Josh Hunt's Blog, page 275
October 20, 2015
The awesome power of encouragement
Young men in his church were expected to pray aloud in Communion services. So the young Larry Crabb felt pressured to pray, even though he had a problem with stuttering. He remembers offering a terribly confused prayer in which he thanked the Father for hanging on the cross and praised Christ for triumphantly bringing the […]
October 17, 2015
Pray for one another
On Christmas morning 1998, Russ Robinson and his family climbed into their motor home and headed from Chicago to Phoenix, Arizona. Russ and his wife took turns driving all day and into the night. While cruising along in the darkness, the headlights suddenly revealed a woman dressed in black, walking in the middle of the […]
October 15, 2015
Ask what you really mean to ask
It’s easier to say what you mean when you keep a question simple. Still, it’s often a good idea to go back over a list of questions and ask yourself, Is this what I mean to ask? “What does it mean to the way we live that human beings are members of the family of […]
100 Questions Jesus Asked
Great questions get people talking, and Jesus sets an excellent example of this in the gospels. I recently worked with the team at Disciplr to create this infographic analyzing 100 of Jesus’ questions (and whom He directed them to). It’s interesting to see how Jesus uses questions to teach people—even those who are trying to […]
October 12, 2015
Make your questions accessible to everyone
Keep questions simple enough that everyone has a reasonable chance of knowing what you mean the first time you say it. In addition to multiple questions such as the one above, this principle weeds out questions with several linked clauses: • Since eating meat sacrificed to idols might be confusing to a person who doesn’t […]
October 9, 2015
Ask one question at a time.
Read the following question: How does the lack of forgiveness affect the one who has done harm, the one who has been harmed, and each person’s relationship with God? If you read that question a couple of times, you could probably take it apart and answer it piece by piece. But if you only heard […]
October 7, 2015
Avoid leading the witness
If you’ve watched much TV courtroom drama, you know that attorneys often lead witnesses because it is to the interrogator’s advantage to make the witness say what he wants the jury to hear. You also know that leading the witness usually causes the opposing attorney to object. A small-group leader may want the group to […]
October 5, 2015
Don’t give a test
Don’t give a test. When the task at hand involves drawing out the facts of a text, there are some important questions to be asked that have right-or-wrong answers: Who are the primary characters in this passage? How did the jailer respond after the earthquake in Acts 16? Because fact-finding or observation questions tend to […]
October 1, 2015
Jesus on asking Good Questions
Jesus was a brilliant teacher. He knew how to tell a story that would propel people into thinking in new categories. He was king of the one-liner. He understood the power of a well-timed, well-phrased question. “Who do the crowds say I am?” (Lk. 9:18) “Do you want to get well?” (Jn. 5:6) “What do […]
September 21, 2015
While most churches are struggling, Andy Stanley and a whole generation of churches are exploding in growth
We can take our world for God by giving the ministry to laymen who are using their gifts to grow their groups, to double their groups every two years or less. A group of ten that doubles every eighteen months will reach a thousand people in ten years. It is happening. It is happening like […]
