13. Practitioner's Podcast: The Questions of a Disciplemaker 

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Practitioner's podcast where we're applying Jesus style, disciple making to everyday life. This episode in all of our episodes are powered by Navigators, church Ministries, which focus on helping churches make disciples. Who can make disciples. For more information or to get connected, go to navigators church ministries.org.

Guys, I am super excited for today's episode because today we are gonna talk about tools, right? And one of my favorite tools in the world is question asking. And so one of the commitments that we made to you at the beginning of this season is that we are gonna be intentional about giving you some very practical tools that are scripturally based and follow Jesus style disciple making.

Today is by far one of my favorite, and today's episode is perfect. Disciple makers who want to use the power of questions in disciple making. Justin, why don't you kick us off with a little bit of scripture and some background? Yeah, absolutely. So questions were one of Jesus' favorite tools as he lived his life and as he made disciples.

And one of the cool things to me is, , we see Jesus, leaning into this tool even well before he was discipling, well, before he was even an adult. So if you wanna turn to Luke 2 46 through 47, or just listen, I'm gonna read it to you, Luke 2 46 and 47. It says this, after three days, they found him in the temple court, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

Everyone who heard him was amazed at his teaching. I'm sorry, was amazed at his understanding and his answers not his teaching, his understanding and his answers. And so from this passage, you're probably familiar with it, it's when Jesus got left behind, his family and others went and they were looking for him frantically.

And where did they find him in the temple? What did they find him doing? Sitting with the teacher? Doing two things. He was listening and asking them questions. And so I just wanna start us off with a few principles of question asking, right? So the first couple are, first being a good listener leads to asking good questions.

And so we're not gonna spend a lot of time on that. We might not even mention it the rest of the episode, but that sets up good question asking is being a good listener, like Jesus was there, he was listening. And that led to good questions for him. Another principle questions lead to more questions, questions lead to more questions.

And so I think that's both related to asking the question, but then listening, which leads to another question. So those are two question principles. Tony, what about you? Can you think of any other principles that might fit with questions? . Yeah. You know, one of the principles that I think is really important, right?

If, if the first two are being a good listener, leads to asking good questions. And the second is questions lead to more questions. Then the third one, and, and probably the one that we're all most familiar with, is questions reflect understanding. So oftentimes as disciple makers, as teachers, even as pastors, we use questions.

Asking questions as a way to evaluate where people are. And one of the things that we often miss is Jesus did this regularly with his disciples in one of my favorite examples of Jesus asking questions in the New Testament comes from Mark eight. Right. And it's. It's where Jesus is walking with the disciples.

This is Mark eight. We're gonna start at verse 27 and go down to verse 30. It reads like this, Jesus and his disciples went onto the villages around Caesarea Philippi on the way he asked them, who do people say that I am? They replied. Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah and still others, one of the prophets.

But what about you? He asked, who do you say I am? Peter answered, you are the mess. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. So in this example from Mark eight, we see almost all three of these principles, right? Jesus asking good questions, as a good listener, ask good questions, questions lead to more questions.

And then that third principle questions reflect understanding. Jesus wanted to kind of take a litmus test of where the disciples were and their understanding of who He. So, hey, what's everybody else say? Okay, that's a good answer. What's everybody? What do you say? Okay. That's a good answer too. Right? And he's trying to figure out and kind of gauge where he is.

What a powerful tool, relationally. If we want to emulate what Jesus did in disciple making, this is a great way to do that. Having some questions is a game changer and one-on-one relat. Yeah, Tony, that is so true because Jesus modeled it for us and we see the impact that it had with the men that he was leading and others that he interacted with throughout the gospels, right.

And one of the things that we kind of did prior to this episode is think through some of the benefits of questions, right? Why are questions so powerful? Why are, why are they so effective? Not only in discipling relationships, but in relationships in general. And I think a part of it is that all of us filter who we are in some way, and what questions can do is they can kind of cut through that.

They can open somebody up. , right? So, what are the other benefits? We're gonna list out a few for you here. I'm gonna go with two and then Tony's gonna do two until we get through seven of 'em. But there's seven real benefits that we have thought of, that questions really help people with and help you in effective ministry.

And so the first one is that it makes somebody think if you ask them a question, it makes them think they have to think in order to respond or to decide they're not gonna respond. So there has to be some thought. Another thing that it does is it increases the motivation to learn because if you're asked a question, and especially if it's a question you don't know the answer to, it increases that motivation.

Oh, I wonder what that answer is. The third one, right? So if the first ones make a person think second ones increase the motivation to learn. The third one is guide the discussion towards objectives. Now, we talk often on this podcast about what it means to be intentional. Good questions placed in perfect locations of a dialogue will push a conversation towards that intentional objective, right?

So a good question can guide the discussion towards objectives. And the fourth one is, kind of goes hand in glove with the third one. Gather information. So if you think about an objective, you think about that. You're trying to get to that objective. Well, the fourth one is really all about guiding, gathering information, right?

So we're gonna learn about the objective. We're gonna gather information and move forward. Yeah. So the fifth one then is gonna be to assess learning. And so that goes really well with that scripture that Tony shared in Mark eight. Who do you say that I am? So Jesus is asking that question and he is going to assess, well, what do these people know?

What do they believe? Right? So it's not just learning, but also understanding belief. We can assess that through a question if people are gonna honestly answer it. Another one, the sixth one is it provides people an opportunity to find out what they. by listening to what they say, right? And for themselves to listen to what they say, especially for those of us who are verbal processors.

I'm not one of those normally, but I do on occasion, hear myself say something and like, h wow. I didn't, I didn't realize that. I didn't know I thought that, or I didn't know that I knew that, or whatever it was. And so, It helps us, even as we listen to ourselves, answer a question, it can help us to a deeper understanding.

 and it can also sometimes show those inconsistencies of thought or reasoning that we have as we're talking. If we said one thing and through a question, Somebody has asked us something else and we realize, oh, we're answering it and it's not quite the same as what we said just a few minutes before.

That's one of the power that questions can bring to us. Yeah, and the seventh thing that questions can really do requires a little bit of nuance, but if done well, it can provide a ton of value and it's this good quality questions. Jesus style asks question. Can help create community and connection. Again, it requires a little bit of nuance because it's not something that can just be thrown out there, but if you're intentional about asking good questions in the sense of a, a bigger community, you can really draw people in far too often in our teaching model and our disciple making.

even in this podcast model, it's a monologue, right? It's a one way kind of conversation, but we use questions to build community, to get people to lean in. I, I think one of the places where I've seen this work really well for us is with our Dayton Disciple Makers Network. Justin and I are both part of this incredible group of pastors and church leaders in the Dayton area.

Who are committed to making disciples, and we do so in this community. Well, we spend a little bit of time every meeting, asking questions to get people to lean in so that we can build community together. And again, like the other seven, suggest, get people thinking. Increase the motivation to learn, move towards an objective, gather information, assess learning, see where everybody's at, and provide an opportunity for these pastors and church leaders to think.

Yeah. So hopefully so far we have convinced you that questions are important and they're beneficial, right? But the real reason we're talking about this today, the real reason we wanted to have an episode on questions is because we wanna equip you. We wanna give you something that when you go into your disciple making relationships, and you are.

Thinking about that person that you're discipling or people you're discipling, what are some questions that you should be asking? What are some questions that are normal? Right? And so we have four types of questions, that we're gonna propose that in almost every disciple making meeting. , you are going to be drawing out from each of these four categories of questions, to make that relationship of disciple making go well and to kind of keep it on the tracks right now.

There's examples, there's specific questions that we will mention, but don't get hung up on that. You wanna make them your own as well. Yeah, and so the way this will work is we'll go through all four of these section. we'll say one, and then each of us will kind of give some examples of questions that we use in the category.

Like Justin said, don't get lost in the, the details of the question. Use whatever questions you want. We really don't care, but think about this categorically so that way you're not leaving one part of the disciple making relationship. neglect. So the first one, relationship with God. So again, you're gonna ask a question, you need to ask somebody about their relationship with God.

So one of the questions, one of my go-to questions, is where have you seen God this week? And I ask that question because I want to, to start with the assumption that God has already moving in there. Right. So where have they seen God this week? That's a, a question that I love to ask people about their relationship with God.

What about you, Justin? Yeah, I use several different ones here. I'm sure you do too, Tony. probably my most frequent is how are you and God doing? . And so it's a very much a relational question, right? Other times I might say, what has God been teaching you about challenging you about, those sorts of questions too, to just get them to open up, right.

What's going on with them and God, what's going on in their relationship with God? It normally leads us into a. Conversation about their disciplines, their spiritual disciplines, and how those are going. but oftentimes it might just get to, you know, I'm really struggling with, this thing that happened, or, you know, so it can kind of open up some of those struggle questions or struggle answers.

A better way to say that struggle answers as well, because our relationship with God is like most relationships, it's dynamic, it should be moving. and if it's stagnant, that tells us something too. So if you're getting that same answer, meeting in and meeting out, on those questions, you can switch up your questions.

You can kind of ask those follow up questions as well. So that's the first one. Anything else you got on that Tony relationship with God questions? Well, in all of these categories, one of the things that I will often say is tell me more about. Yeah. And that's, that's not really a question as much as it is a statement, but it's kind of that next level part.

So if somebody says, oh, my time with God has been good. That's not, that's not enough . You know, so, so I'll typically say, well, tell me more about that. And that's the way to get to that next level kind of, where the, we're the meat and potatoes is, is someone's, heart. Yeah. That's a great invitation, right?

Invitation. again, not a question, but Yeah. Invitation. I want something after that word. I don't have anything for it. It's just invitation. That can be enough. the second category would be relationship with others. And so this is dependent right on the person that you're discipling. Are they married?

If so, you wanna probably be asking how things are going, their marriage, are they a mother or a father? you wanna be asking about how it's going, parenting, are they discipling somebody else? You should know that if they are. And so that's part of what you should be asking in this category as well.

But relationship with others is the second category. Tony, what, what do you normally ask in this category? I'll typically ask something specific about the relationships. I know, right? So I'll ask somebody, how's your date dating going? How are you dating your spouse? who, who are you praying for to disciple next?

Right? Yeah, again, I'm, I'm trying to lead them to a certain place in our conversation, so I wanna be intentional about it. I'll often reference the, you know, who are the fat people in your life because. You know, faithful available. Teachable is one of the tools that we use, and so I'm thinking I want them thinking about that and I want them to know that I'm gonna ask about that so that they're prepared in that.

So I'll typically try to go after things specifically. And you know, I, being an old relationship coach and some of my work in the military, I always ask the guys that I'm discipling how praying with their spouse is. , because I think it's just so important end your book that it's, it's really hard to disciple anyone.

Tony's written a book on marriage and relationships, so, we're gonna drop that in the show notes this time. He doesn't normally talk about it, but I'm gonna throw it out there for you guys. If you haven't checked that out, you should. He did a fantastic job with it and with his, friend Charles Kasi as well.

So, all right, so, so far we have relationship with God, relationship with others. And the other one, neither one of us mentioned, but super important in that others part is how is it, how are things going with non-Christian friends, right? So we want Oh, sure. Make sure, those that we're discipling and ourselves are, our life doesn't be just become about other Christians, right?

We need to be missional and reaching out. And so that's something that we both, I know both of us often ask that and talk about that too, but put that in there. Tony, what's our next category? . The next one is relationship to self. And this is one that is easy to forget because, everything, when we're talking to someone, it feels like we're talking about them, but oftentimes we're talking to them about someone else.

So when we talk about relationship to self, we're talking about that kind of internal dialogue. So my two go-to questions to that is like, how is your soul? That's an old John Wesley question. so I love to ask that. How is your soul? The second one that I probably go to, especially if I'm working with leaders.

What's keeping you up at night? You know, that's a great question to kind of lean in and, and ask some good questions there. What about you, Jay? Yeah, I normally ask, kind of challenging, encouraging. So I'd normally say what's been challenging to you lately? what has been a struggle for you lately? Any of those sorts of things.

And then the other side would just be, what's been encouraging to you lately? What have you done for fun lately? and specifically for those of us who are a little more intentional, you know, we can just be doing, doing, doing and forget about just relaxation and having fun. And so, , you know, we need to have that balance in our life if we're going to be healthy.

And so those are some of those questions for the relationship with self category. so yeah, the last category is faithfulness. So, so far our relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship to yourself. Last one's faithfulness. And you might think about accountability here. So really I'm asking questions if, if we've made an agreement, if they said, yeah, I'm gonna do this thing between this time and next time, well, when next time comes, I need to not only be aware of what that was, but also to ask about it.

And if they did it, man, I'm gonna encourage and really just talk them up. That's such a great job. How'd it go for you? Et cetera, et cetera. . If they didn't, then I'm gonna hammer them and make them feel like super bad about it. no, don't, don't do that. Tony wasn't sure why I was doing that. don't do that.

That's the worst thing to do, right? So if they don't do it, that's okay. But what you want to ask them is you want to just invite them to talk about that. Well, tell me what happened. , you know, what, what was it that came up that prevented you from doing it? And they might tell you about things outside themselves.

They might tell you about things in themselves, so they might just not know. And that's where questions can become really powerful in asking them, okay, well, you know, let's think about how did you feel? Was there an obstacle? You know, you just didn't feel like doing it. But you know, there's all these sorts of questions that that can open up.

And so you're asking about those things from last time. But then another side of this faithfulness category is trying to figure out what are they going to do between this time and next time? And again, as you're doing this, you are modeling for them. And so if you made an agreement from last time, even if they don't ask, you need to to tell 'em, Hey, here, I didn't do it or I did do it.

 and then same thing, what are you going to do in between? Yeah, I'll echo all those sediments as far as the faithfulness agreements, faithfulness and kind of accountability. The one thing that I would add is that once you get past the pragmatic asking of like, Hey, did you do this or did you not? One of my favorite questions to ask people that I learned in, in another nonprofit is, How is that working in your life?

Right? So when somebody breaks an agreement, we usually set an agreement to achieve a goal. And so figuring out how something is not working is really helpful to get to that kind of, that underlying issue on why something. So let me go ahead and break through all four issues, four categories again, and then, we'll let Justin give us our takeaway in action step.

So the four areas of relational disciple making when it comes to question asking are relationship with. relationship with others. Relationship to self and faithfulness, a k an agreements and accountabilities. we really believe that if you can't hit all four of these areas, In questions, good questions.

You'll have a, a really great time, walking with someone in disciple making. Justin, why don't you give us our takeaway and action step? Yep. So our takeaway this time is you can't make disciples like Jesus did if you don't use questions like Jesus did. So develop, right, develop, and that leads right into our action.

Develop some regular questions that will help you as you make disciples. And I think as you lean into this, you will find that you will develop some of your own questions that you're just naturally using in those discipling relationships. So, hope this was helpful to you. again, this was a really focused tools episode, and to make a tool your own, you gotta spend some time developing it and owning it.

We trust that you'll do that. We thank you for joining us again. on this journey of figuring out what does it mean to bring Jesus style, disciple making into your everyday life? Hit that like button, hit the subscribe button, share with your friends, and we'll see in a couple weeks. Thanks.