Change Your Questions, Change Your Church

At the Brighton First staff meeting this week, we were challenged to work as a team to solve problems. Each member of the staff offered a problem that they are experiencing in their area of ministry and other staff members asked questions. This was a difficult exercise, because we are much more ready to give answers than to ask questions.

In J. Val Hastings book, Change Your Questions, Change Your Church: How to Lead with Powerful Questions, the author writes that one of a leader's most effective tools is asking powerful questions. What makes for a powerful question? Hastings writes that powerful questions come with the assumption that there is choice, there is opportunity for change and there is hope.

Questions that lead to dead ends begin with an assumption of scarcity or defeat. For example, "How much longer can we afford to do this?" focuses on a lack of resources, rather than on opportunities for developing resources. Asking "Why doesn't anyone want to help?" is already making assumptions about people's willingness to contribute.

Reframing the questions we ask can make a difference in how we approach a problem. Hastings gives the example of a church who intentionally changed their question from "How do we get new people to come to our church?" to "What are the greatest needs of our neighbors?" The church moved from looking inward to looking outward.

Change comes when we ask the right questions.

As the Brighton First staff reviewed the questions that they posed to various problems, we began to talk about an issue raised by our custodian. The challenge: Some weeks, community members use the church dumpster. For the last two weeks it has been too full to hold all the church refuse, which must be stored in the building until the dumpster is emptied.

Staff members had many questions. "Is there a sign by the dumpster and if not, what would a sign say?" "Can we lock the dumpster or put it behind a fence?" The questions initially leaned toward protecting the status quo.

Then the staff's questions began to change. Someone asked, "Why are community members using this dumpster? What are the alternatives?" Others asked, "Can we pay for more than one weekly pickup?" "Do we need more dumpsters?" "What if we produced less trash so there is room?"

The questions moved from "protecting what is ours" to generating ideas for ministry.

I'll admit that we have not yet solved the dumpster problem, and at this moment there are trash bags stored in the church (the trash pick up is tomorrow!). But we have enlarged the discussion and the possibility for creative solutions that reflect God's grace.

In all of our ministries, especially in this time of transition, we are not only seeking answers; we are seeking to ask the right questions. In what areas are we called to pose questions that are hopeful, assume there are choices and open opportunities for change?