Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    How to Ask Great Questions: Guide Discussion, Build Relationships, Deepen Faith
    How to Ask Great Questions: Guide Discussion, Build Relationships, Deepen Faith
    How to Ask Great Questions: Guide Discussion, Build Relationships, Deepen Faith
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    How to Ask Great Questions: Guide Discussion, Build Relationships, Deepen Faith

    By Karen Lee-Thorp

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Great answers start with great questions.
    People remember what they discover for themselves far more than what others tell them. A great question can mean the difference between exchanging information and discovering deeper meaning.

    In How to Ask Great Questions, you’ll learn when and how to ask effective questions and how to promote follow-up discussions that will lead from thoughtful conversations to life application. Ideal for small-group leaders, Sunday school teachers, and anyone who regularly leads group discussions or committee meetings.

    How to Ask Great Questions will equip you to
    • build relationships between group members
    • help people unpack a passage of Scripture or another book
    • draw out opinions, feelings, and assumptions
    • deepen discussions with intentional focus
    • guide people in applying the Bible to their lives
    • facilitate problem-solving and decision-making in group settings
    Transform a gathering of acquaintances into a community of friends.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateOct 9, 2018
    ISBN9781641581066
    How to Ask Great Questions: Guide Discussion, Build Relationships, Deepen Faith
    Author

    Karen Lee-Thorp

    Karen Lee-Thorp was a senior editor at NavPress for many years and series editor for the LifeChange Bible study series. She is now a freelance writer living in Brea, California, with her husband, Greg Herr, and their daughters, Megan and Marissa.

    Read more from Karen Lee Thorp

    Related to How to Ask Great Questions

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Why We Can’t Get Over Ourselves: Exposing the reasons we fail to understand the minds of others.

      Aug 27, 2015

      “You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” —David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest You and I are members of one of the most social species on the planet. No human being succeeds in life

      16 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Sep 1, 2023

      We’ve heard a lot about difficult conversations, but you believe all conversations are difficult. Please explain. In recent years we have heard a lot about so-called difficult conversations from the realm of academic research and in the public discou

      7 min read

    • Article

      Step Outside Yourself To Lead

      Aug 29, 2019

      Step Outside Yourself To Lead
      3 min read

    • Article

      Making the Most of Writing Workshops

      Aug 17, 2022

      WHAT can work shop participants do to create an open, equitable, encouraging, and positively challenging workshop experience for themselves? Our time in writing communities is important. The past few years have made that abundantly clear. If we have

      6 min read

    • Article

      Editor's Note

      Nov 30, 2023

      If there is one topic that I think needs a sustained focus at the moment, it would have to be the state of our individual and collective mental health. With the global statistic now at 1 in 2 who will at some stage in their lifetime suffer from a men

      3 min read

    • Article

      Bookmark This read…listen…stream

      Apr 1, 2020

      How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage Kelly McGonigal, PhD • Avery McGonigal’s thesis is simple—as humans, we are hardwired for movement. She builds her case through a wide-ranging survey of scientific studies, interview

      7 min read

    • Article

      Should You Tell Everyone They’re Honest?

      Jun 28, 2018

      Here is the predicament that most of us seem to be in. We are not virtuous people. We simply do not have characters that are good enough to qualify as honest, compassionate, wise, courageous, and the like. We are not vicious people either—dishonest,

      10 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      Dec 13, 2017

      I started this job with the intention to never leave. What could possibly be better, I thought, than helping to synthesise empirical research and traditional wisdom and presenting it in a tactile, accessible format to an expanding circle of smart peo

      2 min read

    • Article

      COUNT YOUR blessings

      Aug 25, 2019

      COUNT YOUR blessings
      3 min read

    • Article

      Bookmark This

      Apr 19, 2022

      Cultivating Mindfulness to Lead Self and Others in a Changing World Latha Poonamallee, PhD • Routledge We live in a world that’s diverse, complex, and constantly changing, and with all those changes comes a call to shift our leadership styles. Expans

      9 min read

    • Article

      Find Your Why

      Jan 5, 2022

      Find Your Why
      4 min read

    • Article

      Find your PURPOSE

      Feb 4, 2021

      Find your PURPOSE
      2 min read

    • Article

      How to Quiet Your Mind Chatter

      Mar 10, 2021

      We’ve all been there. Stuck in our own heads, fixated on a two-minute conversation from three days ago. We replay it over and over. I shouldn’t have snapped at Dad. He was always so patient when I was growing up. We get stuck. The voice in our heads

      7 min read

    • Article

      Mind Matters

      Jul 22, 2022

      Mind Matters
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Biggest Lies About Work

      Sep 1, 2019

      You have said that for leaders, having a great plan in place is no longer the route to success. What is the better approach? The problem with plans in today’s world is that, by the time you’ve figured out how to put them into action, the world has al

      6 min read

    • Article

      Take One

      May 29, 2023

      Take One
      2 min read

    • Article

      Can This App Make Me Happier?

      Jul 13, 2016

      For months I tried doing little tasks designed to improve my life, hoping they would add up to something big.

      25 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for How to Ask Great Questions

    4/5

    4 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      How to Ask Great Questions - Karen Lee-Thorp

      1

      WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT

      The Power of a Good Question

      Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, Who do the crowds say I am?

      They replied, Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.

      But what about you? he asked. Who do you say I am?

      Peter answered, God’s Messiah.

      LUKE 9:18-20

      JESUS WAS A BRILLIANT TEACHER. He knew how to tell a story that would propel people into thinking in new categories. He was king of the one-liner. And He understood the power of a well-timed, well-phrased question.

      Who do the crowds say I am? (Luke 9:18)

      Do you want to get well? (John 5:6)

      What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he? (Matthew 22:42)

      What do you want me to do for you? (Luke 18:41)

      Which of the two did what his father wanted? (Matthew 21:31)

      Jesus’ questions were simple, clear, never condescending, always provocative. They made people think for themselves and examine their hearts. Jesus’ questions were always fresh and attuned to the unique needs of the people He was talking to. Instead of following a rote method, He seems to have thought about how His questions would affect His audience.

      Research tells us that people remember far more of what they say than what they hear, and far more of what they discover for themselves than what they are spoon-fed. Hence, a question that sparks discovery and gets people to say out loud what they know is an essential tool in teaching. And in a small group, the question is everything.

      This book will equip you to ask questions that

      build relationships between people

      help people analyze a passage of the Bible or another book

      draw out opinions and feelings

      follow up on a primary question

      guide people in applying the Bible to their unique lives

      guide a group in solving a problem or reaching a decision

      You will find this book useful if you

      lead a small group

      teach Sunday school

      teach in any interactive learning environment

      chair a group or committee that makes decisions

      The table of contents is annotated so you can investigate just the topic you are looking for, or you can read cover to cover. Some sections will refer you to other sections for more on a related topic.

      KAREN’S TOP TEN PRINCIPLES FOR ASKING GREAT QUESTIONS

      First, a few general principles.

      1. This is a discussion, not a test.

      A test is a situation in which the person asking the questions knows all the right answers, and the responder’s task is to give the right answers. Test questions are fine in high-school algebra class or in the oral exam for a doctoral candidate. Test questions are useful when your goal is to see if people can parrot back information they have memorized, such as in a foreign-language class. However, when either spiritual growth or sharing among peers is a goal of your group, test questions can cause problems.

      For one thing, tests tend to put people on the defensive—they worry about giving the wrong answer and appearing foolish, so their pulse rises and adrenaline flows. Adrenaline is good for those running marathons, but it hinders creative thinking. In fact, it actually floods out those portions of the brain in which people do creative thinking.

      By contrast, a relaxed but stimulating environment, one in which people feel welcomed and engaged, is the kind most likely to encourage people to consider new ideas, examine their lives, and entertain the possibility of changing their behavior.

      Second, tests imply a hierarchy. The teacher has the right answers and so is superior to the students. In a class on prayer, it may be true that the teacher knows more about prayer than the students do. The teacher may impart some of his or her knowledge to the students. But when the teacher asks a question about prayer, it needs to be very clear in everyone’s mind whether the teacher wants the class to think for themselves or repeat something the teacher has said. A test question is okay if everyone understands they are reviewing material they have heard before, but when a test question is disguised as a discussion question, people feel put down. A group designed for spiritual growth requires shared power and an atmosphere of mutual respect. Test questions disguised as discussion questions don’t feel respectful.

      As a rule of thumb, discussion questions usually look for information members of the group have but the leader may not have:

      What do you think? (Only you know what you think.)

      What feelings does Jesus’ statement provoke in you?

      With which character do you most identify in this passage?

      What contrasts do you notice in this story?

      In all of these cases, the person asking the question is looking for something he or she genuinely doesn’t know. That’s how questions work in normal conversation.

      However, when the task at hand involves drawing out the facts of a text, there are some important questions to be asked that have right-or-wrong answers:

      Who are the primary characters in this story?

      How did the jailer respond after the earthquake in Acts 16?

      Because fact-finding or observation questions tend to have right answers, and because the person asking the question has usually spent more time examining the text than the responders have, it’s easy for such questions to make a discussion feel like a test. Chapter 3 will address how to ask observation questions in a way that minimizes the test feeling, avoids boring the group, and yet draws out the essential facts.

      What does a disguised test question look like? It may ask for mind reading:

      What five key features of the sanctified mind does Paul describe in Romans 8?

      Since Paul doesn’t list five principles in any obvious way in Romans 8, this question asks responders to read the questioner’s mind. The group leader has identified five principles in the chapter, and the group’s job is to figure out what they are. In chapter 3, we’ll discuss the difference between asking people to observe what the text says and asking them to read your mind.

      Alternatively, a test question may ask people for

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1