Year of Listening

Dear Friends in Christ,

Welcome to 2025: The Year of Listening. Our focus in 2025 is to learn the sacred art
of listening. Listening to God. Listening to Ourselves. Listening to Others. And
Listening to the Community.

In Isaiah 55, the prophet invites God’s people to listen: “Incline your ear, and come
to me; listen, so that you may live…” (Isaiah 55:3a). Isaiah extends this invitation to
a people who are living in Exile. This is a people living without hope. But even to
those suffering in far-away land, Isaiah offers the promise of hope and restoration.
God invites the exiles to “Come to the waters… Come to the banquet… Come to
me… and listen, so that you may live…”

God’s invitation to listen is a gift that permeates the Scriptures. From the Shema,
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”
(Deuteronomy 6:4-5). To the Psalms, “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer”
(Psalm 61:1). To the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, “Everyone who
hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his
house on rock” (Matthew 7:24). To the words the Exalted Jesus repeats to the
seven churches in Revelation, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is
saying to the churches” (Revelation 2-3). God longs for us to hear, so God invites us
to listen.

What follows is an eight-session Bible resource created by the Northwestern Ohio
Synod staff that invites you to listen. Open (or turn on) your Bible, gather with a
group of friends, get outside the four walls of the congregation, and together,
learn to listen to God, listen to ourselves, listen to others, and listen to the
community.

“Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live…” (Isaiah 54:3a).

Blessings,
Bishop Daniel G. Beaudoin