David:      In our last visit, we were talking about learning to ask good questions and how that simple skill can make for some exceptional conversations.

Karen:     In fact, this is a learned technique. People can learn how to do this, a technique in which we believe everyone comes out a winner. So, after a quick break, we will reconstruct what we were saying the last time we got together.

Intro:       Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:      Karen, this is where my practice of putting things into a sentence comes in handy because I can remember exactly what we’re saying because I wrote it in a sentence. Most people have a lot to share. It’s truly helpful if you just work on asking the right questions. That’s something that has ingrained in us.

Karen:     Yeah, we’ve worked hard at developing this capacity, haven’t we? And not just because we were doing interviews and media, but just on a social level. And I think we discovered that it was so impacting as far as the people we asked these questions. It created connections between them and between us. But we’ve learned so much. We’ve learned things, sometimes social environments, sometimes work environments, that we would never have known about had we not developed the skill of asking good questions.

David:      I think if someone would be in the back seat of the car and hear us as we’re driving to a social occasion, whether it’s a luncheon or a dinner or whatever, we say, “What can we learn from this person and what kind of a question do we have to ask in order to get that information?”

Karen:     Or “What do we want to know more about?” We developed some standardized questions, our fallback questions, which we passed on to our kids when they were dating, and they were talking about these awkward moments when we don’t have anything to talk about. And I said, “Well, let’s come up with a list of questions and we’ll write them down.” Then you always have fallback questions you can use if those situations become awkward. But for adults, the people who are listening to us, just the discipline of learning how to ask good questions is invaluable as far as going through life, as far as what you will learn, how you will connect in deeper ways.

David:      And it’s valuable to have come up with what those questions are sometimes.

Karen:     It can be.

David:      So, if you’re driving and you have six, seven, eight minutes, probably in that amount of time, you can say, “That’s a good question.” Because together we said, “Yeah, that’s a really good question. Let’s ask that tonight.”

Karen:     Yeah.

David:      And then you kind of wait to see who’s going to ask. But it’s amazing because a lot of times in a social situation there’ll be chit chat and laughter and such. And all of a sudden it’ll get very serious because a person takes that question and works with it, gives information that is really beautiful and you’re so glad you asked because you learn so much about that individual.

Karen:     So, what, what’s some of those questions?

David:      A simple question you ask a lot of times. “What are you reading?”

Karen:     Yeah, what are you reading now?

David:      I had somebody just on a conversation yesterday, the person on the line said, “Tell me what you’re reading.” What you’re reading is a certain revelation of where you are at that point in time. That’s not a difficult question. In fact, a lot of times when you ask the question a person has to think a while. What am I reading?

Karen:     Yeah, what am I reading?

David:      Who is someone who influenced you in your early adult years?

Karen:     That’s a huge question. I’ve done all of these listening groups, 250 listening groups, and one of the questions I ask them now is, “Who was there in your life who listened to you when you were a child? Who listened to you when you were growing up? Older than that, a teenager, a young adult?” Unbelievable, David, there are people who had very few listeners and sometimes none. But then there’ll be stories…

David:      That’s because you had all kinds of people who listened to you.

Karen:     Every stage of my life. I did a listening autobiography. I asked people to write out. And so, I did it myself and I had listeners at every stage of my life. So, I feel responsible to listen. But there often is someone when they answer that question who appeared in their life in a way that they were listened to. It’ll be a great aunt, maybe.

David:      Or a teacher?

Karen:     Teachers are just fabulous. They come up a lot. The lady who lived upstairs for a little child who went up and was sent upstairs to play with this lady or be watched by this lady. She was the only one who listened to this person who answered that question in all of her life until she became an adult. So that question is an extraordinary question. I get extraordinary answers to that one.

David:      How and when did you become a Christian?

Karen:     Oh, this is great. Yeah.

David:      It’s a fabulous, fabulous question. The answers are multiple.

Karen:     Multitude. And for people who are Christians, that’s a wonderful question that they love to answer. However, when we’re traveling, we often chat with strangers and people we don’t know. And you’ll say, “Well, tell me what you do.” And they’ll tell you what they do. And then they’ll say to you, and “What’s your profession?” And you’ll say, “Well, I’m a minister.” And I think, “Oh, here we go.” That never turns people off. And they’ll say, “Oh, yeah, tell me what denomination or whatever defined it a little bit more.” And then you’ll say to them,

David:      Well, we’ll usually ask you a question. “Do you go to church anywhere?” Or “Is that not a part of your life?”

Karen:     Has church been a part of your life at any time? Any variation of the question? What I’m interested in is watching how they respond to a question like that. Knowing that you were a minister. And then sometimes they say, “Well, I used to go to church if things turned bad and I left.” And you’ll say, “Whoa, did you have a toxic experience in your past?” And often that is the reason why they’re no longer going to church anymore.

David:      Have you ever thought about maybe you miss it and maybe there are good places?

Karen:     Maybe there are some good places where that won’t happen. But it’s just really interesting to see how people respond to questions about their spiritual journey that you think they’d climb up about and not want to talk to anyone about. But they’re very open about that whole thing.

David:      They’re open because you’re asking open questions.

Karen:     Yes, open.

David:      You’re not preaching at them.

Karen:     Or trying to trick them or trying to involve them in a spiritual conversation. So, I just am amazed with what happens when we ask really good questions. See, then not only of people who are friends or family members, but perfect strangers.

David:      Who’s a Bible character you relate to? That’s for a church group. Who’s a Bible character you relate to? You kind of identify with their experiences or who they are. That is very interesting.

Karen:     They often have to think about that one a little bit.

David:      And they have to think about it. The pauses are not a problem. You know, just take your time. It’s kind of curious. It opens up again bigger areas of life. Want some more questions?

Karen:     Okay, give me a couple more. Then I have a theological premise I want to maintain.

David:      What’s the decision you made in your life that altered the very course of where things were going?

Karen:     Yeah, in ways that maybe you didn’t expect even. That takes a little while to think. Although sometimes it’ll be on top of a person’s mind.

David:      If you’ve thought about it, sometimes the Lord puts just exactly the right question in your mind. Or otherwise, the person says, “You know what? That’s very close to something I’ve been struggling with in terms of my mind.” And then they adjust your question.

Karen:     They go to their, you know, something you want to talk about. In fact, even now that you’ve mentioned that I think that very often these questions do come to us because of a nudge of the Holy Spirit. And if we’re attentive to that nudge and frame the question in the best way that we possibly can, we often go into really deep discussions about where that person’s life is. And that takes me back to the understanding that the scripture is filled with questions. Begins of all places in Genesis. In the garden of Eden. And do you know what question was asked?

David:      Of course, I do. You asked me that last podcast. I still remember it.

Karen:     Where are you, Adam and Eve? Now that’s a question that can be asked anywhere at any time of anyone. Where are you? Where are you in your life? Where are you today? Where are you with that struggle you are having?

David:      Where are you in terms of the fulfillment of your days?

Karen:     Yeah. Jesus has an interesting question that he asks in the New Testament.

David:      Well, he asks all kinds of questions.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:      He’ll give a story and then instead of saying, “Now do you understand what I said. This was the point. He’ll say, “Which one do you think did his father’s will? The one who said he” was going to it and didn’t? Or the one who said he won’t, that he did?” That he turns it, and he doesn’t finish his sermon? He basically asked a question.

Karen:     The Parables are kind of questions wrapped up in story form.

David:      They’re question-prompting.

Karen:     They’re question-prompting because it doesn’t explain them. Not much. We have some explanations. But he was also giving parables to large crowds who were following him. People have to wrestle with the meaning of what that is. That’s leaving it kind of open-ended and undefined. But you could go through the entire scripture, which I have done, and pull out the questions that are in scriptures, and they’re just all through the Old and New Testament. Questions that are asked by humans.

David:      Have you ever had a situation, Karen, where you ask a question and a person says, “That’s invasive. I don’t want to answer that.”

Karen:     No, because I often say, “I’m interested in this, but if you don’t want to answer, that’s perfectly fine. You don’t have to answer it.” It may be trotting on territory shouldn’t be trotting on.

David:      And the person oftentimes will say, “No, that’s all right. I think I’d like to answer it.”

Karen:     Yeah. That kind of response more than, I can’t really remember anyone who said, I don’t want to talk about that.

David:      But at the same time, we are…

Karen:     I’m sure that…

David:      We’re not asking questions like…

Karen:     Challenging questions that are questioning their character or the morality. We’re asking questions that help them open up to another human being in a way that is meaningful to them.

David:      Who’s the person you would go and ask for help from if you had this problem? So, there are a lot of different ways to approach a given subject without just saying, “OK, got my finger on your nose. I want to tell you, you got to listen to me now.”

Karen:     One of the questions I ask of Christian leaders, people in ministry is, “Do you have a spiritual rector or someone you can go to on a regular basis where you can talk through some of the issues in your lives?” Because I think that’s extremely important. And very often leaders don’t have those people in their lives. And I’ll say to them, “My experience has been that I need to put those people into my life, and I need to be able to trust them.” But more and more, the response to that question that I give is that they do have someone in their life who acts that way for them.

David:      I have some hard questions because this is putting you in new territory, Ok?

Karen:     Putting me in new territory?

David:      Yeah, because you’ve never had this opportunity. But I’m going to name some big-name people and you see if you can come up with a question you ask.

Karen:     Oh, what question? Where at our dining room table?

David:      Say the President of the United States, President Biden.

Karen:     Which has happened to drop in for lunch.

David:      I’d like to ask you a question. What would be an appropriate and helpful question to ask?

Karen:     I would say, “President Biden wants one of the hardest things you have to deal with. And specifically, how can we pray for you?”

David:      You know who Tom Brady is?

Karen:     He’s the NFL quarterback.

David:      For what team?

Karen:     Oh, he changed teams recently, didn’t he?

David:      You’re doing fine. OK, what if Tom Brady were to come for lunch and we’re having him as a guest? What would be a question you would ask him?

Karen:     What question would you ask him?

David:      I thought about that, and I would probably ask, “You’ve had so many honors, what would bring you the greatest of joy in your life?” … and try to get him to talk outside of his sports world?

Karen:     Well, generally they do talk outside of their sports world because they have had so much acclaim in that profession.

David:      I’ve said the wrong person.

Karen:     Ok.

David:      Tom Brady’s hard for you. Melinda Gates.

Karen:     Oh, Melinda Gates. OK. Oh, I would ask Melinda this question. “What else is it you want to accomplish before you die?”

David:      That would be good, and it would be…

Karen:     I mean, she’s had a huge impact.

David:      Probably mind-boggling to hear what she would say.

Karen:     Yeah, through the Gates Foundation. So, I would like to know, and at her stage of life, later midlife, when you begin to think about, I may not be around forever, life can be short, I’ve had friends who’ve passed or my parents have passed, what is it I still want to do before I die? The most important things I want to do before I die, that’s the question I’d ask her.

David:      Right, she would be able to handle that and probably would do a good job and would say thank you. That’s a good question.

Karen:     Yeah. That’s a good question.

David:      What about a pastor? Some say it could be a man or a woman. What’s a question you might ask of the pastor of the church where you are?

Karen:     Well, that one that I mentioned before is, “Who is giving you spiritual input?”

David:      Who’s ministering you?

Karen:     Yeah, thanks. Who’s ministering to you apart from people in your congregation?

David:      What’s the hardest part that you don’t like? The last thing you probably like are you and feel cold.

Karen:     Your biggest problem right now that you’re trying to work your way through that, there will be good questions for ministers.

David:      You probably are not going to get the, you know, “Leave me alone on those.”

Karen:     I’ve never had anyone say that to us. Yeah.

David:      How do we help someone who is not accustomed to this and is listening but is still intimidated by means of saying most people have a lot to share that’s truly helpful if you just work at asking the right question. I think one of the things I would say to the person now that I’ve asked myself the question is “It’s not easy to come up with the questions.” It may take you a matter of even four or five minutes or praying about it. “Lord, give me the right question to ask of Pastor Pete or Pastor…”

Karen:     So, we’re saying do a little pre-work ahead of time.

David:      Exactly.  It doesn’t come just spontaneously.

Karen:     Praying about this meeting or as you’re driving to the meeting or you have 20 minutes before the meeting, sit down and say these are some of the things I’d like to ask and some of the things I’d really like to know. Not challenging questions. Questions that open people up.

David:      Not the intimidating question.

Karen:     Not intimidating. Well, there can be nasty kinds of questions. “Why did you do what you did?” You may, you know, that’s not all. We’re not going there at all. But questions that say “I want to know who you are better.” And those are the ones you want to come up with some pre-thought.

David:      Okay. Do you think that we’ve nudged people across the line?

Karen:     I think so. And I think a lot of them are going to write us and let us know what questions they’ve been asking or been asked of them.

David:      That would be beneficial. If you ask a question and the person goes on for like 15 to 20 minutes.

Karen:     And that happens, and you were there to be a listener and by listening you’re serving them in ways they need to be served.

David:      With such conversations are going on. Don’t think when, what are they going to ask me? But just continue to think how do I be the attentive listener who can even make the appropriate comment such as that’s interesting. I can pray for you regarding that.

Karen:     Right. Or you may have follow-up questions that arise as they talk. So, you ask those questions.

David:      Most people have a lot to share. That’s truly helpful. Do you believe that?

Karen:     Yes, I do.

David:      Okay. Most people have a lot to share. That’s truly helpful. If you just work at asking the right question, how often do we come away from a time that’s a social gathering and you’re in a restaurant? How often do we come away from that and say, “I think we really did a good job.” And gave that person the attention. That person needed to talk about that and probably never has. But we facilitated that.

Karen:     All the time.

David:      Yeah, I’d say all the time.

Karen:     Yeah, I rarely come away saying, “That wasn’t worth my time.” Well, chit-chat, superficial content because we have learned to ask a question.

David:      Do you think it brings pleasure to Jesus?

Karen:     Yeah, I do.

David:      Yeah. In fact, I would say it brings pleasure to us because oftentimes we feel as though even though he didn’t say anything that Jesus was there saying, “You’re doing well, just probe a little more.” It’s not in a negative or challenging way at all. It’s just that friendship.

Karen:     Developing relationships.

David:      Yeah, okay. And I think we got a couple of people who are saying that’s a good idea.

Karen:     I can do that.

David:      Yeah, I think it’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. I think we nailed it, Karen.

Karen:     I think we did.

David:      Praise the Lord.

Outro:      You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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