JR Briggs | The Art of Asking Better Questions- Christian Leadership, Loneliness & Deeper Discipleship

the world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm your host, Dr. James Spencer, and I'm joined today by J.R. Briggs. He's the founder of Kairos Partnerships, and he's also the author of a new book on questions. It's titled The Art of Asking Better Questions, Pursuing Stronger Relationships, Healthier Leadership, and Deeper Faith. And so today we're going to be talking about some of his work with Kairos. We're going to be talking about his book, and we're going to be talking about how to ask better questions. So J.R., thanks for being here, man. I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this. I see you got your book right up there behind you. So I'm just now noticing that. Talk to me a little bit about what you can do at Kairos Partnerships and maybe how that led to you writing this book on asking better questions. What led you to that? As we know, leaders, especially Christian leaders, are often overwhelmed, lonely, ill-equipped, and sometimes despairing. They don't know where to turn. And as a result of that, we said let's create an organization where leaders did not feel overwhelmed, lonely, ill-equipped, and didn't know where to turn. Actually, we talk about questions. It was started because I asked myself three haunting questions. Who pastors the pastor? Who shepherds the shepherd? Who leads the leader? And that was the loneliness in my own journey and didn't have anybody I could turn to, even though there was a complex ministry situation. It was very difficult and very painful. And I said, I don't know who to turn to. And I just don't want the evil one to win in any Christian leader's life where they don't have support, encouragement, companionship, healthy accountability, reminders of what's true, cheerleaders along the way. And so that's why we started this organization in 2011, and that involves coaching and consulting with different organizations and Christian colleges and ministries, as well as spiritual direction. And then I do a lot of teaching and speaking and writing. The whole goal is to equip leaders. It's kind of a 2 Timothy 2.2 approach. And we really want to equip leaders who are equipping leaders. That's the goal. And so I love it. It's heartbreaking to hear some of the stories, but at the same time, to walk alongside of leaders who are hungry kingdom leaders in various fields, whether pastors, church planters, Anglican bishops to Chick-fil-A operators, Christian college presidents, division one men's basketball coaches, anybody who's following Jesus, but leading others and who are hungry. That's who we serve with Kairos. How do you see, I mean, I think I'd mentioned before the interview, I'd done a little bit of research on questions and obviously read your book before the interview, but how do you see questions sort of freeing leaders up? I can envision them getting stuck on a particular path or, you know, sort of, I don't know, sunk down into some sort of, you know, personal challenge. And they just keep asking the same question and getting the same answer. And so how do questions actually work? How do they help leaders and just everyday folks reframe issues? Yeah. When it comes to leaders, you're right. Let me back up just a little bit, open up the aperture. When it comes to people, the whole book is in one sentence, and it's this, the quality of your life will be determined by the quality of the questions that you ask of God, yourself, and others. And so if we really believe that, and I will stake my life on that claim because you expand your questions, you expand your life. If you don't have questions, your life kind of shrinks down a bit. And so those questions we ask God, ourselves, and others as humans, but it gets ratcheted up when we're leaders. And so if we're not asking either a large amount of questions, but also the kind of questions, the quality of questions, we're going to be really limited on that. And so what if a question was nothing more than an invitation to think? And so when we ask a question, it's intended for a response. Heather Holloman, who teaches at Penn State, she wrote a book on conversations, and she said that questions are for two reasons, information and connection. And I really like that, information and connection. And connection could be with God, with another human, understanding ourselves. It could be connection to a new idea or thinking creatively about something, as well as information of just learning about the world. And so because of that, you know, unfortunately, we've been trained in our culture to be about answers. And questions aren't very valued. And especially with leaders, where the goal of leadership is to be the expert, charismatic person on the stage with all the answers. And I'm beginning to learn that actually it may be best as leader as lead question asker, not just answer giver, expert from the stage. That's a hard thing to unlearn, but I think it's really crucial to unlearn it because questions, they are so powerful, and I think we haven't even tapped into their potential in leadership yet. Very cool. Yeah, it's interesting to me. You know, I've done a fair amount of work in the sort of information discernment. You know, we live in a digital age. There's a lot of information coming at us. And, you know, there's this whole question of, is it fact or is it fiction? Is it true or is it false? And one of the things I've started to feel like is that that's too narrow of a scope to really deal with the information problems that we have. Like, we've got to open that up a little bit and ask different questions about the information we're seeing. We have to at least get down to things like, why is this being written? What is it about this particular angle on a story or this particular assertion that this person is making that is core to their reality? Right? Those kind of questions seem to me to open up what we're reading and they keep us from just saying, do I believe this or not, yes or no? And they give us a little thicker thought process as we go. Would you resonate with that? Absolutely. Yeah. And there are 27 different types of questions someone could ask. So, again, sometimes it's information and sometimes it's connection. Sometimes it's brainstorming. Sometimes it's taking 17 ideas and narrowing down what are the one or two things we're going to do. So there's lots of – it's hard to just categorize questions in one bucket. Right? But I think that what you mentioned can be a fantastic use of it. And, again, whether it's information or connection. And when we're talking about leadership in the realm that I am, that I'm in, trust is the fuel by which the leadership engine runs upon. And so I can have a pretty car, but if it's got no fuel in the tank, it ain't going anywhere. And so for me, how do you build trust? You create connection. How do you create connection? Most often, I think one of the easiest and most effective tools is utilizing good questions, asking the right question at the right time for the right reason to the right person. And we do that and live a question-oriented posture. It's amazing the kind of connection and trust that can be built over time. Because if you have trust, that's an effective leader. Because that's who we are willing to follow. We follow people we trust. I think it's a really interesting concept, the information and connection piece, because as you discuss in your book, when you're looking at Jesus asking questions, when you're looking at God asking questions, it seems evident, especially in the Old Testament with God, he's not asking questions because he's lacking information. That's sort of a problem. Jesus often probably isn't asking a question because he's lacking information. He's asking a question to engage. But maybe dive a little deeper into that. How do we think about these divine questions that come at us? Yes, let's just talk about Jesus for a second. As Christians, we study Jesus' teachings. We study his miracles. We study his parables. But seldom do we study his questions, what he asked, where he asked, how he asked them, and ultimately the impact that it had on other people. But I can't help but notice just how often Jesus' questions led to awareness, growth, transformation. And so if we're serious about wanting Jesus to be our master teacher, we should also be learning from him, not just his answers, but also his questions. And I think most people are a little bit surprised when they learn that Jesus asked over 300 questions. He was asked over 180 questions, but he only directly answered five of them. And so it's just fascinating. Here's like the way, the truth, and the life, the man who could give us all the answers because he deserved to give us all the answers, is yet he's one to ask multiple questions. In fact, one scholar said that if you look at all that Jesus said and the amount of questions and percentage of when he talked, recorded in the gospels, that he was 40 times, 4-0, 40 times more likely to ask a question

And he was to give an answer, which is utterly fascinating if you think about it. Why did he do it? You're right. Like, you know, he knows a lot of this, but oftentimes he's creating connection. He's creating... It's a rhetorical question. You know, one of the most common things he asks is, have you not read? Well, of course the scribes and the Pharisees had read it. He's creating for emphasis. You should know this. You know the answer to this. You just don't live it out. And other times it's to get people thinking. You know, he says to Bartimaeus, what do you want me to do for you? On the surface, we go, I don't know, Jesus. Take a wild guess. The dude can't see. But he asked that not for his own sake. He asked that for Bartimaeus' sake. But he also plays naive. I feel a little bit weird calling, saying Jesus was playing dumb, but he's playing naive on the road to Emmaus, right? And they're saying all these things and he goes, what things? He totally knows. I could just see a little smirk in the corner of his mouth where he's, what things? What are you talking about? That there's something about questions that draw us in. And even Jesus, who did not need to ask questions, and God, who did not need to ask questions, still asks questions as a way of lovingly connecting with his creation. And they can be so powerful. Not only does, you know, when I ask people, what's the first question in the Bible? They always say, oh, when God asked, where are you? It's not. Satan is the one that actually asked the first question in the Bible, right? Did God really say? And that throws people. And I say, even Satan knows how powerful questions are because he used a question as a way of bringing the fall. And I think we need to pause to realize just how powerful it is. And a question can be used, that power, like energy or electricity or sex or water. It all depends how you use it. It could be for great good or it can be very painful and destructive. And so we've got to realize how powerful it is. But we can look at Jesus and we can look at the questions of God and really learn a great deal about it that will impact how we live our lives and how we live as followers of Jesus. I liked your, so all that sort of reminds me, you know, your chapters, your paired chapters of influence and formation. It's almost like these questions, they have a reciprocal effect. You are trying to influence other people, but you're also, as you do it, you have to take on sort of a different posture. Like as I was reading that question or the formation chapter, I was thinking to myself, this requires such a different posture than many of us are used to. We're used to trying to argue or give an answer or, you know, do something very specific like give our take in the middle of a conversation as opposed to sort of sitting back and just asking the next question, asking the next question, letting other people talk. And that is a formative sort of, at least that's when I was reading your chapter, that's where I came to. I was like, that is, it's a different sort of formative process that one would go through to be patient in asking questions, to withhold your own opinion, you know, those kind of things. So I don't know, can you speak a little bit to that influence and formation and how you see those really two coming together? Yes, the four essentials to asking great questions. We've got to be curious. That makes sense, right? You can't be asking a question if you're not curious. You have to have wisdom to know, is this the right time to ask it? Of all the questions, which one do I ask? But I also need humility. Humility, rather than me coming in and overwhelming a conversation, but a humility that says, I don't know the answer. And then also the courage to ask it. A lot of us don't ask questions because we're afraid of looking stupid or unintelligent or out of touch, or we might be afraid of learning something we don't always want to learn. And so that's a formative process even in ourselves, that am I curious, am I wise, am I humble, and am I courageous? And Lord, help us all to be all four of those things in how we think about that. And so that's really significant because how you ask questions, not just what you ask, but how you ask them. You know, one of the things I talk about in the back of the book is how matters. I can ask the right question, but in the wrong tone or with the wrong motive, and it can become the wrong question. And so I really have to ask myself, what is my motive in wanting to ask a question? Or what is my motive in wanting to rebut something that someone is saying? And so it can be a form of amazing hospitality and a gift that we give to someone to simply listen. I just recently heard David Brooks say that when someone has a really strong thought, instead of trying to argue with them, he simply asks, tell me how you arrived at that belief. Tell me how you arrived at that thought or that opinion. And he said it just kind of disarms and it really makes the person asking the question more curious and less defensive of really hearing the story behind that. And I find that to be incredibly helpful. You know, Jesus, again, he didn't have to ask these questions, but in fact, the Gospel of John orients around six questions of Jesus throughout. And some of those being like, what do you want or what are you seeking? Or do you want to get well? Does this offend you? I mean, he's really trying to invite in when he, again, could be the one that is totally giving all the answers. I'm just through the process of writing this so amazed that there is a God who is loving and humble enough to ask questions when he's the only being created in the history of the world who didn't have to. Yeah. But he does it to love us because he knows that's how we connect. And I just hope that doesn't get old for me or for others that God actually intentionally chose to do that when he didn't have to. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Why don't we, you mentioned before the interview, maybe asking me some questions. So why don't we illustrate how this could work? You can be the question asker and I'll attempt to answer the questions. I think that'd be a good exercise for folks to give people a sense of what's going on here. Sure, sure, absolutely, James. So I'm curious, and again, there are no gotcha questions here. Let me just turn the tables on you a little bit and just say, tell me what was the passion for you? What's the story behind the story of why you created this podcast? You know, I went through a long, long process of theological education. I jokingly call it the most expensive, longest discipleship program ever with my, you know, MDiv. I did a second MA at Wheaton and then a PhD at Trinity. But I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with all that. I really was just doing it for myself. And so I went through a process a few years ago where I got a mission statement written and my mission statement ended up being to prod the church to learn to please God together. And I really see the podcast as the extension of that. I get to talk to a lot of different authors, many who I agree with, some I don't. And we just get to have good conversations, one with another. And hopefully for the listeners out there, kind of push the church, the body of Christ to grow. So, yeah, that's kind of the thumbnail sketch of it. That's great. What do you know now you wish you knew when you started the podcast? I kind of wish I'd had better sense of how to sequence and get guests. Yeah, I think that was a real challenge at first. It started to feel, it feels very ad hoc sometimes, you know, when we're doing these shows because the guests are so scattered. You know, you wrote a book on questions. Maybe I'll have a guy on tomorrow who wrote a book on, you know, some sort of jot and tittle in the Old Testament, right? And so they don't always really fit together. But I think increasingly what I'm finding is that the podcast can be extremely educational if they're put together well. And so that's something that I think as we move into next year, we're really going to be focusing on. Okay, so not what are your goals, what are your dreams? What's your dream with this podcast? You know, we think of the Bartimaeus question, you know, what do you want me to do for you? Imagine Jesus

but it's gotten big enough now that I think other folks who I've talked to are interested in getting involved. And so I'm going to have probably some guest hosts on occasionally. I'm going to have more regular guests where we're talking about very specific topics to drill in, and just creating a little bit more, like I said, a collaborative sense of it. I used to be an academic dean. And so one of the things that I always loved about being an academic dean was just allowing faculty to sort of put themselves in a position to teach well, to present the information they had, you know, to help form students. And so I'm kind of thinking the podcast, I guess I'm thinking about the podcast like I thought about it as a dean, and you sort of need a faculty. And so that's sort of my bigger dream for it. Yeah, that's great. In your mission statement, you use the word prod. I imagine that that active verb was very intentional. Tell me what you mean about prodding the church. What does that mean for you? So I don't, I think early on in my life and my career, I would never have used the word prod because it's too light. It suggests nudging, you know, steering, guiding. I would have used something more like blunt force trauma or pushing, you know, shoving. But I think I've found over the years that prodding is the more effective way. You know, you can shove somebody and get them, you know, three or four feet. You can nudge someone, prod someone a different direction, and they'll keep going that direction for far longer. And so that's what it's intended to do. One, to be a reminder of me to stop shoving, and two, to help everyone else adopt a more sustainable direction. That's fascinating. So what was, was there a seminal moment where that actually happened to say, I got to change my approach or was it a slow burn, unlearn, relearn approach? No, it was a moment, I think. I just got promoted to, so I think I was right at 30, and I'd become a vice president and dean over an online school. And I had a year where I had been promoted over a couple of people who had been ahead of me prior to that, and they weren't happy about it. I didn't handle it well. And I just, as I was reflecting my first year, I decided that wasn't, that I hadn't handled it well, you know, that I just, this was not the kind of leader I wanted to be and that this wasn't a sustainable situation for me. I was going to burn a lot of bridges that I didn't want to burn. I just didn't know how to handle it any other way. And so the institution I was at at the time got me a leadership coach. And I spent a year with her just working through different things. We did 360 review. We clarified values and she's the one who told me, you know, you've just got to start being willing to lose battles occasionally instead of winning everything and, you know, sort of leaving the wreckage behind you. And so over that year, it really calmed me down. But yeah, it was that moment where I had this sort of fractured relationship with someone who I'd previously worked for and actually enjoyed. And I just said, I don't, I don't want to do this. Like I don't want to leave a trail of bodies behind just to get ahead. So. Yeah, when you're, thank you for sharing that. When your leadership coach said that to you, why do you think that stuck for you? Why did that sink in? Why was that a kairos moment in a sense for you? Yeah, I think I was just in a lot of, I would say I was just, I had put so much pressure on myself at that time to succeed. And, you know, I, I had always felt, and these were sort of my issues, but I'd always felt disrespected because I was younger. You know, I had people tell me that, you know, you don't get any respect in these kinds of positions until you have a pot belly and a bald head, right? I'm like, well, I don't want either one of those. But, you know, I just, I think I'd built up this sort of chip on my shoulder or a lot of resentment. And at those moments when she's sort of pushing me to say, you can lose some of these battles. Like you, you're never going to win all the time. And if you do win all the time, you're ultimately going to lose in the end. I think it was just one of those, I needed to hear it because the pressure was getting so high. It was starting to affect not only my work, but my family, you know, just my personality overall. And I was having a lot of difficulty sort of holding myself together in some very tangible ways, you know, just not bursting out in anger, not, you know, being frustrated constantly. You're dead tired, you know, I'd put on, I think, 50 pounds at that point. I mean, it was just showing, everything was showing. And so I think that part of it was, I was just, I was ready to change. Yeah, that's great. So you unlearned a lot. Sounds like that's been really beneficial for you. And I would imagine your family and those around you within the school. James, what do you feel like you still need to unlearn? I feel like I'm still unlearning a lot of the same things. You know, I liken some of this stuff to what people talk about when they talk about addiction, right? Like you always have these underlying tendencies. They seem to just keep sneaking back around, sneaking back around, sneaking back around. And so I feel like I do deal with a lot of, it's often phrased as imposter syndrome, but it's not quite that. It's this idea that if I don't succeed, there's something wrong with me. And so now I sort of deal with that and say, well, that's obviously false. But the emotions are still there. The feelings are still there. That little, you know, voice inside your head is still there. And so I'd say I still wrestle with a lot of the same things and I'm working on just unwinding that further and further and further as I go down my career. Yeah. Thanks for sharing. If you don't mind me asking, where do you think that came from? That idea, if I don't succeed, you know, I can't be a leader. What's the origin story of that thought? You know, I'm not really sure 100%. I think in part it was, I grew up relatively poor, you know. I mean, I never, you know, had any wants for anything, but it wasn't a lavish lifestyle. And so, you know, I think growing up, I knew I was lower middle class and people made it clear that I was lower middle class. And so that probably has something to do with it. I think the other aspect, though, that was probably even more poignant for me was I went into my MDiv with almost no biblical background. I'd read half the Gospel of John and just smatterings of the New Testament, nothing really else. And so it was my classmates were sitting around, you know, talking about these different doctrines and traditions and debates and conflicts in the church and all that kind of stuff. I was clueless. And I think it sparked this fire in me to not to catch up because I wasn't that interested in what they were talking about. Right. But to distinguish myself by doing something unique and to really try to be different than they were, but just as expert. And so I think that's probably when it first caught on and it kind of put me into overdrive. And then there were just a lot of things, I think, over my career that sort of reinforced that. I started my career in online education, which I always refer to online education at the time. It was the redheaded stepchild of higher ed. And so it was just a lot of, I kept being put in these positions where it felt like I needed to battle up, you know, and I think, you know, we were always in the position of proving ourselves as a department, even after we got successful. So part of it was just institutional context and sort of culture and change. Part of it was my upbringing. But I'd say if I had to name them, those would be the three components. Yeah. Great. Can I ask you two more personal questions? Yeah, go for it. So I'm curious, James, if I had a room full of your closest friends and you weren't there, but I said, what would be three or four adjectives you'd use to describe James? What do you think they'd tell me? Dependable would definitely come up. I was voted most dependable in high school and that's kind of stuck. So dependable would definitely be there. I think intelligent would come up. I tend to be the geek in the room in most places. And I would say though, it's close to dependable, but supportive, like loyal almost. Maybe it would be the better term. I'm kind of loyal to a fault. Like I'll stick with people. I don't like to abandon people. So I'd say those three. Yeah, great. So what does success look like for you, James? I've sort of redefined it lately. I think over the last, especially the last four years, I've been working with D.L. Moody Center now since 2018, and it's been a big refresher for me. It's a different sort of context. It's a little slower. We deal with real estate. We do things like the podcasting. But things move a little slower. And so I'd say now, you know, success for me is having integrity in everything I do, make sure my kids

learn to please God together. That's great. That's great. Well, thanks for letting me unleash some questions on you, and I really appreciate you sharing. I learned a great deal, and hopefully your listeners did as well. I'm sure your listeners really appreciate all the hard work and the intentionality that you put in to having guests on. So thanks for letting me turn the tables on you a little bit here. Yeah, no, the labor of love. And so let's reflect on that a little bit. So what were you thinking when you're asking each one of those successive questions? Like, what's going on in your mind? Yeah, I'm actually thinking, primarily, how is James doing, because I don't want to ask anything that would be uncomfortable for you. I want there to be trust there, number one. Number two, I'm thinking, I wonder what his guests, or sorry, what his listeners would be very curious to know about the story behind the story and, you know, who is James and what drives James and what's his story. So I'm thinking through that, but I'm also thinking through the fact that there are four levels of questions, and I talk about this in the book. So the first level is always about simple facts, right? Just what I call questions for information, and you can ask a stranger and it wouldn't be awkward. Level two are questions for interaction, so thoughts and emotions. Level three are questions for understanding, so it would be feelings and desires, and that's when I said, what is your dream, you know, of the podcast? I'm really trying to get to level three. Level four, you and I don't know each other well enough, but that is what I call questions for transformation. That's immense vulnerability and intimacy that you might have with a pastor or your spouse or a counselor or your best friend since third grade. So there's only a few people in the world that would have level four access to some of those questions. So I'm thinking through, what would be appropriate of those levels of questions? I don't want to just stay at level one on the surface. I don't want to go to level four because you and I may not have that trust, plus you may not want it to be on the air. You know, we're recording, so that may be something you share off-air. So I'm thinking through the four levels. I'm thinking through, you know, what makes you tick? What are you excited to talk about? And if I'm really honest, I'm actually playing a little game with myself, and I'm willing to pull back the curtain here. And the game is, I wonder if I can get James to go, ooh, that's a great question, or I've never thought about that before, or ooh, I need a little bit more time because that's a really significant one. And so for me, I'm trying to just play a game with myself to push myself further to say, how can I make this really interesting and engaging? And if a question is an invitation to think, how can I help James think some information but mostly connection? That's what I'm thinking of as I'm engaging that. The last thing I'm thinking of is something I heard in the research, a guy by the name of Charles Durber, who studied, he's at Boston University, he studied thousands of conversations, and he said there are two categories of conversations. There was what he called a shift response and a support response. And a shift response is where I take the focus off of you and I turn it right back on me. I take the spotlight off you and I shine it on me and my life and my thoughts and opinions. But a support response is where I'm constantly trying to keep the spotlight on you and your story with follow-up questions and being more curious about what you shared. So to me, it's almost like the FedEx arrow. Once you see the arrow in the FedEx symbol, you can't unsee it. When it comes to shift response and support response, once you know that, it's in every conversation, whether in line at Starbucks or in line at the post office or in our families or neighborhoods. And so I'm trying to think, J.R., don't do shift response. Don't turn it back on yourself. Keep it the support response. Keep it entirely on James. So that may be more than you wanted to know, but that's what I'm thinking in real time as I'm trying to ask you and other people questions to make it powerful. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. You know, this is a pretty calm context for you and for me, right? So how does this work itself out in more antagonistic context? I mean, I'm thinking that you want to try to remain relatively calm and curious no matter what. That seems to me to be a baseline. But there's also, that's got to be harder and harder within an antagonistic context, right? Because at some point, you're just going to get tired of being beat up verbally. So how do you suggest people who are maybe involved in those, you know, harsher conversations where people are really trying to offend you, those kind of things, any suggestions on how to use questions in those settings? Yes, this is really important. And James, I'm so glad you brought it up. The first one is, I think one of the best questions we can ask ourselves before we open our mouths to others is, what is my motive? And especially when things are antagonistic or start to ramp up to say, is my motive to shut them down, shoot them down? Is it to gotcha question, you know, I gotcha, I trapped you in your own words. Is it out of genuine love? Is it wanting to impress and make people think I'm smart? But what is my motive can be one of the quickest and most effective diagnostic tools that will help me figure out, should I even ask this question? So that's the first one. As our emotions get higher and higher, it's also say, what is my tone? And, you know, how matters? How am I saying this? And so not just what I say, but it's what people hear. Will this be received as an invitation to draw closer? Or is this, am I attacking them? Am I trying to create distance? Am I trying to elevate myself above them in a form of condescension? And so again, it goes back to the four things, you know, I want there to be curiosity and wisdom and humility and courage. And so, you know, a gentle answer turns away wrath. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the first one that does that perfectly, but that does run through my head and saying, how can I do this in a way, first of all, what's my motive? What kind of question am I trying to ask here? How can I ask this in a way that's a gentle answer, turns away wrath? Like, can I be calm about this? It's amazing if I can be curious rather than condemning how different the conversation goes. Now, easy to say when you and I are level-headed right now. But if there are times in the moment, I've tried to train myself in the moment to say, J.R., just be curious. Rather than like, well, that's stupid, to say, huh, I wonder how they arrived at that. Or, wow, they're really, I'm thinking this in my head, they're really trying to defend their position. I wonder what's behind why they feel they have to protect this so much. I wonder if there's hurt there. I wonder if there's insecurity there of feeling exposed like a fraud. And so if I can start in my head by saying, I wonder about, I wonder if, I wonder, it just helps me calm down a great deal in the midst of that. So the other thing is, if it's getting so antagonistic, I'll say, hey, I don't mind strong conversation. I don't mind disagreement. But the moment, and sometimes I'll say this out loud, the moment you or me is speaking in such a way that's disrespectful or is harming the image of God that's stamped on each one of us, we probably need to just press pause or just agree to disagree and walk away charitably here. That's hard to do, right? But again, it goes back to what's my motive? Is it to win the argument or is it to love someone? Is it to learn something or is it to prove my point? It's amazing how it just quells a lot of what I could say by just asking, yeah, what's the point? What am I trying to get after here? Do you find that people need to learn to be curious? And would you advocate for like a fake it till you make it sort of scenario where, you know, for someone whose sarcasm is my love language, right? The thought process that goes through my head sometimes is not conducive to curiosity. You know, I may not call the person an idiot or like, what in the world is going on? But the question that rings in my head is almost always sarcastic first. It's,

And yeah, so yeah, how would you sort of coach somebody to get to this point of calm, curious, wise, you know, what does that look like? Yeah, great. And there's a lot of research. There's a bit of a chicken and egg conversation. Like, can you teach curiosity or not? Is someone inherently born with it or can you really teach it as a little bit nature nurture? So there's lots of research that sort of we're not exactly sure on the chicken and egg. But I do think that to be curious, and it goes back to the four elements there, I've got to be humble, right? So if someone said, I want to grow in humility, how would I do it, right? Or I want to grow in patience, what would I do? So unfortunately, you have to be in situations where your patience is tried. To grow in humility, you have to be in situations where your pride takes a hit, right? To be curious means I've got to put myself in situations where I don't always want to be curious. So I think that's helpful to just be aware of it. I think if you're even wondering it, it's a great start. Some people don't even wonder. So that's a great start to have people that know you, love you, want what's best for you, and can give you what I call the last 5% of the truth, is really helpful to say, hey, bro, JR, I love you. I know you don't mean this, but you're really coming across very arrogant. Or, you know what, you're jumping to conclusions pretty quickly here, and it's coming across as pretty arrogant. I know you're passionate about this, and you have convictions on this, and that's good. But I just, I really think you need to temper it a little bit, JR. While it stings, I'm also really grateful for that feedback, because feedback is the breakfast of champions. It's how we learn and grow. But it stings, and someone said, you shall know the truth, and it'll make you wince, and then it'll set you free. And there's a lot of truth to that, right? And so I think we need a community. God gives us a community of people around us to be able to say, to hold up a mirror, to show us what we look like without our makeup on. And I think that's incredibly helpful. The other thing is to pray for it, and that's one of the things people say, oh, I'm sure it's just easy for you to be a good question asker. I say, well, first of all, I work really hard at it. But second of all, and more importantly, this is a grace from God. And I actually pray regularly, God, would you make me a great question asker? Not for my own glory, but for your glory, so that people go, you know what? Christians aren't as arrogant as I thought. Our interactions together, you have loved me in a way that I didn't think Christians loved people like this because of what I see in our culture. And so just saying, Lord, would you just help me be more curious? Would you help me be humble? Would you help me, you know, just nurture some of these important, you know, elements of the fruit of the Spirit? The last thing, too, is I think some of our practices, we can actually practice this, especially given practicing asking better questions. You know, Jewish rabbis are unbelievable question askers. A lot of that's their training, but a lot of it, too, is they approach the passage not with trying to find answers, but with ask questions about the text. And there's something called havruta, and havruta is something they use in yeshiva, Jewish seminaries or, you know, kind of Torah schools. And they just talk about the text, and they just ask questions, not questioning as in doubting the text, but they'll say, let's develop a hundred questions about the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. And then by doing so, just questions, not answers, just questions, they begin to learn things and have different perspectives about the passage. They wouldn't otherwise if they just focused on answers. And so that's a practice that I enjoy teaching people. I've been through that myself. I'm learning under a rabbi for a semester when I was in college studying in Jerusalem for the semester. And it just taught me, wow, if I ask questions, it doesn't weaken my belief in this passage. It actually strengthens it and gives me greater perspective and learning. So we can just engage in these by even saying, OK, I know I'm meeting with, I'm going to make this up, Bill, and Bill's, you know, he and I disagree on so many things and he wants to talk about this. What might be 10 questions before I go into my conversation with Bill that I could actually generate? Maybe I put in the notes section of my phone or write in a journal, bring it with me so I can actually prep myself to learn to be curious, not just in the moment, but even beforehand. And so some of those practices, praying for it, really trying to have the humility of Christ that we see in Philippians 2. You know, some of those things, I think, can help in curiosity. But again, I go back and forth myself. Can you teach it? Can you not? You can practice it. But I do think some people are more inherently curious than others, too. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, we're getting close to the end of the episode, and I usually ask my guests one sort of final question. So here it is. Looking out at the world today, what do you think the church can be doing in order to or should be doing to be and make disciples more faithfully? In our divided world, two things. In our divided world, I think the book of Daniel is going to become an increasingly important book for us as a church. What does it mean to be cultural exiles and how do we live faithfully in the midst of it, number one. Number two is we've got to unlock that disciples are not just made in our minds. It's not just read more information, listen to this podcast, read this book, read this commentary, all good things, but it needs to be integrated into our practices. Not just orthodoxy, but orthopraxy, right practice. So we've got to be a practice-oriented community of faith in our local churches for that to happen. Instead of just saying that forgiveness is important, but to say, I'm going to preach on forgiveness for 10 minutes, but for the next 15 minutes, we're going to actually practice forgiveness. And if you need to go out in the lobby and call someone you haven't forgiven for months or years on end, I want to invite you to do that. If there's someone in this room who you need to make something right with, we're just going to leave space, quiet time of prayer, but if you need to go talk to them. I think if we can practice more and not just learn more up here, but let it run wild through our bloodstream, I really believe that we're going to be the kind of people that the world says, man, those people take Jesus, following Jesus seriously. James or first John 2.6, whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. Nice and simple. So I think studying the book of Daniel and the posture of Daniel and faithfulness of his friends and really being a praxis-oriented community of faith in our local churches will do that. Fantastic. Well, JR, thanks for being on the podcast. Really appreciate it having you here today. This is great. Well, thanks, James. And thanks for letting me ask you a few questions, and I did well. Yeah, it was awesome. Hey, I say, I think this podcast will be released by the time the book is out. So you'll be able to get the book at IVP. This is an IVP title, and so they give us a 20% discount if you order off the IVP press website. So you'll see that link in the show notes. Just encourage you to go out and get this book. It's definitely worth the read. The art of asking better questions, pursuing stronger relationships, healthier leadership, and deeper faith by JR Briggs. Like I said, that link will be in the show notes. I'll also put the link to Kairos Partnerships in the show notes so you can see more about JR there if you'd like to. And just encourage you to check it out. These are important topics, and I think asking better questions can only lead us to more insight about the world. So thanks again, JR, for being here. Really appreciate it. And we'll catch everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Take care, everybody. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Has fear stolen your peace? I'm Jennifer Slattery, lead host of the Faith Over Fear podcast, helping you fight your fears and grow your faith. Subscribe at lifeaudio.com.