several of you have asked me to post the 10 questions i used during my sabbatical. these were given to me by my close friend and advisor (and the interim COO at YS), mark dowds. his instructions to me were to take one question a day, in order, and prayerfully consider it while walking (not sitting) for one hour. then stop and journal. i made it through the whole list two times, and enjoyed the process of returning to the questions the 2nd time, as progress had been made, or the question had a different spin for me after journaling other stuff. anyhow, here they are:
Where is my life going?
What do I want life to be like in 10 years (remove all fantasy and projection of anything material from your thoughts and get to the substance of life experience)?
What might God be trying to teach me?
Am I growing spiritually? Meditate on the fruit of the spirit (do I love more? am I more kind? etc.).
What moments in life have been the most pleasurable and God honoring? Revisist these times and reexperience them in your body.
What am I most afraid of and what can I discover about myself?
What changes am I going to make in life to be healthier in a holistic manner?
What can I do to relinquish more control in life in order to become more dependant on God for outcome?
What opportunities might this season be presenting me that I am not seeing?
If I was to make the gutsiest choice that could benefit my life and family more what would that choice be?
Great questions Mark. Thanks for posting them.
Sounds great, I would like to use these questions on a retreat sometime. I hope you don’t mind if I yoink them do you?
of course not, erik — go for it.
it’d be great to have a question like that in each of the YS updates. IMHO.
And answered possibly by YS staffers or others or youthworkers on where their journey is. Tough questions. No easy answers. Can I use these Marko?
these questions remind me of these wesley holy club questions that i frequent:
Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
Am I honest in all my acts and words, or do I exaggerate?
Do I confidentially pass on to another what was told to me in confidence?
Can I be trusted?
Am I a slave to dress, friends, work, or habits?
Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self justifying?
Did the Bible live in me today?
Do I give it time to speak to me everyday?
Am I enjoying prayer?
When did I last speak to someone else about my faith?
Do I pray about the money I spend?
Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
Do I disobey God in anything?
Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscious is uneasy?
Am I defeated in any part of my life?
Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy, or distrustful?
How do I spend my spare time?
Am I proud?
Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
Do I grumble or complain constantly?
Is Christ real to me?
I echo the thanks for sharing!
cool questions, denise — only problem for me would be that those are all yes/no questions. in order to reflect at a deeper level, i need (maybe it’s just me) the open-terrain offered by open-ended questions.
yes, gman (and everyone else), feel free to use these.
These questions are excellent. I don’t know if I’m able to get space to focus on all of them at once right now, but I may borrow them to work on one at a time!
Ten questions for Marko’s daughter (12):
1.What are my passions?
2.What are my talents?
3.What are my spiritual gifts?
4.How might I combine these three attributes into a kingdom project?
5.What kingdom resources are available to complete my project?
6.Can I be access these kingdom resources through prayer?
7.Who should I collaborate with on this project that has complementary passions, talents and spiritual gifts?
8.Who can I ask to mentor me as an expert in my kingdom project?
9.Is this project about obedience or success?
10.But if I obey and still fail will I really learn more than if I succeed?
Dad, Show me from your experience!
Write your ten questions for 12, 18 and 22 year old students assuming that they might differ from mine based upon your worldview. In my first blog regarding Marko’s daughter, I neglected to include the paragraph in quotation marks below. I also woke up this morning and thought that when one seriously invests in a teen through the first three questions, the remaining questions might follow one of several different threads. These questions should be designed for some self analysis but ultimately directed toward their role in fulfilling God’s “Original Commission” in Genesis 1 to “…multiple, fill, subdue and rule.”
Ten questions were based on the following assumption:
“Based upon the assumption that your daughter has a relationship with the Father (www.spiritual-benchmarks.com/pdf/one with the father.pdf ) as well as with Christ (there can be a practical difference), are these questions that she and other middle school teens should be asking? As they create a life plan for high school that will provide a place to stand (self worth), dignity and even empowerment to transform their high school world, they need your wisdom. This is a one or two year long process.”