A fellow minister told me recently that a Sunday School class had asked for his help. "I was excited when a group in my congregation wanted to grow!" he said. Unfortunately, he said, they seemed to want him to give them the right answers–some type of magical ministerial formula.

My friend, however, knows that ministry isn't magic. And he had worked with enough groups to know that he couldn't give this group pat answers. So instead of talking about curriculum, furniture arrangement, or the thermostat setting, he went deep. He asked, "What are you willing to do to make this class grow?"

Questions can be more powerful than answers. Quick answers, however, remain a temptation. Aren't we the professionals? What if people discover how lost we can be? So we pop off answers, jump on command, and eventually burn out. But instead of answering others' questions, perhaps we need to ask a few of our own.

I was fortunate to learn this lesson as a young minister when I went to the Young Leaders Development ...