Why good questions are sticky

Good Questions are sticky for one simple reason.

People learn more from what they say than from what they hear.

This is very easy to test for yourself. Next time you are in a group ask yourself a simple question when you are finished with class. What do I remember from today's discussion? If you participated in the discussion at all you probably remember far more of what you said than from what you heard.

If we can lead people through a series of Good Questions to say the truth, they will remember the truth. I heard of a Barna study recently that revealed most people can't remember the main idea of a sermon 2 hours after they hear it. Barna didn't say this but I will bet there is one exception.

The preacher. The preacher will remember what he said because we all remember far more of what we say than what we hear.

Jesus employed questions a number of times. One example is when he asked the disciples, "Who do the people say that I am?" It is not like he didn't know. He asked because he knew that when he led Peter to declare, "You are the Christ the son of the living God," Peter was going to believe and remember and be changed by the truth that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God.

People remember and are changed by what they say more than what they hear. Jesus taught that what comes out of a man's mouth makes him clean or unclean. (Mark 7.18)

Let's say you want to teach people the first of the four spiritual laws: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. You want them to get it so you tell them: God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. You tell them and 80 percent will forget in two hours. In 24 hours all will have forgotten.

What if, instead of telling them, you lead them through a series of questions so that the final they blurt out the answer: "Because God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life, that's why!"

Whatever questions you asked to get him to that point was a Good Question. That is a sticky lesson. That is the kind of question I try to ask every week in Good Questions Have Groups talking.

And people remember. The lessons sticks. People remember more from what they say than from what they hear.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to keep the next generation in church.

Image
The latest research indicates that 70% of the kids who grow up in our youth groups are not staying in church. Project that out for about ten years and we have disaster. Based on data from Essential Church, the trend looks like this: For a free sample of the book, see http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/files/lwcF_PDF_Rainers_Essential_Church_Sample.pdf Another good book on the subject is Ed Stetzer's Lost and Found. Let's look at it more personally. My oldest son graduated from High School in 2004. He walked across the stage at church at the recognition ceremony along with 20 or so of his classmates. Most of them had been very active in youth group. Very few of them are active in church today. In fact, my son may be the only one. If you are in the mood for a good depression, do the math at your church. Dig up the list of the kids that graduated five years ago. See if you can figure out how many of them are in church
Read more

Sunday School revival

It is amazing what happens when you listen to people. Everyone should be slow to speak and quick to listen. Somebody smart wrote that! For the last several months I have been listening to the people who attend my conferences. I have been using a very simple evaluation form -- one with two questions: What did you like? What could I improve? People always said kind things. I think that has more to do with them being kind than anything I did. I was not surprised at all by two of the suggestions. I was shocked by the third. I didn't actually track it, but it was probably the most common suggestion for change. First, here are the two I was not surprised by. Slow down. I work on that, but unsuccessfully. You just get me talking about doubling groups and I get all fired up. Provide a fill-in-the-blanks note-taking piece. I actually used to do this. Occasionally hosts would drop the ball and not make copies. I always did better when that was the case. I just speak better w
Read more

Puzzling data regarding lecturing teachers

Image
Many of you know I am working on a new book on What Makes Groups Grow. I am puzzling just now over the data regarding teachers to lecture. Here is the puzzle: Teachers who use all lecture were the second mostly likely group to be growing Teachers who use all lecture were also the most likely group to be declining (by a wide margin) I have my own theories as to why this is true. What do you make of it? How could the lecturing group be both likely to grow and likely to decline?
Read more