Sometimes in conversations with others, without realizing it, we work from certain assumptions. For example, we assume the person we are speaking with is more of a talker than a doer. So, we may have a “good” conversation, but in the end, we assume nothing will really come of the discussion.
Our assumptions keep us from asking good and powerful questions in those conversations. Our assumptions keep us from moving forward in our relationships with others to better understand where they are coming from and how we can better serve and work together with them.
Asking powerful questions is a skill each of us needs to learn and in which we need to grow more.
The book, Crucial Conversations, is required reading for each Leader Cohort group (young emerging leader training). One thought that the book drives home is the importance of building a “pool of shared meaning”. That “pool” contains the ideas, theories, feelings, thoughts, and opinions that each person has as they come into a conversation. The more information we have in the pool, the better prepared we are to understand another, make decisions together, and see results.
Asking powerful questions will help us better understand the other person and clear away assumptions that may be clouding and influencing how we see the other person. Answering questions or making statements are our default mode. But as a friend once said to me: “It’s the person asking the questions who is directing the conversation, not the one answering the questions.”
Let me push the idea a bit further. We as a community of cross cultural workers are called to share the Gospel with those who have not heard the message of Jesus and turned their back to Him.
At the same time, we as a community are called to live out, to demonstrate the work of the Gospel in our own community. The Gospel has to change us at the same time we call others to acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior.
One way to ensure this happens is to grow in practicing asking powerful questions of one another. Questions that challenge one another to love well and build that “pool of meaning” so we might understand and serve one another better. As an overflow, those around us will see a model for engaging others well and learning to work through struggles and conflicts we have with one another.
Filed under: Ask questions, Challenge, Development | 2 Comments »
Now, I had linked this run to the challenge that I had gifted to us as a mission: to see significant impact among two unreached people groups in the coming months and year. We had chosen to focus our attention on the Dadjo (Chad) and Cham (Cambodia) peoples.
I have always been fascinated by the verse in Isaiah: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear” (59:1). It’s a poetic way of stating that God is not limited, in any way, from doing what pleases Him. What delights Him most is when His creation attributes glory to Him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it: “And in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power and glory to him.” God’s desire is that in everything we do, we bring glory to Him (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Thoughts Along The Journey 