The art of questioneering

Many teachers don't know how to ask good questions. They ask questions that are too easy: "According to John 3.16, who died on the cross for your sins?" and they wonder why no one responds…..People like to answer questions that are on the edge. They like to answer questions that are on the edge of their knowledge. They like to answer questions that they think they are the only one who has the answer to….People like to answer (and hear answers about) questions that are on the edge of personal self-disclosure. Not too much or we get uncomfortable. But personal enough that it is real. Good questions get us to that edge…..People like to answer questions that connect to real life. Not theoretical stuff; real life. They like to talk about stuff that matters–stuff that matters to them in their world.

JOSH HUNT

Recently read Josh Hunt's book 'Good Questions Have Small Groups Talking' where that quote is taken from. It is one of the best books I have read on how to formulate questions. I wish I had read this book like five years ago. The point he makes about asking questions which are on the border of knowledge is very true. Incidentally the gems he offers are application to any discussion group in any area of life.

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Spiritual Leadership

J Oswald Sanders (1917-1992) was a Christian leader for seventy years. He wrote more than forty books on the Christian life including one book I dip into often, The Incomparable Christ. He was the director of the China Inland Mission (Overseas Missionary Fellowship), where he was instrumental in beginning many new missions projects throughout East Asia. Spiritual Leadership encourages the church to pray for and develop Spirit empowered leaders. People who are guided by and devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ. The book presents the key principles of spiritual leadership. He illustrates his points with examples from Scripture and biographies of men who have led the people of God in history. The book has 20 chapters. I have tried to summarise the main conclusions of these chapters under five key questions. Most of the ideas presented in this article are directly from the book. But I have communicated these ideas in my own way, except where direct quotes are given. Towards the end, I off

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I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she

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Inconsistency of Moral Progress

If morality, if our ideas of right and wrong, are purely subjective, we should have to abandon any idea of moral progress (or regress), not only in the history of nations, but in the lifetime of each individual. The very concept of moral progress implies an external moral standard by which not only to measure that a present moral state is different from an earlier one but also to pronounce that it is "better" than the earlier one. Without such a standard, how could one say that the moral state of a culture in which cannibalism is regarded as an abhorrent crime is any "better" than a society in which it is an acceptable culinary practice? Naturalism denies this. For instance, Yuval Harari asserts: "Hammurabi and the American Founding Fathers alike imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in th

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