Why? 

What’s a three year old’s favourite word? It’s the same the world over, at least I think it must be, after a long train journey in Paris where ‘pourquoi?’ on repeat was the accompanying soundtrack. There is always a fine line between enjoying responding to a preschooler’s questions and running out of patience! But it is just possible that our questioning infants have something to teach us. 

I was recently asked by a church to help them to develop their children’s ministry. They had taken the time to create a list of questions they wanted the answers to: 

What’s the best curriculum for us to use? 

How do we engage the children? 

How do we get them to listen? 

These questions aren’t uncommon, and are part of the regular questions we may be asked: 

How do we get more children to come to what we’re doing? 

What should we do to attract more families? 

What’s the best way to reach teenagers? 

All common questions, but I wonder if we would be better positioned taking a leaf out of the preschooler’s book and remember to ask; why? 

Imagine working in A&E as an emergency medic (perhaps you do. If so, please forgive my clumsy descriptions here!) Every day, two or three children are being brought through your doors with fractures, sprains, bumps and bruises, all gained at the local play park. You patch them off and send them on their way. The next day, it happens again, and again, and again. What would you do? Of course, you wouldn’t keep patching them up and sending the on their way. Someone would be down to the play park to find out what was going wrong, to ask the question, ‘why?’ 

I want to suggest that it would be helpful, before we look to find out ‘what’ we need to do, or ‘how’ we should do it, that we ask the question, why? Why are the things we’re doing working or not working? Why do people respond in a particular way? If we put on an event and nobody comes along, why is that? Have we chosen the right time and place? Is there an interest in the thing we are offering? Did we advertise it well? 

There is an expression I am finding really useful right now; ‘All behaviour is communication.’ In other words, if a child is disengaged from our programmes, is that because they’re bored? Do they have other needs we aren’t meeting? The same thought can be applied to all our work. If something works or doesn’t work, those we are trying to reach are communicating with us through their response. We just need to get better at reading the signals and taking the time to ask ‘why?’