Most formation closes hard: sermons land their point, lessons end with the lesson, newsletters call to action, and podcasts wrap with the takeaway. We are trained to bring things home, and most of the time that training serves us well. Audiences want clarity. Students want structure. Listeners want to feel like the time was worth their attention.

I want to suggest a small experiment. The smallest one I can think of. What would happen if, just once, you ended with an opening instead?

Ask a Question

Add one sentence at the close of the next thing that you make: a wondering question.

That is the whole experiment. One sentence, and then you listen.

Why a Wondering Question?

Genuinely offered, with no answer prepared, no agenda for where it should go, and no hidden function as a teaser or a hook, a wondering question is a real opening. When asked out loud, in front of the people you serve, you invite them to contribute to the message from their own experiences and insights in ways that you couldn’t possibly do on your own.

It’s important to avoid Socratic questions that are dressed up as wondering questions without having any of the same nature. Socratic questions are offered by an authority with the answer already in mind, like, “I wonder if the Good Samaritan is showing us who our neighbor really is.” If the asker already knows the answer and is checking if the audience does too, then that’s not wondering.

True wondering comes not from a place of authority, but of invitation. The question-asker asks a wondering question to draw the participants in and help them go further than they could ever go on their own. We are each limited to our own experiences, thoughts, and feelings. By opening up to each other’s reflections through wondering, we can go places we never would have been able to go to, left to our own devices.

Wondering changes the practitioner before it changes the audience. A wondering question is a quiet confession of the simple truth of our own limitations. For preachers, it is a confession that you do not own the text. For teachers, it is a confession that you do not own the curriculum. For people who write newsletters and produce podcasts and record videos, it is a confession that you do not own the takeaway. The meaning belongs to the community that receives it. You only get to open the space.

This goes back further than any single tradition, and it shows up most clearly in Maria Montessori’s pedagogy and in the Godly Play® method that grew from it. Both rest on a deep trust that the learner is doing real interpretive work. The teacher’s job is to make room.

Offer Space for Response

The same move travels across formation contexts. In preaching, try one wondering question at the close. You do not have to redesign your sermon form or get permission from anybody. Add a question to the end of the homily you were already going to give. Speak it. Sit with it. Let the silence happen, and see who responds.

In teaching, instead of “What did we learn today?”, end the lesson with “I wonder . . . .” After a class on the Exodus, you might close with, “I wonder what the people thought about as they walked into the sea.” The shift is small enough that no one will name it, and the room will feel it anyway. Try it at the close of a class, a unit, or even one section of a slide deck.

In written and recorded communication, close with “I am still wondering about . . . .” A newsletter reflecting on a stewardship campaign might end, “I am still wondering what it would feel like to give without counting the cost.” A podcast episode, a blog post, or a short video reflection can land the same way. Any form that has to end can end with an opening.

Many who are new to the practice ask themselves, “What if nobody responds?” The honest answer is that the question still does its work in silence. The audience metabolizes it, whether or not they speak. Some Sundays the room will be full of voices. Some Sundays it will be relatively quiet. Both are formative. When your posture genuinely shifts, response tends to follow over time. People learn the room and relax into a new kind of relationship and way of being in that space.

At St. Gregory of Nyssa, where I serve, our Living Stories Sermons are built entirely around wondering questions, and I’m constantly surprised by what people bring with them into the sermon. As a preacher who’s used to preaching from a manuscript, which eliminates any potential for surprise, I’m quite grateful for the ability to learn new things from and about my congregation during the sermon each week! Using wondering questions has led us places that I could never have gone on my own, because each of my parishioners’ experiences and reflections come from a place that is uniquely, authentically their own. And that’s such a blessing.

I wonder who in your congregation has been waiting to be asked.

Featured image is by Dean Moriarty on Pixabay