You move to Miami Beach from Sand Mountain, Alabama, in order to start a church.

Big assignment. Not because there aren’t zillions of needy people there and not because you are not committed and zealous.

The first problem is you don’t know these people, do not speak their language–actual or cultural–and have no idea how to connect with them.

So, we come back to our question on penetrating a culture: “Where would you get started?”

Our initial answer was: “Ask Questions.”

But questioning is useless without this: “Be very quiet and listen.”

If you are not there to learn, no surface respect for their traditions and no superficial asking of questions will make a bit of difference.

Nearly a year ago, Chris and Kassy brought their two small children from Kansas to New Orleans to start a church.

They did it right.

After lining up support from friends and churches back in home, this young couple drove to New Orleans to look around. They had never been here before, but knew the Lord had laid the city and its people on their hearts.

So, where do you think they started?

They began by visiting churches. They walked into ours one weekday when the pastor was out, so I invited them over to my cubbyhold and we chatted an hour or so. They had not taken my (ahem) little online course on “engaging the culture” (the one you are taking now; smiley face goes here), but they instinctively did it right.

They did not arrive determining to show the other churches how to get the job done. Even if they were able to manage that, it’s not the way to get started.

They came asking questions.

They wanted to know about the different neighborhoods, the churches, the opportunities and obstacles as we saw them.

And they listened.

Listening: The second most important aspect of engaging a culture foreign to you.

A few weeks ago, Chris came by to thank me for something I had said in the course of our conversation that day many months ago. According to him–I have little memory of the details–I talked about a neighborhood that is seriously unchurched but with tremendous need and opportunities. That became the site of their new church. They bought a home there.

Oh, and did I tell you that Chris and Kassy are not of our denomination?

All the more admirable it was for them to walk into this church to get acquainted and to learn.

That is the trait that struck me most about them. They wanted to learn about the area, not to teach me anything. (I have no doubt, however, that Chris will someday be teaching church planters how to make an impact on this city for Christ. We just hope they….listen.)

Listening is more than hearing. It involves intentional focusing and silent reflection on the data being received.

Any pastor can tell when people are really listening to him. They are involved. Their face reflects that they are “with you,” taking in what you are saying and visually responding. I’ll tell you, also, that most of us preachers unconsciously seek out those faces when we are preaching, and direct our message to them.

A great many in every congregation take in the words, but do not process them, and therefore cannot be said to be listening. This must be what Scripture has in mind: “Seeing, they do not see, and hearing, they do not hear” (Matthew 13:13) and “If anyone has an ear let him hear” (Revelation 13:9).

The best listeners often take notes. They keep files.

A great reason for taking notes in church is to help us retain what was said. Even if we never refer to the notes again, we will be more likely to internalize what we heard than if we did not write them down.

In penetrating and learning to bring the message of Christ to a new culture–Miami Beach or New Orleans or the bayou country downriver or the factory world of Smalltown, Ohio–we do well by going in quietly and humbly, to receive first before we are allowed to give, to ask questions and to learn.

By making notes and filing them orderly, the “missionary” (whatever that means to you) will begin to make connections and gain insights.

The way to tell when you are making headway (inroads) is when one of your new friends compliments you with, “Hey, I didn’t know that. You know more about my religion (or town or state) than I do and I’ve lived here all my life.”

That’s what my co-worker Roger said one day. I was a first-year student in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and working each afternoon in a local bottling plant. As the only Protestant in the place, to some it seemed I had just arrived from Mars. This was 1964-65, and as a child of rural Alabama and West Virginia’s mining camps, I was definitely the odd man out.

I set out to learn. I was friendly and respectful to everyone in the huge office. I kept quiet and listened. I went to the seminary library to read up on Catholicism and took the daily paper and asked questions. The day Roger paid me this compliment was the morning I went to mass with him. The next Sunday, he drove out to St. Charles Parish and visited the church I had begun to pastor.

My quarter-century connection with this city began that way.

In any field, not just in cultural evangelism, learners do these two things: they ask questions and listen.

Look at the ministry of Jesus. As the crowds flocked to Him and took their places on the hillsides to hear Him speak, they came questioning and listening. The listening provoked more questions which encouraged more listening.

It’s hard work, listening. It requires us to button our lip, to turn off the television, to turn aside from the computer, to put down the newspaper. We give eye contact and process what we are hearing. Only then can we be said to be listening.

I am the only man in my immediate family not wearing a hearing aid. My three brothers were much younger than I when they caved in and bought theirs. I am well aware that I’m postponing the inevitable. The day is coming, and getting much closer.

Sometimes, particularly with Margaret, I have to ask her to repeat what she said. Then, I get up and turn off the television or lay aside the newspaper and walk into the room where she is standing and say, “Sorry. One more time please.”

Listening. It doesn’t get any easier as we get on in life.

I think I’m about to find that it gets much more expensive too.