Have you ever paid much attention to the questions you ask and others ask of you, asks Yvonne Morris, Children's Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford.

What sort of questions do you enjoy responding to? What sort of questions do you hate? Do you, like me, hate it when the call centre telephonist says ‘Can you spare a couple of minutes to complete a short questionnaire?’ Since I never do, who is it who says ‘yes’ to those surveys?

How many questions do you ask a day? How many do you get asked? What’s the best question you’ve been asked this week? Are they life-giving questions or are they energy and esteem sapping? Why do adults often fear the questions that children ask, especially questions about life and faith?

Which questions help us explore the meaning of life? What type of questions enable us to grow or explore faith? Who has the key to unlock to mystery of ‘who am I?’ ‘What am I doing here?’ and ‘Where am I going?’ Are there monsters under the bed? If there are, who will protect me in the dark? How do I know if I’m strong enough to cope? What does it mean to be weak?

You’ve got to love the questions as much as the children, right? But why do adults most often ask questions about facts and figures and places and information? Are there better questions to ask that will give us and our children that wide-eyed wonder when they connect with a bigger story? Maybe they will even connect their story with God’s story and God’s with their story?

What are useful questions to help our children explore the big questions in life? I wonder if these will help?

s 1. I wonder …? (how, what, why, where, when, who, if…) s 2. What if…? (what if the ending of the story was different?) s 3. Can you tell me more about that?

How many times have you had to field an awkward silence because the children didn’t know or couldn’t guess the right answer?

What’s the difference between that and what it’s like when they are mulling over a deep wondering? Why does this type of question often feel too risky to ask?

What do ‘riskier’ questions look like in action? How about this story to finish?

“Can I join you?” I asked the boy quite prepared for him to say ‘No’ but he nodded, so I sprawled near him on the blue blanket. He looked at the toy boat for a few moments.

“I wonder what story this is” I say.

“Mmmmm, I fink it’s the one where Jesus is asleep in the boat” he replied and added a figurine of Jesus to boat (face down, of course, because he was asleep).

“So… What happened in the story?” I ask.

“Well... I think there were some disciples with him” he replied and piled in the disciples (I tried not get distracted with the concept of a ‘pile of disciples’ but it’s an image I really like).

“Wow... so... what happened next?”

“I think there was a storm” replied the boy picking up the boat and moving it up and down a little bit.

“So it wasn’t a very big storm then?”

“Oh yeah… it was huge” he went on now greatly exaggerating his movements with the boat.

“Woah!… That looks really scary. So… what happened then, did the boat sink… did they all drown?”

“No no! Jesus woke up and said ‘Peace, be still to the storm and it stopped’ he replied setting the boat back down and gently pushing it around.

“Wow… that’s amazing!” I paused and then said “I wonder if Jesus ever says those words today?”

The boy went quiet for a minute and looked thoughtful, I watched him bring the Jesus figure out of the boat and play with it in his hands.

“Sometimes I get really cross” he said in a small voice “and anger is like a storm…and when mummy and daddy say ‘calm down’ that’s like Jesus”.

We sat quietly side by side for a few moments and the companionship was very tangible. Eventually he said “I think I’d like to go and do something else now.”

“Ok” I replied gently “It’s great that Jesus can calm storms and your mum and dad can help do that too. Thanks so much for sharing with me.”

And we went our separate ways.

How old was the boy? He was around six or seven.

Did I know him? No. We’d never met before, I’d been invited to set up some prayer stations for the children at a church event.

What impact did this conversation have on me? It profoundly challenged me on the nature of ‘anger’ and ‘storm’ and what it might feel and look like for my own children when I get cross with them at home.

God spoke to me too in the boy’s words.