Asking Questions

Sunday, June 24, 2018

8:54 AM
"I keep six honest serving-men,
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When,
And How and Where and Who." Rudyard Kipling

Start with an exercise - 5 minutes

Think about a great question that you have been asked in the past week(s)

What made it a good question? What impact did it have on you?

If we look around us, since we are born and all throughout of life, our approach or the
Western approach to teaching is someone sitting in front and teaching
 Giving answers
 Giving advice
 Sharing content
 Sharing his own knowledge / experience
 Sermons, seminars, lectures, notes

Eastern school - 10 minutes

What did Jesus do? How did He teach?
He made a habit out of asking questions all of his life. In Mark, out of 67 conversations
that Jesus has, 50 have questions in them. If you would meet Jesus, it is way more likely
that He will ask you questions than that He will tell you something.

Out of his over 1950 sentences, more than 320 were questions - almost 20% of what He
said was in form of questions.

Also God asks questions - in the first chapters of Genesis - there is one of the deepest
conversations between God and man, which is based on questions.

Where are you? - create relationship

Why did you hide? - make need felt and owned
Who told you that you were naked? - expose sin

Why did Jesus ask questions?

Make small slips of paper and give them to table groups

Questions made up the heart of Jesus' teaching

method. There were many purposes behind
them:
1) to secure information (Luke 8:30);
2) to express emotion/confront (John 3:10);
2) to express emotion/confront (John 3:10);
3) to recall the known (Mark 2:25,26);
4) to awaken the conscience (Matt. 23:17);
5) to elicit faith (Mark 8:29);
6) to create a dilemma (Mark 3:4)
7) to check understanding (Mark 8,27)
20 min gone

"The purposes of a man's heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws
them out" Proverbs 20:5
Why are questions important in evangelism or discipling?
What are the advantages of questions for the disciple / mentor? - 5 minutes
10-15 minutes

Disciple
Self discovery
Active participation and engaging
Redefine relationships - I am no longer the expert, but a peer who is willing and ready
to learn from you or to learn together
Simulates and engages protégé - unleash potential and creativity - develops leadership
potential - instead of seeing that someone should do something about that, the person
sees that actually they can be that someone
Creates ownership of answers - people are way more motivated to act on their own
ideas than on those of others
Encourages reflection
Giving a fishing rod instead of a fish - tool for growth and empowerment - research has
shown that most of times people already know the answers of solutions, but are just
either afraid or insecure to go on a certain path
Communicate value to the person - show that there is a genuine interest and build a
relationship of trust and mutual appreciation between protégé and coach

Mentor
Diagnosis beyond the surface - what is actually the real issue
Assessment - how much have they understood, how ready are they to own the steps
needed
Recognition of need
Get a better understanding of someone's situation - more pictures - for sure he knows
his situation and struggles way better than you do
Help you focus on the other person - instead of steering the dialogue, you just let it be
opened and led by God
Clarify values, beliefs, motivations, etc
Disarm defenses - because they realize it is not about you telling them who to be or
what to do, but about them sharing

Types of questions - 10 minutes

Open questions - broad and cannot be answered in a few words - they allow a flexible
response and can draw a lot of answers. Why, when, how, where…
 Get a person elaborate on a topic, draw out information, encourage speaking,
show a broader perspective, open up new area for discussion, find out about
needs, opinions
Closed questions - y/n or short statement
 Focus on a specific aspect, obtain very precise information, clarify something said,
stop rambling around
Probing questions
 They follow up on open questions to draw out more information
 For example - how are you / what makes it so…
Hypotetical questions - what if -
 Based on feeling rather than reason
 Create motivation / sound out an idea / enable creativity / explore a point further
/ bring perspective
Clarifying questions - rephrase what was said to show understanding
 Get others to verify what was just said
 Show that you care about clarity in communication

Safe - non judgmental - avoid WHY - ask How Come / what is the motive / what led
you to that
 Be open minded - do not anticipate a specific answer
 Give time to think - 5 seconds rule - rephrase the question after 5 seconds