Seth Godin is the author of twelve books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change, and work. He is also the master of saying a great deal using relatively few words on his blog. Recently he shared this wisdom about the power of why:
“Why?” is the most important question, not asked nearly enough.
So What?
The life of faith and the ministry of a given local community of faith both benefit tremendously from why questions. Far too often these are rarely surfaced in favor of the more easily answered questions: who, what, where, when and how.
- What big why questions have you asked so far this year on your own journey of faith? What has your struggle toward answering those included?
- Think of the last board, committee, task force, or staff team meeting you attended in your local congregation. List all of the why questions you recall being asked during that meeting.
- How can groups and teams ensure why questions are asked and seriously considered more frequently? What benefits do you think are most likely to result from increasing the number of why questions?