Stretching Minds I
When exploring Matthew Lee Anderson’s book Called into Questions—which I blogged my way through earlier in the year—I kept returning to this theme that the church should be a community of enquiry.
Essentially, churches should be places where it’s both safe to ask the actual questions that you have and where you’re pushed to ask questions you haven’t yet considered. Truth should be sought for. Our confession is that when you find the truth you’ll discover it’s a person. Truth and goodness and beauty go together such that one without the other two is not truly itself: what is true is by definition good and beautiful; beauty that is false is a mere echo of what it could be; goodness that isn’t true isn’t good.
We want churches to be places that those that are struggling with doubt or grappling with genuine questions can find solace, can find the space they need to breathe as they question, and can begin to find a rapprochement with the hairy questions they want to ask. They should also be a place where bad questions are treated honestly, if they’re asked honestly at least, but are also replaced with better questions. The church should be a place where we can question God, discovering that doing so opens us to the much more important questions that the Lord would ask of us, to question the world is to also question ourselves.
One way that we will enliven and stretch the minds of Christians will be to build communities that operate like this. I want to make a couple of suggestions as to how to do so, but first I’d like to address a possible objection. This could sound like church for bright people, or church for people with a particular kind of disposition that is curious about the world. That’s not the intention but I reckon you could get this wrong and build that instead. What it’s supposed to be is assuming that everyone has questions—in fact to not have any questions is have closed yourself off from God and the world, from reality—but they may not know how to articulate them. It may even take them years to trust you with them.
We could also, I suspect, get dragged into a certain sort of intellectualism where we satisfy our curiosity about matters like the numbers of angels that can dance on the head of a pin (as many as want to, since you asked). We have to remember that curiosity is not a Christian virtue. Seeking the truth is. Our questions should be aimed at learning Jesus in all his fullness.
Intellectual virtue is a good thing, and expecting everyone to love the Lord with all their minds (Deuteronomy 6) is also a good thing, but building a church for clever chaps that are overly impressed with themselves is not a good thing. Helping those clever chaps become less impressed with themselves and a lot more impressed with Jesus, including with their minds, is a good thing.
So, caveats away, what could we do to build communities of enquiry?
Disposition
I believe it starts with how those in ‘intellectual authority’—probably the Pastors/Elders in most churches—treat those who ask them questions. If you’re dismissive of genuine questions, even when they’re bad questions, then you won’t get anywhere. We must treat the person with dignity by treating their questions with dignity.
Rarely does someone ask you what they really want to know. It will take some questioning to find out what they’re looking for. But if you meet every question with a question you may be treated much like Socrates was (though I don’t think they have hemlock behind the refreshments table); you have to actually answer people’s questions. However, you don’t need to do this quickly.
I think the biggest problem here is assuming that I need to respond immediately in a three or four sentence way that will answer their question. You don’t. Big questions deserve wrestling with. Good conversation takes time. If it’s a Sunday morning you probably aren’t going to have a really long chat, but that can make us feel like we need to satisfy the questioner quickly, and maybe like we need to demonstrate that we’re worth listening to by having answers. You don’t need to do that. The truth satisfies, and he’s worth listening to.
I say this mostly for my own benefit.
A short answer that gives them something to pick with can be enough, then allow them to go at the knot from that angle. Or perhaps you could make a suggestion as to a book that you could lend them if they’re a reader, or something they could listen to if they might do that, or a section of the Bible that addresses it. Invite them to come back and talk about it next week, or if needed set up some time to do so. What I’d avoid is feeling like you have to have an intense conversation about whatever their question is and setting up a pastoral meeting. Don’t feel pressured, encourage them to think, talk about it again. I am assuming here that we aren’t talking about questions that need pastoral care—if someone is grieving that might present as an intellectual question for some—but even then the question needs dignifying even as you care for the person. It’s not like the question goes away when their grief is less acute; why did God allow them to die? It needs to be wrestled with.
Be the sort of person people want to ask questions of again.
Ask for Questions
Sometimes when I’m preaching, I’ll encourage people to ask me questions about something. Sometimes that’s me being lazy because I haven’t adequately explained something and I’ve realised it in the moment; often though that’s because I’ve decided not to dig into a particular aspect—which all preachers have to do all the time—but I’d be really happy to talk about it if someone is interested.
The Bible is endlessly interesting, so there’s a lot we could talk about.
Rarely does anyone come and ask a question. I suspect there are lots of reasons for that, mostly because they don’t find that thing interesting, but also because they’ve just picked up their kids and now they’re chatting with someone from their Life Group and they’ve already forgotten I said that, and also because it’s disconcerting to go and ask the Pastor a question. What if you look stupid, after all?
But some do. In one church there was a young man who always would, and I found his courage encouraging. Be that young man, even if all your question amounts to is ‘you said ask questions about x… tell me about that.’ Be the preacher that actually means it and engages with that person happily. A little leaven leavens the lump, which is to say that treating that young man with dignity and respect when he asks even though you’re exhausted after preaching will mean that others realise that you’re safe to ask questions of even if Sunday morning is never the time they will do so.
What you’re doing is you’re publicly suggesting that it’s good to have questions and it’s good to ask them. Keep doing that.
Create space to answer them
I’ve done the previous two, with plenty of mistakes, in two churches. This third is an idea I haven’t tested. I wonder though about the worth of running deliberate Q&A sessions.
I remember that Tim Keller used to do this about his sermon, after he’d preached it, though he aimed specifically at those enquiring into Christianity. Why not open up a time after the Sunday service when you could do half an hour of open Q&A?
Make it clear it doesn’t have to be about the sermon you preached. Make it clear you’ll just say ‘I don’t know’ when you don’t, but that you will research it to have something meaningful to say the next time you do a Q&A or to go back to that person separately. Be ok with not knowing but also answer every question you can.
I suspect that it would be hard work to get people asking questions, but that if you persist and they do you’ll find a world starts to open up. You’ll also find that people who would never ask in that sort of public setting will approach you privately or write you an email because they understand that you actually mean it. Don’t give trite answers. Be thoughtful. Draw them back to the gospel. Highlight other resources. Essentially, publicly pastor people in their questions.
The answers might do some good, but the real good you’re aiming for is what regularly doing something like that would build in those people.
Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash
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