The Hospitality of Questions
A good question can change the course of a conversation, taking it from mundane to magnificent. From the time he was a child, J.R. Briggs has been fascinated with the power of great questions, thoughtfully asked, to deepen relationships and open people’s hearts to the gospel. Briggs is the founder of Kairos Partnerships and the author of The Art of Asking Better Questions (IVP). He is a main stage speaker at the upcoming Amplify Conference, Oct. 20–21 at Wheaton College, in partnership with Outreach magazine.
In the following conversation, Briggs talks about some of the keys to asking better questions, why Jesus asked so many of them, and why effective evangelism is all about taking the time and caring enough to be curious.
You wrote a book last year titled The Art of Asking Better Questions. Have you always been interested in asking good questions?
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home [where] both my parents were good question askers, but especially my father. He cared what we thought, he asked us, he was very curious. And I watched him interact with other adults, and I thought, Huh. my dad’s getting into some pretty interesting conversations.
[As] I got a little bit older, middle school and high school, I began to look around and notice people who are really inspiring [with] a magnetic personality. I also noticed a group of people that [lived] small lives, really uninspiring lives. I asked myself, what’s the difference [between them]?
The only thing I could come up with is noticing this group asked really good, thoughtful questions, and these people didn’t. Maybe it was an oversimplification, but it really got my brain thinking. Then as a follower of Jesus, I began to notice with my red letter edition of my Bible, holy cow, there’s a lot of red question marks. So in college and after, I began to just circle every red question mark that I found.
If there’s anybody that had every right to just give statements and never ask a question, it would have been the second member of the Trinity. And yet, Jesus asks over 300 questions. He’s even asked over 180 questions, and he only directly answers five of them. The rest he either asks another question, he ignores them, or he tells a story. We have so much we can learn [from] this. We study his miracles, we study his parables, we study his healings. We don’t ever study his questions. And yet the questions were the catalyst for so much life change that happened throughout the Gospels.
That’s what the church needs to wake up to and see that there’s power in questions when it’s done with the right motive, for the right reason, inspired by the Holy Spirit in people’s lives. That’s discipleship, that’s evangelism as well. We need to be prepared to give the answers for sure. But what opens the door are questions.
We live in a time when leaders feel like they have to have all the answers. Why do you think leaders should learn how to ask better questions?
Trust is the fuel on which the leadership engine runs. If the vehicle doesn’t have any fuel in it, it could look beautiful, it could be really impressive, but it ain’t going anywhere. What fills the tank of trust is connection, is curiosity, is humility, is focus and care. How do you do that?
One of the main tools given to us to cultivate deeper trust are questions. They’re so powerful they can hurt people, but they can heal people too. What we’ve got to do is learn how to take this amazingly powerful gift and tool given to us called a question, and we need to learn how to use it well. Like fire, like sex, like electricity, is it good or bad? Just depends how you use it.
And so if we can steward that well, it’s amazing the gift that can be.
I’m not trying to diminish answers. Answers and giving the truth is important—1 Peter 3:15. What I’m trying to do is elevate questions to their rightful place. Because when questions and answers come together, unbelievable doors for the gospel open.
What would you say are some of the distinguishing features of a good question versus the surface questions that we’re used to asking?
First of all, we have to care. I think the B.S. meter is really sharp on people, but especially the younger generation. They know when you’re being phony. And this younger generation, authenticity, almost to a fault, is of such a high value to them. So it’s gotta be the right motive, that I’m not being performative here, that I really do care.
Number two, it’s gotta be thoughtful. And part of that thought means care, attention, [expressing] that you matter to me. Giving people a full-bodied yes is so important. And part of that, again, is through questions. I love it when people say, “Huh. I’ve never been asked that question before.” “Huh. That’s a really good question.” Or sometimes people say, “That was a real gift to me. No one’s ever asked me that. Thanks for letting me share.”
[That] intentionality requires some preparation on our part. Questions are are a form of hospitality. And what is in that word hospitality? Hospital. What do we do in hospitals? We heal. In so much division and pain and hurt that exists in our world, one of the best gifts we can give people is a hospital opportunity through the hospitality of questions.
I also think the difference between a good [question] and a great one is I walk away and I go, man, I’m still thinking about that. There’s a question our operations director asked me a few months ago, and I have been thinking about it every week since. In fact, it’s on my whiteboard over here trying to answer it. I’m so grateful for that great question. It’s almost like this hook just kind of got stuck in a good way and just kind of latched on and won’t let go.
I think that’s what good questions do. There’s all sorts of neurological research that has said that when someone gives you information, your brain lights up. But when someone asks you a question, they describe it as your brain explodes like fireworks. Researchers have said that in many ways we can hijack people’s brains with questions. That’s the word they use, is hijacking, in a way that information can’t. And I think that’s why Jesus did it, to force us to participate, hold us accountable, but I think he wanted to appropriately hijack our brains to say, “Hey, this is important. And I want you fully engaged on how you are going to respond to this.”
What a great question does is pull us in.
One last thing I’ll say to that is there is an almost universal principle to question asking. If you ask a generic, thoughtless question, you will almost always get a generic, thoughtless answer:
How was your day? Good.
How was school today? Fine.
But if you ask a thoughtful, caring, intentional question, you will almost always get a thoughtful, caring, intentional answer. It is as predictable as a communist election. And if we can just do our part to be just a little bit more intentional, even by 5 or 10 or 15 percent more intentional from “How was your vacation?” to “What is one memory from your vacation you’re taking away that has given you the most joy?” you’re gonna get a different answer than it was great. You’re gonna [get], “Man, watching the sunset with my family brought tears to my eyes on the edge of the dock on that lake.” That’s a different conversation.
That’s a great natural segue into talking about evangelism. I think a lot of people feel intimidated by evangelism. How do you think it reframes sharing our faith if we’re thinking in terms of questions rather than answers?
Sure. While we’re focusing on what we’re thinking about, we have to remember what they’re thinking about. They have questions too, like, Does this person actually love me? What are they trying to sell me? Are they trying to control or manipulate me? And so we’ve got to realize from their perspective, not just ours, what are the questions they’re asking?
My friend Lance Ford says you really can’t know how to love your neighbor until you know what they’re afraid of. So one of the questions I’m constantly thinking through is, what are they afraid of? Are they afraid of their kids? Are they afraid of the economy? Are they afraid of their health? Are they afraid of their next door neighbor? When we think about questions, begin to think through with curiosity what kind of questions is my neighbor asking.
And then there may be opportunities to humbly and carefully ask, “Hey, I got a question for you: When you hear the word Jesus, what comes to mind? Good, bad, or indifferent? Let’s just assume for a moment there is a God, and you have the opportunity to have coffee with him. What would be the three questions you’d want to ask him?”
And they may say, “Well, I don’t believe in God.”
“That’s fine. OK. But if there’s some higher power or something ruling the world, what would you want to ask whoever or whatever is ruling the world?”
It’s amazing when you create safety and you hold that space what can happen.
When I think about question asking and evangelism, I think about midwifery. Being a good question asker is like being a good midwife. I asked a friend of mine at church, “Megan, I know you deliver babies, but what do you do as a midwife?” And I loved her answer.
She said, “My job is to hold sacred space for God to bring about new life.”
And I went, “That’s what I do, just in the metaphorical sense.”
I think if we saw ourselves less as mothers and more as midwives in evangelism, if we could shift that posture, I think it’s amazing how much more we would see the Holy Spirit wanting to break in if we’re able to hold that space for God to bring about new life.
How can leaders train their people to ask better questions? You’ve got a limited amount of time with them unless you’re counseling them.
First thing is you have to want it. If you are trying to get better at asking questions, but you don’t care about the answer to the question you’re asking, people will read right through it. Number two, in Philippians 2, when Paul says don’t just look to your interests, but also to the interests of others, that has very practical implications to why questions are important and how you love your neighbor.
Most times we’re just unaware of the questions that we ask. I encourage people to have a question journal, and it could be a note section of your phone or a physical journal, but write down the questions that you ask of yourself in your head, of God, of other people, and what other people are asking you. Just be aware of it.
I encourage people, as a form of discipleship, get a red letter edition of your Bible, circle every red question mark, and then just ask, Why did he ask it? Who did he ask? Where did he ask it? And what was the result after he asked it?
Begin to realize, and help your congregation realize, Jesus asked a ton of questions. Then you say, “If we’re trying to be like Jesus in every way, what does it mean for us to be great question askers like Jesus was?”
I think just being aware of those questions, caring and being curious and realizing that’s a way to love and care for others, and just recognizing those can be a great start. If you want to go deeper, doing a study on the questions of Jesus, not just recognizing them and circling the red question marks, but doing a deep dive on them. And Jesus, he said, I only do what I see my father doing. There’s a whole bunch of questions that the all-knowing, all-powerful God of the universe asks in the Old Testament too.
When we ask the right question at the right time, for the right reason, to the right people, that’s where trust and connection and creativity and experience and relationship happen. And when that happens, it does what? It cracks open our souls, and then we open up the vents of our hearts, and that’s when the gospel can flow in.
Join J.R. Briggs and many other dynamic Christian leaders at this year’s Amplify Conference, October 20–21 at Wheaton College, and learn to lead with gospel clarity, live authentically, and multiply faithfully in the real challenges of ministry today.
