Pastor Ed Young on Asking Questions

This month I had the opportunity to attend the Innovative Church Conference held at Granger Community Church in Granger, IN. One of the speakers at the ICC this year was Pastor Ed Young, the founding pastor of Fellowship Church. Ed gave a great talk on the subject of leadership and the importance of always asking questions. According to Ed, asking questions is an essential element of leadership. and that in order to grow and learn through change and creativity, we must be willing to constantly ask the right people the right questions at the right time. As leaders, we should always ASK (Always Seek Knowledge) questions so that we can make good, godly decisions. As Ed says, "Information without interrogation is an abomination!"

Asking the right questions to the right people to get the right answers helps us to know God's desired direction for our lives and ministries.

Ed shared the following formula for leadership and growth in the local church...

CHANGE -----> CONFLICT-----> GROWTH

Whenever change is implemented in the local church, it almost always is followed by conflict. Conflict, when it is dealt with correctly, leads to growth. I found this extremely interesting and true.

Here's my take on all this... If you take the time to ask all the right questions to the right people, and if you take the time to get the right answers, then the conflict that results from change can be more easily converted into growth. After all, at this point, you've asked all the right questions and know the direction God would have you to go. If, however, you failed to ask all the right questions to the right people; and if you didn't get the right answers to those questions; then you're on rocky ground when the conflict occurs, and more times than not, you may succumb to the conflict or the dissenters.

What is your course of action during conflict that comes out of change? Maybe you're changing your worship style. Possibly you're making staff changes, or changing some internal programming and people are ticked. How you deal with this conflict will determine whether you move forward toward growth or fall back to where you were before you made the changes. Remember, growth most often results after a period of conflict. Asking the right questions beforehand can better situate you to deal with your detractors when the conflict occurs, and may very well help you to breakthrough the conflict to the growth you've been looking for.

Do you find this to be true in your church? How do you handle this Change, Conflict, Growth model? What have been the advantages of asking the right questions. How has this maybe backfired? Please share your comments by hitting the comments link below.

If you find this whole concept to be helpful to you, you can order Pastor Ed's talk on asking questions at his CreativePastors.com website by clicking here.

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