centered around one-hour weekly communal gatherings of prayer, silence, and listening to Scripture (lectio divina) each Wednesday before hearing the sermon text preached on Sunday. It also included individual daily personal practices for each week. After experiencing this for seven weeks, the group met for an eighth time for a closing interview where they decided which practices contributed to enhancing their ecclesial listening. The participants found that the communal practices as they gathered for one hour each week contributed to enhancing ecclesial listening while the individual practices showed little impact. The project intervention suggests that communal practices for listening to the Word bear greater significance than individual practices. For churches, a shift towards communal practices rather than the more common individual practices has the potential to increase hearing the Word of God in preaching that leads to greater communal transformation into Christ.