Still on the hunt for a church in New Jersey. This week it seems the big takeaway from worship service was that they wish they were in Oregon.

When visiting new communities, especially churches, one of the American (US) common questions in the greeting and rapport building part of a conversation is the question: “So, where are you from?”

As a third culture kid this question has always been difficult to answer in a low-key way. Where am I from? Too much exoticism in the answer and the conversation gets either superficial or too deep. Also if our past doesn’t matter to Jesus should it matter to us? I mean it’s not that Jesus wasn’t concerned with the past of the people he engaged with, rather the past didn’t define the relationship. Often as Americans though we do let this information index our understanding of the people we meet. As Americans we understand this propensity and then craft our response to impact the indexing or framing of our history in the minds of the people we meet.

What is the class of questions which focus on the now, and forward rather than contextualizing humans in the past? And then what sub-class of questions can be more amicable to posturing the hearts of people meet with Jesus?

So what are some other possible discovery questions to ask? Maybe, “So, what brings you here today?” Or maybe “what makes you excited to meet Jesus today?”