Three Reasons to Start with a Powerful Question

from Laura Park, Managing Director
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​Our Nested Bowls process to establish values, mission, and ends starts with a Powerful Question. We help boards determine what question, answered in conversation with the congregation, would give the board insight into a future the congregation is excited about creating together. The Art of Powerful Questions, a wonderful article by Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs, available from the World Café’s on-line store explains the qualities of effective Powerful Questions.

Why start with a Powerful Question? Three reasons:

1. Powerful Questions create space and time to consider the big picture of the church’s ministry. They lift the board’s and the congregation’s attention from the everyday and the siloed to the visionary and the whole.
2. Powerful Questions help boards lead. They help a board clarify where it needs to better understand the congregation’s values and vision. They help create space for congregants to reflect together about possibilities for the future. They help a board ground its work in the voice of the congregation and discern what’s in the best interest of the congregation as a whole.
3. Powerful Questions invite prophetic imagination. Their larger focus, their open-endedness, their meaningful topics invite the board and congregants to tap into a deeper sense of call and purpose. In the words of James Luther Adams, “each generation must anew win insight into the ambiguous nature of human existence and must give new relevance to moral and spiritual values.” Powerful Question enable that work.

You can find examples of Powerful Questions, developed from the topics that are resonant with the congregation in the current moment, in our book The Nested Bowls: The Promise and Practice of Good Governance. Or explore all the resources about good governance in the Resources section on our website.