Sometimes the Questions are More Telling than the Answers

“Which SpringHill camp’s your favorite?” asked of one of our mischievous Indiana overnight summer staffers.

The question was part of an informal Q&A I’m having with each of our summer staff teams. The goal’s to get to know them better and for them to get to know both me and SpringHill better. It’s the first time I’ve done this in training and my first session was with our Indiana staff.

It’s amazing what you can learn about people by the questions they ask – and the questions they don’t ask. Questions reflect the circumstances people are in, their values, their perspectives and their observations. Questions are revealing, sometimes more so than the answers.

In addition to the question above here are some of the other questions that came my way. See what they tell you about our Indiana summer staff team:

    “How did you come to SpringHill?”

    “Did you feel called to SpringHill and how did you know?”

    “What’s the vision for SpringHill?”

“How do you feel about the fact that people stop going to church after graduating from high school? What can SpringHill do about it?”

“How can I combine my business degree with my interest in overseas missions?”

“How do I know I’m called to a particular work or field?”

The most personal question of the night was…

“How did you propose to your wife?” My answer spurred on a whole litany of follow-up questions.

And finally the most challenging question was…

“Will you do ‘Brown Squirrel’ for us?” This was the hardest question because it took the most courage for me to answer. If you know the camp song “Brown Squirrel” and its accompanying motions you understand my trepidation in answering yes.

And of course I did answer “yes” and concluded our evening together, with the help of Carey Edgren, performing a little song and dance.