Great Teachers Ask Questions
Great teachers ask questions. Like windows to a room, questions open minds to the wonders of God and His creation. Questions link big ideas together in the way bridges connect treasures from diverse and distant lands.
Watch carefully and you will observe that great students also know how to ask questions. They want deeper understanding. They desire to know more. Curiosity drives their questions.
Christian missionary Francis Schaeffer mastered the use of questions during his three decades of educational ministry to young people in Europe. A recent study suggests that his use of questions can help Christian educators today.
Francis Schaeffer’s Use of Questions
Many are familiar with Francis Schaeffer, the apologist and author of How Now Shall We Live? But what may be less known about his legacy is the learning community he founded with his wife, Edith, in the Swiss Alps. From 1955–84 students came from all over the world to study with Francis and Edith Schaeffer in the little Swiss village of Huémoz at a place they affectionately called “L’Abri,” which is a French word that means “shelter.” Under the tutelage of Francis and Edith Schaffer, L’Abri students learned about the reasonableness of the Christian faith and how it connects with culture. Students gained a biblical worldview to see the Lordship of Christ in all of life.
L’Abri was a unique living-learning community. It was never a formal school or church. Instead, it was a community of people who were free to come and go as they wished. Some students stayed for only a few days, but others stayed for decades.
L’Abri was a unique living-learning community. It was never a formal school or church. Instead, it was a community of people who were free to come and go as they wished. Some students stayed for only a few days, but others stayed for decades.
A fascinating discovery has been made about Francis Schaeffer’s educational ministry at L’Abri. In a study of formerstudents (n=30) all of them (100 percent) mentioned the use of questions as integral to their learning experience under the Schaeffers (Rasmussen 156). Every single student interviewed spoke positively about the use of questions at L’Abri.
No questions were off-limits to students at L’Abri.
One participant in the study recalled, “No person was catalogued as unworthy. No questions called stupid or silly” (Rasmussen 158). No questions were off-limits to students at L’Abri. A recurring theme was “honest answers to honest questions.” Speaking of Schaeffer, one former student said, “He never said you must believe these questions are resolved. He was quite the other way around. What you believe should be the consequence of weighing the different options before coming to your conclusion.” Another student said, “Francis Schaeffer honored questions. He encouraged questions. If you did not have questions, he would raise them himself.” Another student said, “No question was ruled out of bounds. Every question was honored” (Rasmussen 158).
Christian Education in a Time of Doubt Francis Schaeffer taught in a time of doubt, during the difficult days of the sixties and seventies. Lovingly and with wisdom, Schaffer engaged students who had “checked out” from formal education and church involvement.
Lovingly and with wisdom, Schaffer engaged students who had “checked out” from formal education and church involvement.
It is easy to see the similarity with the current situation. Young people of our churches still have questions today. But what happens if they do not ask their questions and find answers at church?
They leave. Many leaders today lament the exit of young people from the community of faith. Myriad studies now give statistical data to what was once merely anecdotal observations made in certain places of worship around the country.
- Smith and Denton (2005) cite religious skepticism as the number one reason (32 percent) for this mass departure of young people from the church (89).
- Today, nearly four in ten (39 percent) young adults (ages 18–29) are religiously unaffiliated—three times the unaffiliated rate (13 percent) among seniors (ages 65 and older) (Jones, Cox, Cooper, and Lienesch 3).
- A strong majority of young adults, 79 percent of those 18 to 29 years of age who become religiously unaffiliated, reported making this choice during their adolescent and teen years (Jones, Cox, Cooper, and Lienesch 6).
I have spent nearly thirty years in Christian education as a pastor and as a classroom teacher and administrator at a Christian high school, and now I serve as a professor at a Christian university. All my experience has convinced me that the Schaeffers were on to something very good that we should attempt to replicate in our ministry contexts. If we want to reach this generation, we need to ask students good questions, and we need to create settings where we encourage them to ask their questions.
Four Questions Christian Educators Can Ask Their Students
Why not create learning environments where questions are encouraged? I believe the church needs to create places like L’Abri (remember, “a shelter”) for people of every age, not just the young, to ask their questions. There are some simple and practical things we can do to move in this direction. With some intentionality we can do the same things the Schaeffers did at L’Abri for nearly thirty years. Here are four questions the Schaeffers asked:
1. What is your story? (personal) When visitors came to L’Abri, they experienced Edith Schaeffer’s world-class hospitality. Edith had a custom of introducing everyone around the table to the newcomer. The personal question, “What is your story?” gave those around the table the rare opportunity to glimpse the lives of one another.
2. What do you think about that? (thoughtful) After reading a portion of an article out loud, Francis Schaeffer would simply ask, “What do you think about that?” Just asking the question primed students to formulate their thoughts. The discussion that followed was often a profound combination of faith, reason, and culture.
3. What should we talk about? (open-ended) Over time the Schaeffers had so shaped the L’Abri culture that students looked forward to the Saturday night question-and-answer times at Farel House. Dozens of students gathered around the fireplace for two-hour sessions. Clearly, this was the teaching environment where Francis shined brightest. After a few comments, he kicked the session off by asking, “What should we talk about?”
4. How did you come to your conclusion? (worldview) Francis Schaeffer taught students the Bible and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Often, he did so by challenging false premises and conclusions. Asking students, “How did you come to your conclusion?” helped them work through their own reasoning process and make improvements.
Six Steps to Help Students Ask Their Questions
If the church needs to create places where people are encouraged to ask questions, we need practical steps to do so. Thankfully, the Schaeffers’ ministry at L’Abri offers a workable model. Here are six practical steps you can take to encourage your students to ask questions. Whether you are a classroom teacher, pastor, youth minister, small group leader, parent, employer, or some other type of teacher, you can use these practical tips to create a learning environment that encourages student-generated questions.
1. Redirect students when they ridicule others for their questions. Francis Schaeffer carefully managed the learning experience of his students. Because he suffered from learning disabilities himself and had experienced a prolonged time of profound doubt in his life, Francis possessed sensitivity to snickers and mocking. He effectively dealt with those types of distractions. His reward was a place where students continually asked questions.
2. Give full attention to students so you can truly understand their questions. Many students at L’Abri described listening as one of Schaeffer’s greatest gifts (Duriez 107). Some said it was as if the room changed so that nothing else existed to Francis except the student he was talking with. He made each person feel listened to and appreciated.
3. Allot significant time to the question-and-answer endeavor. Francis and Edith Schaffer loved to talk with people. They had meals together with students and dedicated at least one night a week to answering student-generated questions. Students could count on significant and regular times to ask their questions.
4. Use current events to stimulate student-generated questions. The Schaeffers along with other teachers at L’Abri used examples from culture to get students thinking. Whether it was theology, music, art, or some other topic, when students were exposed to something new, inevitably they had questions.
5. Relate questions to the Christian worldview through current events and issues. One of the most interesting aspects of the L’Abri experience was the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ in all of life. As believers took “captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5), they learned to see that all of life is all for Jesus. All the instructors at L’Abri answered questions in a way that showed relevant connections between every human endeavor and the truth of the gospel.
6. Connect questions to a larger overarching framework. Sometimes Francis Schaeffer would give a very long answer to a question posed by a student. It took time to carefully tie his response to the bigger picture of a biblical worldview. Instead of being perceived as long-winded, Schaeffer was loved. His students appreciated the time the teacher took to thoroughly answer their questions.
Great Teachers and Great Students Learning Together
Parents are teachers. So are youth ministers and pastors. Of course, we are thankful for classroom teachers and instructional leaders in our schools. But when you really think about it, we are all teachers in one way or another, aren’t we? We are teachers every single time we help people understand themselves, the Lord, and creation.
The use of questions can enhance any educational experience. Francis Schaeffer’s use of questions can help us in our Christian education contexts today. We need to ask questions of our students. We also need to encourage them to ask their questions. Questions help struggling students clarify their own thoughts. Questions challenge excelling students broaden their understanding. And hopefully, when they are asked and answered, questions connect doubting students with a caring community that will help them find their answers in Jesus Christ.
Works Cited
Duriez, Colin. Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life. Crossway Books, 2008.
Jones, Robert, Daneil Cox, Betsy, Cooper, and Rachel Lienesch. Exodus: Why Americans Are Leaving Religion—And Why They’re Unlikely to Come Back. Public Religion Research Institute, 2016.
Rasmussen, Adam. Francis Schaeffer and Educational Ministries at L’Abri: A Historical-Conceptual Study with New Qualitative Research. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019.
Smith, Christian, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Adam Rasmussen teaches students to flourish under the Lordship of Christ in all of life as they grow in their understanding of faith, reason, and culture within a biblical worldview. He is the associate professor of humanities at Arizona Christian University. His PhD in educational studies is from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University.
