Do you every get bothered by people’s questions? Sometimes I do. And I hate admitting that about myself.
I feel like I get questions at the worst times. Like when I’m on stage in the middle of my lesson, or right before I get a call and have to race across campus, or when I’m already in the middle of answering another question. I get why doctors’ offices make you take a number.
Recently I’ve been looking at questions in a different way. I’m starting to see them less as an interruption and more as a mentoring moment. Maybe even how church should be. Less of a distraction and more of why I’m even in ministry to begin with.
Last week I came across a post on Thom Schultz’s blog that talked about how our response to people’s questions can impact their lives:
At a recent Lifetree Cafe event a woman named Ruth told the group about her childhood experience with Sunday School. When she was nine years old she had lots of questions about God and the Bible.
Her questions reflected a sincere search for truth. At her young age she had doubts about some of the things she heard from her teacher. “I’m afraid I had too many questions,” she said. “They asked me to leave.”
She never went back. Now in her 60′s, Ruth doesn’t feel welcome in the Christian church. “They don’t want my questions or my thoughts.”
Reading this post made me glad the church I grew up in had leaders who were patient with my questions, because I asked a lot. What I respect most about them, in hind-sight, is they didn’t give me patent God, Jesus, or the Bible answers. If they didn’t know something they promised to find out and get back to me. Sometimes they didn’t, but most of the time they did.
I hope that I can be like them when I grow up.
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How does your church help people find answers to their questions?
Jeff McClung 