Discover People’s Questions
When we meet people, we often find excuses to categorize them as “not interested” in religion and therefore not worth our effort to invite them to learn about the gospel. However, we’ve found many of these people are interested in religion and in fact have deep questions about it. Rather than trying to convince these people that they need our church or any church, we suggest asking them questions like, “Do you have any questions about religious issues that you’ve been wondering about or that you haven’t been able to get good answers to?” Or, “Are there any big, deal-breaking questions that caused you to despair organized religion because churches didn’t have answers to those questions?”
Because people will learn when they are ready to learn, not when we are ready to teach them, discovering what questions people have can guide us in what to say.
As it turns out, there are a lot of people interested in religion—many more than we had imagined—because they have questions. And because God gives answers when we ask questions, it is a good way to do missionary work.
Remember, we cannot predict and should not judge who will accept the gospel. When we ask people what questions they have about religion in general, we can discover who will.
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December 14, 2012 Finding, Principles