Listen and Learn Project

We want to say THANK YOU to all who participated in our “Listen and Learn” project this fall. As always, we enjoyed spending time with each of you, and we gained valuable insights into your everyday work and lives as LDHR leaders. We are very grateful to you.

And since you took the time to meet with us, we wanted to share a recap of some of the main ideas from our time with you. Your thoughts, ideas, needs, and prayer requests will help inform our work in the months ahead. 

• Our Listen & Learn conversations revealed a hopeful but challenging picture.  You had much to celebrate: recruitment and NST gaining momentum, HR systems and processes improving, staff care becoming more intentional, and valuable resources and relationships available through Regional and Global LDHR. Many of you are making faithful progress despite limited staff and funding.
• At the same time, you mentioned a consistent tension: you are often carrying more responsibility than you have capacity to sustain. In several countries, LDHR consists of only one person or a very small team. You know about the tools: SDC, LPP, PF, PDP, and BPMT, but often struggle to translate them into consistent practice. In some cases, a lack of NLT alignment or ownership makes implementation even harder.
• Perhaps most importantly, when you reflected on what God might be saying, you did not ask for more programs. You mentioned the need to slow down, listen, care for people and families, receive coaching and mentoring, and help people flourish.

We were deeply impacted by your openness and your heart for others. These key points suggest that we emphasize depth rather than breadth in the coming year. We hear you, we see you, and we care about you.

We are asking: How can we come alongside you so you have the capacity, relationships, tools, and support to build healthy people, leaders, teams, and culture? What if this were a year of less frantic activity, a few important practices took root, and we created environments where people, leaders, and teams can flourish?

We are asking God to guide us as we plan and work. We hope to communicate helpful encouragement via this blog. We have an excellent podcast series going now, the Healthy Soil Series, which addresses many of the challenges you mentioned… and offers hope. We think you’ll really enjoy them.

Please keep us posted on how you are doing. You can write to the LDHR Llama (llama@cru.org) with any questions, or ask for someone to come alongside you to help with something you want to learn or do.

Thanks again for all you do. We appreciate you!