Nurturing Curiosity

Embracing Questions in Church Leadership

Introduction

In any organisation, finding emerging leaders is a challenge. Leading them perhaps even more so. This is as much true in a church as well as a global business. How do we give impulsive inexperienced leaders responsibility when they might tear the whole thing down? In this delicate balance, a trend can emerge from current leadership, and it follows a comment made by one of my mentors a few years ago:

"To those who do not know the answers, the one who asks questions is a threat."

Emerging leaders can desire power, influence and position. Yet, they can also possess something potentially more dangerous – curiosity. However, the perception that curiosity is a dangerous attribute in an emerging leader holds the potential to stifle growth, hinder progress, and impede the development of future leaders, especially within the church. None of us can know all things, and indeed the older we get, the more out of touch we can become with trends and culture. Just ask my kids! To this end we are to find the beautiful balance of wisdom and energy that learning in a multi-generational approach provides, indeed, the church should be perfectly experienced in finding.

Questioning Questions

The nature of a church community demands leaders who are not only deeply rooted in their faith but also equipped with the ability to navigate the complexities of a rapidly changing world. Shepherd of sheep, in a world of wolves. Or, as Jesus put it, wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16) In our contexts, questions are not threats; they are catalysts for growth, understanding, and a deeper connection. As we seek to foster emerging leaders, it is essential to recognise the transformative power of curiosity. Questions, rather than being viewed as challenges to authority, should be embraced as stepping stones to understanding. After all, the Bible itself is rife with instances of individuals seeking answers, grappling with uncertainty, and engaging in a dialogue with God to deepen their understanding.

Consider the persistent questions of Job, the inquiries of the disciples, or the Psalms filled with honest questioning. Even Jesus, in His earthly ministry, often responded to direct questions with questions of His own, not to evade but to deepen understanding. "Who do you say that I am?" He asked His followers, inviting them into a space of reflection and discovery rather than simply providing an answer. One of my favourite books on this subject is Questioning Evangelism by Randy Newman. If you haven’t read it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

This biblical tradition of questioning runs counter to the defensive posture some leaders adopt. What might we discover if we viewed questions not as threats to our authority but as invitations to community discernment? What if what we are questioning is not the person, but the traditions we stand on. The historian Jaroslav Pelikan reminds us that "tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." Perhaps we would find that the very questions that make us uncomfortable are the ones that carry the biggest threat to our sacred cows.

Faith Seeking Understanding: The Theological Foundation for Curiosity

One of the foundational principles of Christianity is the concept of faith seeking understanding. This implies that faith and curiosity are not mutually exclusive; rather, they complement each other in the journey of spiritual and intellectual growth. Emerging leaders should be encouraged to ask questions that probe the depths of their faith and the current culture as it exists within an organisation, as this can lead to a more profound and personal connection with their beliefs and with others. As one of my former bosses used to quirk that “there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don’t ask questions.”

The principle of "credo ut intelligam" (I believe so that I may understand) suggests that faith is not the end of questioning but the beginning of a deeper inquiry. Similarly, Anselm of Canterbury's formulation "fides quaerens intellectum" (faith seeking understanding) acknowledges that faith is not static but rather a dynamic process of engagement with truth. When we discourage questions, we inadvertently suggest that our faith or our organisational leadership is too fragile to withstand scrutiny. Yet, a faith that cannot be questioned is ultimately a faith that cannot grow. The rich theological tradition of Christianity has always involved dialogue, debate, and yes, difficult questions. From the early church councils to the Reformation to contemporary theological discourse, questions have been the lifeblood of a vibrant, living faith. Faith is not the courage needed to cling to certain religious traditions and behaviours against all reason, faith is the courage to admit that we don’t know and seek to learn by God’s grace. This journey toward this necessarily involves the courage to question.

The Resistance to Cultural Questioning

However, the reluctance to welcome questions within a church or para-church organisation often stems from something more mundane than theological concerns. Often the disruption of cultural patterns that have calcified into "the way things are done around here" can supress even the most energetic of emerging leaders. Organizational culture, that invisible web of assumptions and practices, can become so familiar that we mistake it for theological necessity. The invitation we have in our new lives in Christ to countercultural living includes questioning our own cultures and traditions, not just the world's. When an emerging leader asks, "Why do we always...?" they may be perceived as threatening not because they challenge doctrine, but because they pull at the threads of comfortable routines and unexamined traditions. In a previous career I was involved in research that sought care to be more person-centered than institutionally focused. Encountering institutionalisation was quite a frightening look into the human capacity for closing off engagement, and retorting the answer “because that’s why!” We can be as guilty of this in our churches, not immune to the creeping inertia of institutionalisation, even for young church plants. The ultimate social function of the institution is often to make the questionable unquestionable, yet this very unquestionability often needs interrogation. In our churches, our patterns and traditions can become so sacred that we forget they are human constructions, not divine mandates. Our leaders may be called to be under-shepherds of the Good Shepherd, but if our institutions insulate them from the questioning of the sheep, or worse, the Shepherd Himself, then we are in grave danger. There appears an insidious culture of cover-ups, pay offs and NDAs that I can’t image Christ would have ever ordained for His bride.

Why then might established leaders resist the cultural questions of emerging ones? Perhaps there's a vulnerability in admitting, "That's just how we've always done it. I don’t really know why." Maybe there's a fear that questioning established practices will unravel the very fabric that holds the community together. Or possibly, there's an unspoken comfort in predictability that questions threaten to disrupt. Edgar Schein, organizational culture theorist, notes that "culture is to a group what personality or character is to an individual." When we question culture, it feels personal, like questioning someone's identity. No wonder it provokes resistance!

Questioning as Gift

Emerging leaders bring a particular gift: they stand with one foot inside the tradition and one foot outside it. This liminal position grants them a perspective that fully embedded leaders often lack. I have quoted the old saying before; if you want to know what water is like, don’t ask a fish. Perhaps we need questioners more than we realise. Their questions, sometimes impulsive, occasionally offensive, and frequently inconvenient, are not threats to be suppressed but could be impulses from rough diamonds requiring careful polishing through discipleship. Management theorist Peter Drucker understood this when he wrote, "Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.” Of course, as churches we hold fast to the Gospel and the revealed Word of God. However, we also need to consider change as a function of how we engage with the culture around us. Not because everything must change, but because everything must be open to examination. The questions of emerging leaders, often naïve, can be sometimes profound, provides exactly this examination.

Consider how Jesus engaged with cultural traditions. He didn't simply reject Pharisaic practices wholesale; he questioned the purpose of the religious leaders in their use of them: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." (Mark 2:27). He challenged not the Sabbath itself but its cultural application that had drifted from its true purpose. I often imagine these little scenes as the Pharisees scramble with their answer. “How would you know what it means Jesus of Nazareth?” “Well,” Jesus replies, “I wrote it.” Perhaps in examining these traditions, emerging leaders are doing so thoughtfully with the same care as Jesus Himself. This is precisely the kind of cultural questioning that often emerging leaders bring, not to destroy traditions but to reconnect them with their purpose.

Discipleship of the Questioning Spirit

The relationship between Paul and Timothy offers a model for discipling the questioning spirit. Paul doesn't simply indoctrinate Timothy into unquestioning acceptance; he invites Timothy to "fan into flame the gift of God" (2 Timothy 1:6). If we are encouraging emerging leaders in our contexts to fan into flame their gifts, then curious questioning will be one that requires assistance too. This fanning will likely include learning when to accept, when to challenge, and how to do both with love, grace, and wisdom. In my own journey with emerging leaders, I've found their most disruptive questions often contain the seeds of our most needed innovations. When an emerging leader asks, "Why do we have our gatherings this way?" or "Why do we only sing three songs? or "Why do we use this version of the Bible?", they aren't merely being difficult. They're pointing to the gap between our stated values and our embodied practices, between our aspirations and our habits. New believers, particularly those who have come from different faiths, or limited knowledge of Christian tradition often ask the best questions. I remember being asked if we should close our eyes while praying, to which I said it was a helpful way to reduce distractions. Only for the questioner to reply, “What about when I’m driving?”

Organizational theorist Ronald Heifetz distinguishes between technical problems (those which can be solved with existing knowledge) and adaptive challenges (those which require new learning and transformation). Emerging leaders often intuitively sense adaptive challenges that established leaders have learned to work around. We know things won’t work that way, so why would we ever try it again. The questions of emerging leaders sometimes point to these deeper insights that we can overlook, even when they lack the language to articulate them precisely.

Novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her TED Talk speaks of "the danger of a single story" that reduces complex realities to oversimplified narratives. Emerging leaders who question our single stories, our unexamined assumptions about how church must be, how leadership functions, how community forms, are actually gift-bearers, not threats. They bring multiple perspectives, fresh narratives, new possibilities, if we have ears to hear. I think it was Chairman Mao who talked about the dust gathering where the broom does not sweep, however, we can often look with fear and suspicion when emerging leaders start sweeping near our little protected corners. Even when they are possibly quite dusty!

The Inward Journey of Cultural Questioning

Furthermore, questioning our organizational cultures invites a powerful journey of self-reflection, something vital in leadership. For the emerging leader, this questioning helps us distinguish between essential theological truths and contextual expressions. This will be ever more helpful for the emerging leader to see in us for when they are leading with eyes on them. For established leaders, it provides us the opportunity to rediscover why we do what we do, to reconnect with the original purpose behind our practices. Michael Frost in his book Exiles notes how much we have succumbed to the culture around us that we have lost our distinctiveness. I feel this about our churches now globally, in that we are losing a local distinctive to our faith. In Ireland we had a quirky Celtic Christianity and yet go to a Christian conference now in Ireland and we have American speakers, selling books by English authors, and singing Australian songs. Of course, I am not seeking to close off our faith, but are we creating a Global Christian Culture™ instead of encouraging indigenous expressions of faith. I have travelled and lived in some remote parts of the world and been saddened that the church has become so enculturated that we can no longer tell the difference between Western culture and Christian culture. The questions of emerging leaders help us disentangle these threads, to distinguish between gospel essentials and cultural expressions.

When an emerging leader asks uncomfortable questions about our music styles, our communication methods, our leadership structures, our models of ministry, they invite us into examining our faith. It’s what the Jesuits call "the examen," a prayerful examination of how our cultural practices reflect (or don't reflect) our deepest values. The discomfort their questions provoke may be precisely the holy disruption we need. Now, before you lambast me for referencing the Jesuits, or worse, John Mark Comer (I jest!), this is a reflection on what God has already revealed to us in His Word.

The Psalmist prayed, "23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! Examining ourselves in a practice we should all welcome at the loving hand of God, and His people. The questions of emerging leaders, properly received, can be God's instruments for this searching and testing of our hearts.

From Guardians to Gardeners (and other attempted metaphors…)

To nurture a culture where questions about culture itself are welcomed rather than feared, churches need a fundamental shift in leadership mentality. We need to switch our thinking from guardians to gardeners. From shields to shepherds. From protectors to providers… (Ok, I tried, but I am running out of metaphors!) This requires established leaders to see themselves less as protectors of "how things are done around here" and more as cultivators of environments where both experienced wisdom and new insights can flourish together. Organizational theorist Margaret Wheatley suggests that "in organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions." This relational understanding of leadership creates space for questioning without threatening identity or authority. We are, after all, in this together. Consider how many questions the disciples asked Jesus. Indeed, even as much as He shared clearly with them, they often hadn’t a clue what He was talking about.

Emerging leaders already carry within them the capacity for discernment. Indeed, I have often found the curious impulse of a person an indicator that they might be a potential leader. These individuals don’t need instruction but rather invitation to develop this capacity through guided questioning. Rather than punishing the questioning spirit, we must disciple it, teaching emerging leaders to question with humility, compassion, and constructive intent, while helping them distinguish between essential traditions and cultural preferences. This discipleship transforms impulsive criticism into thoughtful inquiry, converts reactive questioning into generative curiosity. Sometimes in explaining ourselves we show the thought and reality that goes into leadership. I remember sitting with one of my former pastors after becoming a pastor myself. I had considered the way he led easily enhanced, and the decisions he made easily remedied – that was, until I was in a similar position. “I knew exactly how you should have led,” I told him, “Until I became a leader myself, and realised you had a lot more to think about than I did!”

At one point in our lives as experienced leaders, we too were that annoying, impulsive and curious questioner. Yet, by God’s grace, someone took a chance on us, and encouraged us in our walk with God, and our path towards responsibility. If you are in that role now, keep that in mind as we search for the next generation of leaders. Furthermore, let’s not stop asking questions ourselves. Perhaps the acknowledging of our need for God and others begins with the humility to ask questions, to seek understanding, and to trust that even in our not-knowing, God is guiding us forward.

Resources

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition

Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership

Peter F. Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "The Danger of a Single Story," TED Talk, July 2009.

Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture

Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science