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Christian Education

Mobile Worship: The New Church Bulletin

seismic shiftToday’s Tablets = Yesterday’s Stained Glass Windows

In medieval times, when most lowly villagers could not read, the church used art and architecture to teach. Sculpture, stained windows, and elaborate murals communicated when the words of the priest failed. It would have been less expensive and more effective for priests to speak to the congregation in the language they used to barter for eggs, but that didn’t occur to anyone for a few hundred years. (Thank you Martin Luther.)

 

For centuries, priests stood before the people, spouting doctrine in Latin, while the congregation stared out the windows, which blocked their view with biblical pictures. Advertising has always been with us.

 

Fast forward to the 21st century.

 

Most people can read. In fact, most people can read English no matter where they live. (A common language changes the world of mission, but that’s a topic for another day.)

 

Modern architecture is spartan. Windows are functional and colorful, but their messages are often little more than color and geometry. We’ve come to count on literacy.

 

Nevertheless, studies show that the written word, accompanied by visuals, is 80% more effective in communication than the written word alone.

 

What an opportunity for modern worship! Today, we can use images more effectively than ever before. But will we?

 

Some churches use projection. Some flash ads about their ministry and inspirational photos before worship. Some have the order of worship projected, lessening the need for paper bulletins. But this is only the tip of the communication iceberg.

 

Soon each worshiper will have a smartphone or graphic tablet within reach.

 

The immediate reaction from worship leaders is likely to attempt to discourage electronic devices in worship. They will argue that attention should be elsewhere — not without merit. But before we dig ourselves into a hole we can’t crawl out of with this argument, let’s look at how personal media tools could enhance worship on Sunday morning and perhaps extend the worship experience beyond the sanctuary during the week.

 

Oh yes, there is another possibility. Communication with your worshiping community using these devices can begin before Sunday morning. Imagine your congregation coming to worship already primed for the topic of the day!

 

Let’s unplug our 20th century minds for a bit. OK, now take a deep breath. Plug into the 21st century.

 

Consider this.

 

If it was acceptable for worshipers to ponder theology while gazing at elaborate windows while listening to a priest drone, how can it be wrong for worshipers to glance at an equally beautiful image on their iPad—especially images chosen or created specifically to accompany the message of the day?

 

Before you announce to your congregations, “Please turn off your cell phones,” etc., think about how these modern tools might be used in worship.

 

Quit fighting it. Give your worshipers good reasons to turn their devices on. (If you don’t, they will find their own reasons.)

 

This year, beginning with Epiphany, 2×2 started a new series of worship resources. We hope to create weekly slide presentations that can complement the lectionary lessons of the day. We started with the Baptism of Our Lord. The second presentation is Jesus, Lamb of God and this week’s presentation is Jesus Calls His First Disciples.  The presentations reference each of the four lectionary readings. They include about a dozen images. They are completely editable. They can be uploaded to your parish website. They can be shared.

 

In addition, we have a presentation designed to guide discussion on mission statements.

 

Separate images can be used separately on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest. They can be shared.

 

A pastor might refer to them while preaching. They can be used for discussion groups.

 

In the first two weeks these first presentations have already been viewed online about 600 times.

 

It’s a new concept, a new tool.

 

Here’s why it is worth a try.

 

The sermon is a major expense for every congregation. This expensive message is delivered to fewer people. The expense stays the same or grows while the impact wanes. This should be a concern to every congregation.

 

The few people who attend church today live in a world in which more sensory engagement is expected. The sermon, as presented today, is going to become an increasingly archaic form of communication.

 

No wishing it weren’t so is going to change this. It’s a cultural shift. Tomorrow’s worshipers will come to church (we hope) with different expectations.

 

Today’s students do not sit in classrooms with neat rows of desks and chairs facing the front of the room. They sit in a circles with all engaged in conversation. There is less solitary homework and more group projects and hands-on learning. Worship as we know it is going to seem alien to them, especially if their parents did not bring them to church as they were growing up.

 

From the relative absence of people under 40 in worship, this is already a reality.

 

Try something new. Open your sanctuary to the world.

 

Start with this series and then create your own. Involve your members. Students are using Powerpoint in school. They’ll know what to do!

 

Here’s our current library:

Baptism of Our Lord

Jesus, Lamb of God

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

________

photo credit: gdsteam via photopin cc

 

2×2 Hosts Krypton Community College

Next Tuesday, October 1, at 7 pm, 2×2 will be one of 10,000 hosts of Krypton Community College.

This is an experiment in education organized by internationally known thinker and entrepreneur, Seth Godin.

Tuesday will be the first session of an initial four-week course. The class or session will be about an hour and will discuss a few of Seth’s writings related to education. That’s the starting point. We’ll see together where this goes.

Seth plans to follow up with more four-week courses centered on works other than his own.

2×2’s interest, of course, is in religious education or faith education, although participants in our group will be coming from many different backgrounds and will add their own experiences to the topic.

It’s high time the world of religion interacted with others!

If you are local and want to participate, you are welcome. Jot us a note and we’ll get you details. creation@dca.net

Adult Object Lesson: Luke 14:1,7-14, Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16

candy dishThe Importance of Hospitality

Today’s object is a bowl of candy—mixed hard candies would be good.

Early in the service, (not close to communion), invite your congregation to come forward and choose a piece of candy. Engage them in conversation as they do. Comment on their choices or perhaps their reluctance to choose. Suggest what you might like. Respond when they say thank you. Someone might ask for two. Allow them. Share a story about the candy. Make sure everyone is satisfied.

You can just ask everyone to file forward or you can be creative and ask certain people to choose first. Just make whatever you do complement your message.

Use the experience to talk about hospitality.

Hospitality is the common theme of today’s lessons. In the Gospel, Jesus refers to the accepted protocol of honoring guests. Hebrews commends the practice of hospitality. Proverbs teaches the recipients of hospitality a lesson in grace.

As your congregation returns to their seats to enjoy their treat, talk to them about hospitality in today’s world and in ancient Israel.

Life was a bit different then. Travel could be dangerous and unpredictable. A crippled beast of burden, lack of water, an unexpected illness or accident, sudden changes in the weather—all could be life-threatening. Hospitality was expected.

But there is another reason for hospitality. It was entertaining. There were no newspapers, radios, or TVs. People worked at home and traveled rarely. The sight of a stranger on the horizon meant an evening of good conversation, news from far away. Perhaps they would be carrying exotic things.

There was something in it for everyone.

Ask your congregation what hospitality means to them today and how they might feel if a stranger knocked on their door expecting a meal and lodging.

Meals are a common setting in scripture, culminating in the ritual that commemorates the Last Supper and Jesus’ sacrifice.

Talk about what Jesus and the disciples learned around the dinner or banquet table, preaching on the hills of Galilee, and after the Resurrection—when Jesus shares a meal in Emmaus and cooks fish on the shore as he waits for the disciples to anchor their fishing boat. Remind them of meals with tax collectors, the wedding feast in Cana, the visits with his friends in Bethany, and the hospitality he enjoyed on occasion with richer friends.

Talk about your own meal experiences. The family dinner (or the parish dinner) is where we learn to work together. The home table is where we learn manners and to carry a conversation. We learn how to treat guests. The church can be a place to learn these things, too.

There is a scene in the classic movie, To Kill a Mockingbird, where the Finch Family sits down to eat together. A young friend of Scout’s, a boy from less fortunate circumstances, is invited to join them. The boy is overwhelmed by the feast put before him. Scout responds in critical amazement as he pours a pitcher of syrup over his food. She is stopped by her father and the housekeeper and deeply embarrassed.

A similar scene might be repeated in our families as our children learn how to treat guests.

  • How do we treat the strangers in our midst? Are they made truly welcome? Truly valued? Truly equal at the table? At the Eucharist?
  • Do we engage them in conversation, eager for news from other places? Do we make our church homes places they will feel comfortable returning to?
  • Do we seek only members who can contribute or who are like us? Do we welcome those who cannot contribute in the ways we expect?
  • What might we learn from our visitors?

Hospitality must be modeled. You just did this with you candy exercise!

In practicing hospitality we are modeling godly behavior. Are we doing a good job?

photo credit: Bill on Capitol Hill via photopin cc

Adult Object Lesson: Mark 12:38-44, November 11, 2012

1 Kings 17:8-16 • Psalm 146 •
Hebrews 9:24-28 • Mark 12:38-44

Developing Spiritual Habits

Today’s object is a skill game — paddle ball (a paddle with a rubber ball attached with an elastic string) or a cup and ball toy (bilbo catcher) pictured here.

This lesson can be adapted for use with children or adults.

The lessons in today’s lectionary reference things that are habits in our lives. Habits are a demonstration of an acquired skill. There are good habits and bad habits. Everyone has them!

Practice whichever game you choose until you can paddle a good series or catch the ball with ease. You’ll want to show your skill as you start your sermon — perhaps missing and improving as you talk.

The widow in the Old Testament story is going about her daily routine, knowing that this may be the last time she ever prepares a meal for her son. Along comes Elijah and claims her last morsel. Habits can have predictable results and can be alarming.

The Psalm today is part of a series of psalms that repeat the theme of praising the Lord, beginning with the psalmist’s own voice of praise and ultimately including everything that has breath. Habits can gain momentum.

The tables are turned in the Epistle, where Jesus’ one-time sacrifice is contrasted to the habits of priests who carry the sacrificial animal blood into the temple again and again. Good habits once, but now they are unnecessary. Habits can become useless.

And finally we come to the Gospel story of the widow’s mite. Here, Jesus is watching a ritual take place. One after another, the faithful come to the temple with their offerings. The rich make quite a spectacle of their giving and they are probably accustomed to making their offerings when there is a good audience. The widow is also part of the habit of giving. It is so ingrained that she gives from the little she has with no Elijah promising her an endless supply of oil and bread. Habits can define character.

The point of the object is to demonstrate how with practice the challenges we undertake get easier and easier. Actions that we undertake as challenging become habits. It’s tough to hit or catch the ball at first. Eventually the game is conquered. Muscle memory and balance are imprinted on the brain. Like riding a bicycle, it’s not forgotten. (You could use a bicycle as your object!) Point out that the motivations for the habits also become embedded in our minds. Watch you don’t get too adept at your challenge game! You’ll risk looking like the rich givers—showing off!

You don’t have a reason for hitting or catching the ball except the satisfaction of achieving the goal. What are the motives behind your worship habits? The motives mattered more than the gift to Jesus.

Our faith lives are built on habits—habits of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, attendance and giving. We don’t even stop to think.

If this is your church’s stewardship Sunday, you might point out that the habits of giving need to be reexamined now and then—new talents and skills discovered, new obstacles overcome.

You could point out that habits in giving need updating. $5 in the offering plate in 1970 doesn’t go as far as $5 in the offering plate today.

But mostly, today’s lesson is about the overall value of practicing faith skills until they are part of our lives and we are willing to give to God without measuring the cost to ourselves.

Speaking to the Individual . . . the Way God Does!

In the Bible, God speaks mostly to individuals. When he wants to get the attention of many, He sends a messenger. A prophet. A king. His Son.

Gatherings of the faithful have been the traditional settings for explanations of God’s Word, delivered by one earthbound messenger—the preacher!

This was difficult to do more than once every seven days.

The sermon is the focal point of gatherings of the faithful. It was the most efficient way to reach people—back then.

Sermons were developed for people accustomed to listening to speakers. The pedestal was the norm. The pulpit made sense. These days, if you don’t grow up in the Church, your opportunities to listen to orators are few. As for the pulpit . . . people aren’t coming in once a week to stare at it any more. It’s easy to understand. Their listening caps are dusty!

The modern mind thinks differently. With all the information available to us, we’ve learned to process ideas in bite-sized pieces. We can wish this weren’t so, but it is. Very few people will listen to a 30-minute sermon and those that do drift in and out of attentiveness. This is natural, but listeners criticize themselves and interpret this as “they aren’t getting anything out of it.” They actually feel a little guilty and soon tend to stay away.

The Information Age brings new opportunities to connect and communicate. Pastors can be a daily presence in their congregation’s lives without anyone setting foot in a church building. They will have to learn the power of short and sweet. It will be a new expression of daily devotion. Effective communicators will hone their messages to 150 words. Pastors are in a unique position to do this with a local slant that will interest a following. BUT, they won’t be limited by geography!

This approach to preaching has more potential for growing a faith community than the dedicated weekly sermon delivered to only the most faithful.

You’ll need to tap into the web and social media, though. It’s there. It’s powerful. USE IT!

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A Pastor’s Secret Transformation Weapon

The Children’s Sermon As Catalyst

A pastor may think that a children’s sermon is a waste of time. The children might be better off somewhere else, engaged in age appropriate activities.

The children’s sermon time is so much more. It is a golden opportunity to introduce change to your congregation.

Many pastors do little more than talk at the children—a watered down “trailer” of the 20-minute version about to come.

It is painfully obvious in many cases that the pastor has little experience talking to children. All those years of seminary study so you can expound to five-year-olds!

The children’s sermon is a time when you can communicate to everyone. Many adult Christians have not been well-schooled in church matters. This is an opportunity to not only reach the children but to review basic church teachings without “talking down” to the adults.

You can experiment in the few minutes you spend with the children. Few will object. It is a chance to create the experience modern worship so desperately needs—something that people will remember and talk about when they go home and off to work.

In the business world, this is called creating a “remarkable” experience. Business people know that their best advertisers (evangelists) are customers (congregants). They aim to provide the best service possible so that the customer/congregant talks about his or her experience.

Most worship services are fairly predictable in format and even in content. They are no doubt meaningful to the congregants, but few are anything anyone will talk about during the week or even remember a few days later. (Quick! What hymns did you sing in church last week?)

More people will be tuned in for a ten-minute children’s lesson than for the full 20-minute version. Use this opportunity to create a “remarkable” experience.

This is a pastor’s opportunity to introduce change without objection. Congregants may not even notice that the praise song you taught the children last week is the sermon hymn this week.

The children’s sermon is an excellent opportunity to introduce media, teach the kids (and adults) to move in liturgical dance, practice a new prayer technique, read a story or poem, or perform a little drama. Don’t put a stopwatch on the activity. Some sermons may be five minutes long. But if people are engaged, milk the moment.

Here is a list of guidelines.

  • Don’t treat the adults as passive bystanders. Engage them in music, question and answers, or other activities. Enlist their help. They will be more likely to step up to help the children then if you asked them to do something for their peers. Ask a choir member to lead or teach a new song, for example. Or have an usher explain what happens to the coins the children put into the offering plate. It will strengthen your congregation’s sense of community.
  • Don’t be afraid of repetition. Kids love it. Adults learn from it, too.
  • Don’t be afraid of interaction. Throw out a question to the adults. Better yet, have the children ask questions. Imagine one of your older members telling the story at work: “In church yesterday, a little girl asked me a question . . . .” 

It’s all about story-telling. We all love to tell the story. The children’s sermon can be the vehicle for congregational story-telling. And this can lead to transformation.

photo credit: Jenn Durfey via photo pin cc

Adult Object Lesson: September 9, 2012

A Gospel Story for the Dogs

Mark 7:24-37

Today’s object is a dog. Use a stuffed dog, a picture of a dog, or even your own pet. You might consider using two stuffed dogs—one of pedigree to represent the Jews and one of less definite breeding to represent the Gentiles.

Mark tells two stories in this Sunday’s Gospel.

The first story tells Jesus’ hesitance to extend his message  beyond the people of Israel. Jesus uses the metaphor of children and dogs.

Is is right to take the food meant for your children and throw it to the dogs? he asks.

The Gentile women is quick-witted. Her answer impresses the great teacher. Even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs and that’s all I’m asking for — a crumb.

Jesus hears the woman and is moved. Her daughter is healed.

Point out the woman could have stormed off in a huff at being likened to a dog. Even today, as lovable as our pets are, we don’t refer to someone as a dog without expecting a fight! But this woman stood up to the miracle worker — who might have struck her down on the spot for impertinence.

You can talk a bit about the most endearing quality of dogs — their loyalty and trust — qualities that played out in today’s lesson.

The second story is about the man with a speech impediment. It, too, is a strange story. Jesus takes the man aside and heals him in private of his speech impediment. For the first time in his life this man can speak and be understood. Jesus orders the crowd, who reappear at the end of the story, to keep the report of this miracle under wraps.

You can tie the dog analogy to this second lesson. A favorite trick to teach a dog is to speak or bark upon command. It’s a lot harder to teach a dog to be quiet! Yet that is what Jesus asks of the healed man and the crowd of people.  “Do not tell anyone.”

Order your dog or dog object to not bark. If you have a group of children or youth, you might enlist them in your story-telling by asking them ahead of time to bark whenever you give the order “do not bark” or “be quiet.”

These passages remain a bit puzzling. Why was Jesus reluctant to heal a child of a non-Jew? Later, why did he charge people to do something that goes entirely against human nature?

Why do we hesitate to embrace people different from us? Why do we admire dogs of pedigree?

What stands in our way of telling the Good News?

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Adult Object Lesson: John 6

Solving the Puzzle

Today’s object lesson is a puzzle. Print the empty grid in the bulletin with the following list of Words.

  • TWO
  • FISHES
  • FIVE
  • LOAVES
  • FATHER
  • BREAD
  • OF
  • LIFE
  • ETERNAL
  • SPIRIT
  • BLOOD
  • FLESH
  • SON OF MAN
  • SPIRIT

Say something along these lines.

In your bulletin is a list of words. They are all part of the story we’ve been reading from Chapter 6 of the Book of John for the last few weeks. There is a crossword grid printed in the bulletin. While I talk to you this morning, I invite you to fit the words into the grid.

It’s a puzzle—a game.

And that’s what has been happening in our Gospel lesson for the last few weeks.

Jesus has been playing a sort of game with his disciples—a teaching game—trying to get his disciples and other followers thinking. He knows what he is up to. The scripture notes this from the start when Philip first posed the immediate problem facing them—feeding five thousand hungry people with five small loaves of bread and five fishes.

Oh, the people are hungry, are they? Well, where do you suggest we buy them food?

From that point on the whole chapter is a puzzle with lots of pieces to put together. Jesus knows the answers and he knows that the disciples aren’t yet on the same page with Him. He throws them clues left and right, accented with a touch of the supernatural here and there.

He performs the miraculous feeding. This becomes the metaphor for His object lesson. But that’s just the beginning. Strange happenings abound.

He tries to get away. The disciples leave Him behind. He appears on the water. The boat reaches its destination the minute He climbs on board. Crowds keep searching for Him. When they find Him, He keeps going back to the food metaphor.

I am the Bread of Life.

Then He starts talking about being the Son of Man and then about the Father who sent Him. Talk of the Bread of Life turns to talk of flesh and blood. A true puzzle.

During the long story, the action moves from the hillside to the desert to the sea and the opposite shore and ends with Jesus continuing the story from the temple in Capernaum.

Point out that we read this story today with the benefit of knowing what is about to happen—the Last Supper, the Betrayal, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. The puzzle solvers of Galilee were truly perplexed. A good number threw up their hands and walked away.

The chapter ends with Peter’s answer to the puzzle. As some of Jesus’ followers are fleeing, he states a simple creed. We repeat this regularly in our worship services

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

That was Peter’s answer to the puzzle. You might have the congregation repeat these words.

Here is the answer to today’s puzzle.

Creating A Church Education Environment for Youth

Our Ambassadors read a flier advertising a church’s upcoming Vacation Bible School. It advertised classes for children up to age 10. Fourth grade.

Ten!

Ten is still fairly young to be the cut off age for the type of program VBS can be.

Many adults remember very little of their childhood before the age of eight. When these children become parents in another 10 or 15 years, they will have little to remember of Bible School to want to pass on to the next generation.

When Christian education stops at age 10, you end up in a few years with a church of unknowledgeable members—and probably a lot fewer of them. These unknowledgeable members will be expected to lead the church and vote on ministry decisions both within their congregations and in the broader Christian community. Without a strong church education, they will be puppets of the strongest influencers. We will become a Church of followers.

Why is age ten the cut off?

The easiest answer is that’s the age when children become involved in other activities.

But that’s the easy answer. There are other reasons. Some of them involve the Church’s inability to serve this age group.

Admittedly, the Church competes with a broad spectrum of organized activities for older children. It would be a shame if we were abandoning our youth’s faith because we have nothing to offer.

Children, still under the influence of parents, will find time when the family sees Christian education as a priority and when the educational experience meets their developmental needs. It is not acceptable to turn our backs on youth because we don’t know how to serve them and are unwilling to find a way.

Here are the challenges:

Older children are more work! Ten or eleven is the age that children are starting to come into their own and are more difficult for inexperienced volunteer teachers to handle. If we can’t train volunteers to work with our youth, we must find them. (See VBS-Aid concept).

It’s also the age when learning must become experiential. Older children cannot be confined to classroom talk. They must be challenged.

If churches want to continue to nurture youth beyond the age of ten, they must create learning environments and experiences that meet the children where they are developmentally. 

The challenge of teaching older children requires more time. Older children must participate in a program with a sense of accomplishment or they won’t return. They must be free to experiment and discover their abilities. Middle School teaching is known for being hands on. A summer program for youth requires more than five days.

Older children need camaraderie. They want to be part of groups. Five day Bible Schools are not long enough to create a sense of community unless the activity is more intense than a classroom atmosphere usually allows.

Children this age need to be silly. We expect them to try new skills. They are self-conscious and prone to taking themselves seriously. Church education for children this age should give them a chance to laugh at themselves and just open up. Allowing them to be silly gives them a soft place to fall.

At times, children this age need to be dealt with in subdivided groups. While this goes against modern inclusive thinking, other fields are meeting the challenges of interesting youth by developing some separate programming along gender lines. One reason sports is perennially popular for this age is that sports recognizes this need. The music and art world is discovering that boys become involved with enthusiasm when they are not with girls. Ask boys this age to sing with girls and you will get very few volunteers. Allow them to sing with just boys and they sing with an energy you would never see in a mixed chorus. Here is a video posted by one proud teenage boy singer. Boys-only ballet programs are cropping up and improving enrolments. Here’s video about boy dancers. Giving girls a chance to bond as girls has similar benefits. They are maturing at a different rate and may need a forum for what’s on their minds. The challenge is to make sure that their time together is enhancing their potential not excluding them.

Programs that separate boys and girls find that when the groups merge (which should be often) there is greater involvement among both boys and girls.

Churches rarely take the time to consider educational developments like this, but there may be something for us to learn.

If we want our young people to continue their church involvement into adulthood, all congregations must address the challenge. To assume lack of interest on the part of young people without any effort to interest them is short-changing them and our future.

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Transform Your Church: Make Like a Preschooler


Where do we look for answers?Preschoolers may be your most valuable church members.

Preschoolers understand God. It comes naturally to them. A preschooler’s faith is pure. So much of religion involves the ability to embrace the imaginary, to befriend the unseen, to live day to day, trusting that all needs will be supplied.

All of this faith is wrapped up in the ability to ask questions. Simple questions. Obvious questions. Surprising questions. Questions for which adults are embarrassed to admit they don’t have sure answers.

By the time we drop out of Sunday School — and these days that’s at about age 10 — we like to think we have the answers. From that point on we avoid forums that might reveal our shortcomings. This has two results: we either become inactive or we begin to follow blindly. Who or what we follow can determine an entire congregation’s success or failure.

Some congregations look to their pastors for answers and accept decisions. This does not create healthy Christian community. Pastors change. Viewpoints change. Circumstances change. Today these changes shift with jackrabbit speed and unpredictability. Congregations must be able to ask and answer questions independently. This is a trait that must be nurtured.

How? Someone has to start — by asking questions!

Transformational change will not occur without fostering this congregational habit. Emulate your preschoolers.

There are six types of questions.

  1. Questions that clarify
    What are we asking? Why do we believe this?
    How does this relate to our faith or our lives?
  2. Questions that challenge assumptions
    Are we sure our church wants to grow? Are we ready for growth?
    What alternatives are there to the course we are about to take?
    Is this really what we want? Is this good for us?
  3. Questions that look for reasons and evidence
    Why are we considering this?
    What brought us to this discussion?
    Has this path been followed before? With what results?
  4. Questions that shift viewpoints
    Is this the only way to look at this issue?
    How would someone with a different background view this discussion?
    What would our foreparents think? What will our children think?
    Ask, why do we think this is a good idea? Is this even necessary?
    Play “devil’s advocate.”
  5. Questions that look for implications and consequences
    Let’s say we took the actions we are proposing.
    What good or bad will come of this?
    How will it affect us? How will it affect others? How will it affect the future?
    Are the potential outcomes in line with our beliefs and desires?
  6. Questions about the question
    What is the point of this discussion?
    Why are we asking these questions?
    What are the real issues behind the questions?
    Is this something we should be considering?
    Is this important? Is this necessary?
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