Why Are Questions Better Than Answers?

I'll never forget his name. It was one that I'd never heard before — Artyum. He was from Ukraine and was possibly the most sincere seeker I've ever met. I just didn't know what to do with him. We struck up a conversation on the center lawn of the American University in Washington, DC, on a spring-like day in November. It wasn't supposed to be that warm. But there we were, Artyum and I, basking in the sunshine, when the calendar said that we should have been inside sipping cups of hot chocolate.

We talked about the weather, classes, hometowns, and things like that. Then he asked me what I did on campus. When I worked for an organization with the name Campus Crusade for Christ (now known in the United States as Cru) and people asked, "What do you do?" it didn't take long to steer the conversation toward the gospel. It's one of the perks of being a crusader.

As a trained evangelist, I steered our chat to the point where a little green booklet became the focal point of our conversation. "Knowing God Personally" is an adaptation of Bill Bright's "The Four Spiritual Laws" and is a good evangelistic tool for sharing the gospel. I still believe that as much as ever. But what happened that day at the American University changed my thinking about some of the ways we do evangelism.

I'd been trained and had conducted seminars in how to introduce the booklet, how to progress through the booklet, how to avoid distractions during the booklet, how to bring someone to the point of decision at the end of the booklet, and how to walk him or her through that eternity-changing moment of conversion after concluding the booklet. I could state the advantages of using such a tool (and there are many). I could show the drawbacks of just winging it and not using such a focused tool (and there are many). And I could share stories of how God has used it to lead many people to the Savior.

I read the first point, "God loves you and created you to know Him personally." I don't remember pausing at that point. I don't think I even breathed. But somehow Artyum interrupted.

"What do you mean when you say the word God?" he wondered aloud. "And what do you mean when you say the word love? And, most importantly, how do you know all this is true?"

It was a difficult moment for me. All of my training had told me to sweep away any and all questions with, "That's a good question. How about we come back to that when I'm done reading the booklet?" That line had worked well many times for me. The inevitable result was that the questions would be forgotten and never brought up again. That's because many, maybe most, questions that are asked early during an evangelistic presentation are not real questions — they're smoke screens. The questioner is trying to avoid the conviction that is sure to come when one confronts the gospel.

So they stop the presentation before it gets uncomfortable with, "Well, we can't really believe the Bible; it's got too many contradictions in it," or "There are so many religions in the world, how can anyone know which one's right?" or a million other pretentious comments that should be swept away with the "that's a good question" line.

But Artyum's questions were different. They weren't smoke screens. I know the difference between an honest inquirer and a truth avoider. Artyum's questions were foundational. Could I progress to the second page in the booklet and read, "People are sinful and separated from God," if he was stuck on the words God and love? What would be in store for us when we hit the word sin?

I mentally reviewed the background data that I'd gathered earlier in our chat and connected it to our present discussion. Being from Ukraine, Artyum had been reared in an atheistic, communist world, reading Nietzsche and Marx and thinking deeply about life. He was a history major who loved philosophy and was bothered by the intellectual shallowness displayed by most Americans. He wasn't annoyed by my initiation of evangelism. He genuinely wanted to work through his questions. Unlike me, however, he didn't feel any pressing need to work through the booklet. He did feel, however, a sense of importance about working through real interaction about weighty questions.

What followed was a ninety-minute discussion, revolving around questions that strike at the foundation of faith: "How do we know what we know?" "What do we know for certain?" and "What difference does it all make?" Toward the end of the conversation, I was asking more questions of him than he was of me.

Artyum helped me rethink the task of evangelism. Questioning Evangelism is the result of that process. And in all of the examples in this book, Artyum's is the only name that I haven't disguised. Although I refer to real people in real conversations, all other names have been changed. But I've kept Artyum's name, hoping that someday he'll see this book and contact me, telling me that he's come to faith in Christ. He didn't that day on American University's lawn. I lost track of him soon after the weather returned to normal November temperatures.

Why Are We Frustrated?

I came away from that conversation both excited and frustrated. Communicating at that level of intensity and truth seeking was invigorating. That level of excitement was relatively new, but the frustration was all too familiar. Another nondecision. People don't as readily "pray the prayer" with me as they do with famous speakers I've heard. Those natural evangelists are always sitting down next to someone and sharing the gospel. And they always lead every person to a salvation decision. (And it's always on an airplane!)

Some people have told me that my lack of evangelistic fruit results from lack of prayer. I certainly don't pray enough, but I wonder if that's all there is to it. Other people have told me that I don't push hard enough in "closing the sale." I don't know how to respond to that; the gospel isn't a product that we sell....