“Deep Rather Than Superficial”

Our “Neighboring Faiths” interviews on Sunday nights are designed to help you serve your neighbors and (when the occasion arises) converse respectfully about faith issues.

Turns out, the happiest people are those who engage in meaningful conversations instead of just superficial ones.  Marv Knox writes:

Happy people are ones who talk regularly, and the happiest people are those who engage in a higher percentage of meaningful conversations. “The present findings demonstrate that the happy life is social rather than solitary, and conversationally deep rather than superficial,” Mehl reported in the latest edition of Psychological Science. [Matthias Mehl is a psychologist at the University of Arizona.]

Knox applies this to conversations of substance:

I hope you find research like this fascinating. It counters conventional wisdom that dictates safe, sterile conversations. It blows up the myth that people shouldn’t talk about religion and politics in polite company….Mehl’s research on substantive conversations provides fodder for discussion as we talk about how we do church:

• Our worship services and Bible studies should inspire participants to discuss the big issues of life—salvation and eternity, to be sure, but also how our faith and beliefs shape the way we live in the world, the way we face issues in the community, the way we interact with society. These public gatherings can and should provide the theological, moral and social framework for what we talk about and how we talk about it.

• Our church conferences, committee meetings and other interactive gatherings should model how we talk about important issues. Our culture has become combative, fractious and verbally abusive. Church should be showing people how we can talk civilly and graciously, even when we hold profound disagreements. In order to engage in substantive conversations, we need to understand how to do that without shouting and ruining relationships.

• We also need to provide space and opportunity for these conversations in very small groups and one-on-one. We can’t do it all in Sunday school or worship. Far from it. We need to establish a culture of togetherness and fellowship—the New Testament word is koinonia—that enables people who care for each other to talk about what really matters.