Answers to Your Questions

Let’s be a church where all feel welcome to ask honest questions about God

By Michael Kast 

Several years ago, I was leading a group of students on a short-term mission trip to inner-city Chicago. We came across a man who was sitting on a chair at a busy intersection and holding up a sign. I was caught off-guard by what he had written on the sign. Instead of asking for a handout, his sign simply read, “Answers to your questions.” I approached and saw that there were a couple of people who had stopped and were asking him their questions and listening to his response.  

Since then, I’ve often thought about the fact that there were people in that city with real questions on their hearts who were so desperate to find answers that they’d stop to listen to a random man holding a sign on a busy street corner. This caused me to wonder: Is the Church a place where people feel free to ask their questions about God, about the Bible, or about life?

Unfortunately, there are times in the Church when people’s questions are viewed as a lack of faith or a sign of weakness. In reality, many people are simply searching for the truth. But sometimes the Church’s response might come across as harsh, condescending, and patronizing, with the not-so-subtle implication that “If you had more faith, you wouldn’t have these questions!” And that tragic spirit can prove fatal to a person’s search for faith.

In reality, the Bible encourages us to “Be merciful to those who doubt” (Jude 1:22) and to “...be patient with everyone.” (1 Thessalonians 5:14) Maybe one of the reasons we’re tempted to shoot down questions is because we’re afraid that we don’t know the answer ourselves, or we’re afraid we might offer the wrong answers to someone’s questions.

Most times the questions people ask today are the very same questions people have been asking for hundreds and even thousands of years. Why does God let bad things happen? Doesn’t it seem arrogant to think that Jesus is the only way to Heaven? How can God claim to be loving and still send people to Hell? How can miracles be real? So, questions about God are not motivated by a lack of faith. They come from a genuine desire to know more about Him.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Church was known as a place where people could come and find answers to their honest questions? I pray that’s true for our church. My hope is that Southeast is a safe place where everyone can feel encouraged to ask the hard questions that are burning inside of them. I hope Southeast is known as a place that doesn’t avoid tough topics or shy away from tackling life’s issues, but rather a place where people feel welcome to be open and honest and real.

A friend of mine once said, “The greatest threat to faith isn’t doubt, it’s silence.” Let’s be a church where honest, seeking questions are answered in a straightforward, Bible-based, and people-honoring manner. Maybe we as a church need to put up a sign that says, “Answers to your questions.”