When Proximity Is Not Enough: What Listening Is Teaching Me About Belonging

There is a tension I have been carrying:

Proximity does not automatically produce belonging.

In Christian Community Development (CCD), we are invited to draw near – to move closer to our neighbors, our communities, and the places we serve. But proximity alone is not enough. Without listening, proximity can reinforce the very patterns of exclusion we hope to resist.

We can share space and still not share life.

Proximity reveals what power tries to hide. Listening reveals what our theology is not yet ready to confess.

When Listening Becomes Real

When we speak about listening to the community, we are not talking about a program or a single event. Listening is a posture of sustained attention – one that is shaped by relationship, formed over time, not scheduled into a calendar.

Listening begins when we resist the urge to fix what we think is broken and instead pay attention to what is already alive. We ask about hopes, relationships, skills, and longings. We allow the community to name both the priorities and the path forward.

But listening only becomes truthful when it is rooted in relationship.

If we are not in relationship, we are not truly listening. We are extracting insight while protecting ourselves from change.

Relationship is not the slow part of listening. It is what makes listening honest.

A Moment I Did Not Plan For

Recently, I was leading a strategy retreat for a group of pastors serving in the same area. They had gathered to discern how to collaborate for mission – to imagine what an ecosystem of care might look like across their communities.

Before each strategy session, I led simple trauma-aware spiritual practices to cultivate presence, attentiveness, and a sense of safety. The goal was not to solve problems, but to create space where people could be fully present to God and to one another.

Two of the pastors represented congregations sharing the same building. One led a predominantly white congregation. The other pastored a Spanish-speaking church.

Before the retreat, the white pastor shared with me a sense of hope and celebration for the mutuality and growing trust taking place at the church. But separately, the Spanish-speaking pastor entrusted me with a different reality: her congregation felt like guests in their own church building. They felt hurt and alienated.

The retreat was not designed to address this tension. But something surfaced.

As the group settled into practices of presence, the atmosphere shifted. At one point, these two pastors found themselves standing together in the center of the room – both in tears. They began to speak honestly about loneliness, misunderstanding, and hurt.

No one rushed to resolve it. The group listened and bore witness.

Nothing was solved in that moment. But what had been hidden could no longer be ignored.

For the rest of the retreat, they chose to walk together during any free time – and called each other spiritual son and spiritual mother. They shared dreams and reflected on how the relationship between their congregations could shift toward greater mutuality.

Why This Matters

Our bodies often recognize what our theology has not yet named.

Our brains respond to social threat in much the same way they respond to physical danger. When a space does not feel safe, people will not risk honesty, trust, or connection.

Research indicates that more than 60 percent of adults have experienced at least one significant traumatic event. (See: SAMHSA’s data on trauma prevalence.) Many carry wounds that shape how they relate to authority, conflict, and community. In immigrant and marginalized communities, these experiences are often layered and ongoing.

This means that when we gather as the church, we should assume vulnerability is present – even when it is unspoken.

We do not grow in spaces that feel unsafe. We grow where honesty is possible.

Listening that creates safety makes truth-telling possible. And truth-telling is where belonging begins.

What I Am Still Learning

I am still learning how easily proximity can exist without transformation.

You can share a building, a neighborhood, or even a vision, and still not share power, vulnerability, or voice. When proximity does not reshape assumptions, hierarchies, and decision-making, the result is not unity. It is strain.

We feel it before we name it.

People begin to experience being seen but not understood, present but not influential, included but not safe.

This is where fractures begin. We can share buildings and still structure our life together in ways that keep some voices at the margins. We can collaborate and still require some to carry more of the cost.

So I continue to ask:

• Who is carrying the hidden cost of our ministry, and why have we accepted that as normal?
• Who has to adapt the most in order for our systems to function?
• Whose voice feels hardest for us to hear?

Listening exposes the gap between what we say we believe and what we are prepared to change.

Our theology is often not wrong. It is unfinished.

A Small Practice to Begin

If you are discerning what this looks like in your context, start here:

Pay attention to where you already have proximity but lack relationship. Notice whose voices are quiet or absent. Create space for listening that is not tied to immediate decisions. Resist the urge to move quickly into solutions or expansion. Stay long enough to be changed, even if that change costs you control.

A Closing Prayer

God who draws near,

You did not remain at a distance – you entered fully into our lives with presence and love.

Teach us to move beyond proximity into belonging.

Where we have protected ourselves with distance, draw us closer.

Where we have spoken without listening, quiet us.

Where we have resisted change, give us the courage to be transformed.

Form in us a love that remains, a holiness that is embodied, and a community where truth can be spoken without fear.

In Christ, who came near. Amen.

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