Jesus used two tools to launch a spiritual movement that changed the world forever – discipleship questions and stories. Almost every recorded conversation we have between Jesus and another person started or ended with a question or a story. Questions and stories cause us to break outside our presumptions, think more clearly, and come to a better understanding of what we really believe. This deeper level communication becomes a harvest field for spiritual conversations.
The key to moving a conversation from casual to crucial and surface to spiritual is asking the right questions. It doesn’t mean that there are specific questions that are “right,” but that you are asking the “right” type of question. Jesus crafted questions that were very targeted to the person he was speaking to.
What Type of Discipleship Questions Start Spiritual Conversations?
Understanding categories of questions and their characteristics will help you determine what question you should ask to peel the next layer off a conversation.
Two broad categories of questions are open-ended and closed-ended questions. Each of these types of questions has a purpose.
once you know where someone stands and are ready to understand WHY they embrace beliefs, it’s time to move to open-ended questions.
Open-ended Questions vs. Closed-ended Questions
Closed-ended questions are helpful to quickly understand where someone stands on a specific issue or idea. They can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” or some other one-word answer. However, once you know where someone stands and are ready to understand WHY they embrace beliefs, it’s time to move to open-ended questions.
Characteristics of Open-ended Discipleship Questions
Here are a few characteristics of an open-ended question:
Open-ended questions
- require an answer of more than a couple of words
- allow someone to give a free-from answer
- lead to more open-ended questions
- allow you to find out more than you hoped for
- uncover motivations and reasons for beliefs
- allow you to engage in deeper level discussions
- often start with “how,” “why,” or “what.”
What Type of Questions Dive Deeper than Surface Opinions?
You can ask open-ended questions that elicit either emotion or thought. Both of those types of questions are great to take a conversations to the next level. Emotional open-ended questions often cause people to want to engage and dive deeper. Thoughtful open-ended questions often cause people to want to reason with the other person.
It is difficult for people to be emotional and logical at the same time. Therefore, if you are wanting someone to reason with you, questions that evoke emotion are not necessarily the best route to take. When people are experiencing emotions, they tend to not be willing to challenge their logic about an issue.
On the other hand, if you are wanting to evoke emotion in a person to draw them into a deeper conversations, then stay away from thinking questions.
Examples of Feeling and Thinking Questions…
| Feeling | Thinking |
| How do you feel about… | What do you think about… |
| Is ___________ fair? | Is ____________ right? |
| What was your reaction to… | What are your thoughts about… |
Each Open-ended Question is a Stepping Stone to the Deep Waters
Remember trying to make your way across a creek when you were a kid and you would take one step on a rock emerging from the surface of the water and then start looking for the next rock. That’s similar to navigating through a conversation with a goal of getting to the deeper waters.
As you progress through the talk, try to craft your next question in a way that will go just one baby step deeper. If you do this well, it will only take a few questions to get to the things that really make a difference. The twenty questions below take that progression so you can get a feel for taking baby steps.
20 Discipleship Questions to Take a Conversation to the Next Level
With all that in mind, here are 20 general questions to help you move a conversation from surface to spiritual or casual to crucial. Remember these are just sample questions. In order to be most effective, practice crafting questions like these that are relevant to the conversation at hand.
- How did that make you feel?
- What do you think about ___________?
- How do you feel about that idea?
- Did you experience that when you were younger?
- Are you familiar with the history behind that?
- Who influenced you most on that idea?
- Where do you think that idea comes from?
- How does that change your perspective?
- How does that line up with your values?
- What values do you have that drove that decision?
- Where does that lead if nothing changes?
- Do you think there is a purpose for that?
- How can that tragedy be used for good in your life?
- What will life look like down the road if that problem is not solved?
- What’s God up to in all this?
- Does that line up with how God designed things to work?
- How does God factor into that experience?
- Does faith impact how you feel about _______________?
- Does your faith change how you will move forward with this?
- Where do you see God moving in all of this?
Some Helpful Resources for Making Disciples
There are some great resources online for sharpening your discipling skills and asking discipleship questions. As a matter of fact, some of this content was inspired by teachings from Dan Grider and the Ignite Discipleship Network. Make sure to check out Dan Grider’s book on Crucial Spiritual Conversations HERE.
You can also find more on our site under Discipleship Tools in the menu. If you want further training and support contact us here.
