Questioning people

Listening to: Red Mountain Church: The Gadsby Project

Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman argues that it is much better to answer a question with another question when doing evangelism. I could do with reading the book, rather than just skimming it, but it strikes me that questions are important not just because they are an effective evangelistic technique, but because of what they communicate in themselves. As such, they are important not just in evangelism but in all our relationships.

1. Questions communicate that we care - people who care ask questions. A self-obsessed person will talk about what themselves, what they think, and what they've done, till the cows come home. They don't want to listen to you, or understand you because that's irrelevant to their relationship with you. In contrast, someone who really cares about you will ask probing questions to find out how you really are (although not in an insensitive way).

2. Questions communicate that the person we're speaking to is not the judge - a danger of suggesting that we always ask questions is that we assume that to be loving is just to listen. But questions also ask people to give an account. They demand an answer. We are always prone to think that we understand the world perfectly, but as soon as we are forced to explain it to others we realise the shortcomings of our understanding. We realise that we are not in a position to judge - the questions are being asked of us. The questioner becomes God to us, and it is now us in the dock, and not God. This is a challenge to the sinner in us who judges themselves to be righteous apart from Christ, and release for the broken saint involved in self-condemnation.