Deep Questions to Ask a Christian Guy
For women getting to know a Christian man, and for a friend or a men's group that wants more than a surface conversation. The best questions to ask Christian men are the ones a memorised verse cannot answer, so these 56 ask for the example. They run in six groups, in the order trust allows, from his story and daily faith through doubt, work and money, and marriage, to what comes next.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
His story
How did you come to faith, and who was around when it happened?
Why ask it
Ask about the people and the story changes. A conversion account with nobody else in it is often one he has told many times; naming who was there brings back detail he has not rehearsed.
Were you raised in church, and when did the faith become yours and not your parents'?
Why ask it
A boy who grows up in a pew usually has a later moment, at a camp, at university or after a bad year, when he decided for himself. If he cannot find one, ask what would be different about him if his family had never gone.
Who showed you what a Christian man looks like, and what did he do that stuck?
Why ask it
Expect a grandfather, a youth leader, a coach or a boss, and expect the memory to be small: how the man spoke to his wife, or how he behaved when he was wrong. A man with nobody to name has been working it out from sermons, which is harder.
What did you believe at eighteen that you have since let go of?
Why ask it
What gets dropped is usually a rule about music, alcohol or who counts as a real Christian. The reason it went shows how he changes his mind, so ask whether a person or a passage did it.
Was there a stretch when you walked away or only went through the motions, and what brought you back?
Why ask it
Most long faith stories have a cold middle. Whether he tells it with shame, as a joke or as plain history shows how he treats his own failures. If he says there never was one, take him at his word and ask what kept it warm.
Which church have you belonged to longest, and why did you stay?
Why ask it
Staying is the informative part. You hear whether it was the teaching, the people, habit or not wanting to upset his mother, and whether he has ever sat under a leader he disagreed with.
Which verse or Bible story would you call yours, and when did you find it?
Why ask it
The circumstances matter more than the reference. A verse found in a hospital corridor or the week a job went is doing different work from one printed on a mug, and he will usually say which without being asked.
What would the people you grew up with be surprised to learn about your faith now?
Why ask it
Old friends hold an earlier edition of him: the loud one at youth group, or the boy who never went near a church. The surprise he names marks how far he has travelled, and in which direction.
Daily faith
What does an ordinary week of your faith look like?
Why ask it
Ask for a Tuesday, not a philosophy. Real answers include gaps and inconsistency, which is what makes them credible. A description with no gaps at all usually means he is answering the question he thinks you asked.
When do you feel closest to God?
Why ask it
Answers are frequently physical and specific: running, driving, working with his hands, singing where nobody can hear him. Wherever it is, that is the place for your next conversation, if it has room for two.
How has your prayer changed since you were a teenager?
Why ask it
'Describe your prayer life' gets a report, and this gets a comparison, which is easier to give. The direction of change is the information: shorter, blunter, more silence, more complaint, less often. Each of those points to a different relationship with God right now.
What are you reading in the Bible at the moment?
Why ask it
'At the moment' leaves room for the honest answer, which may be nothing since March. If he is in a book, ask which line has stayed with him this week, since a chapter number alone says very little.
What do you pray for most often, and what have you stopped praying for?
Why ask it
The request he gave up on is the tender one: a parent's health, a brother's faith, a wife. You do not have to do anything with it. Offer to pray for it only if you will.
Do you pray with anyone, or is it something you only do alone?
Why ask it
Praying aloud beside another person is a different skill from praying, and many sincere men find it awkward. If you are dating him, his answer also tells you what to expect when you suggest praying together.
How do you spend a Sunday once church is over?
Why ask it
Church is an hour or two of it. The lunch afterwards, the nap, the match on television and the laptop opened at eight in the evening show whether he treats the day as rest, as duty or as an early start on Monday.
Have you ever tried fasting, silence or a full day of rest, and what happened?
Why ask it
First attempts tend to go badly, which makes for stories: asleep ten minutes into the silence, short-tempered by noon on a fast. If he laughs while telling it, the rest of the conversation about faith gets easier for both of you.
When does worship feel real to you, and when are you only singing the words?
Why ask it
Plenty of men stand through the songs with their hands in their pockets and meet God somewhere else entirely. Asking for both lets him say so without it sounding like a confession.
Where are you serving, and would you still do it if nobody knew?
Why ask it
The part about nobody knowing is uncomfortable and worth leaving in. Visible service is easier to keep up than the invisible kind, and his answer shows whether the role feeds something in him beyond being useful to the church.
Doubt and struggle
Which part of the Bible do you find hardest to accept?
Why ask it
This separates men who have read it from men who have absorbed a summary of it. A named passage with a described struggle is a good sign. Insisting nothing is difficult tends to mean the difficult parts have been skipped rather than settled.
When doubt comes, who do you talk to about it?
Why ask it
The answer to hope for is a name. 'I rang Tom' says more than a tidy account of how doubt ought to be handled. If there is nobody, he has been carrying it alone, and that is something to know, not to fix on the spot.
What are you still working out about what you believe?
Why ask it
Open questions are a sign of engagement rather than instability. Someone with nothing unresolved has either studied for decades or has learned to close hard questions quickly, and it is usually worth finding out which.
What has your faith cost you?
Why ask it
Faith that came with the family and the town may never have sent a bill. When it has, the cost is usually a relationship, a job, money, or being the only one in a room who would not go along. Nothing coming to mind does not make him insincere, though it shows how little has been asked of him so far.
How do you make sense of suffering that nobody can explain?
Why ask it
Watch how fast he reaches for a reason. 'I do not know, and I still pray' is a serious answer. If every hardship has become a lesson by his second sentence, think how that would sound on a day when the hardship was yours.
Have you ever been angry with God, and what did you do with it?
Why ask it
Some men were taught that this anger is a sin and will say no. Others will name the year. If he has said it aloud, in the car or in the words of a psalm, he has a way of being honest with God that will still be there the next time things go wrong.
When has the church itself let you down?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone who stays long enough has a story: a leader who fell, a split, a month when he needed help and no one called. Hear it without defending the church or piling on, then ask what made him go back the following Sunday.
When you are tempted, what do you actually do?
Why ask it
The answer worth having is a method: what he has stopped doing, who he tells, what he has taken off his phone or out of his week. Do not ask what the temptation is. He will name it if he wants you to know.
Who holds you accountable, and are you honest with them?
Why ask it
An accountability partner who is handed the edited version is a common arrangement. If he admits there is a gap between the meeting and what he says in it, that admission is worth more than the meeting, so do not punish it.
Which of your faults do you find easiest to excuse?
Why ask it
Pride, impatience, a sharp tongue, laziness dressed up as rest: the respectable ones. He picks the fault, so it never gets more personal than he chooses, and having an answer ready tells you he looks.
When you know you have wronged someone, what do you do first?
Why ask it
He can go to God about it or go to the person, and the order matters less than whether the second ever happens. Ask about the last apology he made face to face, and how long it took him to get there.
Who have you found hardest to forgive, and where is that now?
Why ask it
'Where is that now' lets him say unfinished. Forgiveness told as one decision that settled everything is commoner in testimonies than in life, and 'about two thirds of the way there' usually comes from a man who has done the work.
Work, money, people
How does your faith show up at work when nobody there shares it?
Why ask it
Few men preach at the office. Faith at work looks more like refusing to pad an invoice, staying out of it when a colleague is being taken apart, or being the one people confide in. Ask for the last time it cost him something small.
Is there a job, a deal or a promotion you turned down because of what you believe?
Why ask it
Some men have one clear story and many have none, because the test never arrived in that form. In that case ask where his line would be. You learn whether he has thought about it before he needs to.
How do you think about money, and is giving something you plan or something that happens?
Why ask it
You are not auditing him, and you need no figures. A standing amount that leaves his account every month and a note pressed into someone's hand are different habits, and either can be real. Hear too whether any debt is being faced or avoided.
How do you decide when you have enough?
Why ask it
His church has probably preached on enough and his industry never mentions it. A figure or a limit in the answer, a size of house or a number of hours, means he has done the sum. 'I trust God with it' can be peace, or can mean he has never looked.
What are you ambitious for, and how do you tell ambition from calling?
Why ask it
Christian men are often uneasy about wanting things for themselves and will dress an ambition as a calling to make it respectable. Let him give the plain version first, that he wants to be good at something. Then ask what he would do if it never came.
When did you last change your plans to help someone, and did you resent it?
Why ask it
The resentment clause keeps this from being an invitation to boast. Carrying a friend's sofa up three flights while silently counting the lost Saturday is very ordinary, and admitting it describes generosity that cost him something.
When you and another Christian disagree on something serious, what happens to the friendship?
Why ask it
Baptism, politics, women preaching: every church has a subject that can divide a table. The thing to hear is whether the other person stays a brother he disagrees with or becomes someone whose faith he doubts, since one day he will disagree with you too.
Who are your closest friends outside the faith, and what do they make of it?
Why ask it
A man whose whole circle is the church is doing nothing wrong, though it is worth knowing. If he has such friends, what they tease him about is usually an accurate outside view of how his faith comes across.
Marriage and family
What did your father teach you about faith, and what will you do differently?
Why ask it
It works whether his father was devout, absent or hostile to all of it. The second half is where to stay: one concrete change, such as praying aloud with his children or saying sorry to them, shows he has looked at the model before repeating it.
How does your family feel about your faith, and what happens at Christmas?
Why ask it
A man who believes more than his family, or less, or differently, has to manage that every December. Whether he argues, goes quiet during grace or slips out to a service alone is a preview of how he handles difference with people he loves.
Whose marriage have you watched up close and wanted to copy?
Why ask it
'They pray together' is the church answer. 'He still makes her laugh' or 'they argue and nobody leaves the room' shows what he has noticed a marriage needs, so ask what exactly he would copy.
What are you looking for in a wife, beyond her being a Christian?
Why ask it
'A godly woman' is the expected first line, and the question is built to get past it. What follows, whether humour, a mind of her own, wanting children or getting on with his mother, is the part he would actually live with.
Could you marry someone from a different church tradition, and what would need settling first?
Why ask it
The practical collisions are which church on a Sunday, how any children are baptised and who takes the wedding. If he says it would not matter, ask which of those three he would give way on.
What do you think marriage asks of a man, day to day?
Why ask it
Day to day blocks the abstract answer about leadership and headship. What you want is dishes, money, hard conversations, patience on a bad week. The distance between his theology and his examples is the thing to notice.
People say a husband should lead spiritually at home. What would you actually do?
Why ask it
The phrase is used in many churches and defined in few. Some men mean reading the Bible aloud at breakfast, some mean having the final say, and some mean being first to apologise. Find out which before either of you assumes.
How should two people decide something when they have both prayed about it and disagree?
Why ask it
Few people have an answer ready, so give him time. What matters is whether his method leaves the other person real influence or settles every deadlock in his own favour with a verse attached.
How would you feel if your wife knew the Bible better than you, or earned more?
Why ask it
This tests whether his picture of marriage depends on him being ahead. Relief, pride in her and a joke at his own expense are all good signs. A long explanation of why it would never arise is an answer too.
What has being single taught you, and what has been hard about it?
Why ask it
Churches can treat an unmarried man as a problem to be solved, and he has probably been given a great deal of advice. Ask as someone curious. If you are the woman he is seeing, expect an answer that is partly about you.
What would you want your children to have that you did not?
Why ask it
It shows what he thinks was missing without making him criticise anyone. The answer is often not spiritual at all: stability, attention, permission to ask questions, someone at their games.
What would you do if someone you loved stopped believing?
Why ask it
Asked about a friend or a brother, it is a question about loyalty, and he may carry it over to a future wife on his own. Hear whether that person stays a person to him or turns into a project.
What comes next
What do you think God made you to be good at?
Why ask it
Easier than asking about his calling, which can sound as if it needs a pulpit. Most answers are plain: fixing things, staying calm, teaching, noticing who has been left out. Ask whether anyone at church has ever put it to use.
Have you ever thought about full-time ministry or mission work, and how serious is the thought?
Why ask it
A pull towards ordination or another country, even a faint one, would move a wife and children too, so it is better heard early than discovered. If he has ruled it out, the reason he gives is often as revealing as a yes.
If money and other people's opinions were no obstacle, what would you start for your church or your town?
Why ask it
The wording removes the two reasons men give for not trying. What comes out is often specific and has been carried for years: a football team for boys without fathers, a repair workshop, an evening of help with debt. Ask what a first, small version would be.
What kind of old man do you want to be?
Why ask it
Men tend to answer with a person: a grandfather who prayed at the kitchen table, an elder still learning names at eighty. The picture he gives is the long aim behind every other answer here, and he will rarely have been asked for it.
What would you like to be asked about your faith that nobody ever asks?
Why ask it
This hands him the list. Men who are asked mostly about work and sport often have a subject waiting, whether a doubt, a grief or an idea. Whatever he names, put it straight back to him as a question.
What is God asking of you right now that you are putting off?
Why ask it
The answer tends to come quickly, which is why this belongs at the end. It is usually a conversation, an apology or a decision rather than a calling, and saying it out loud is frequently the whole of the step.
Having the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to ask
Work down the groups
The six groups are in the order trust allows. His story and Daily faith suit a first long conversation, and most of Work, money, people is easy ground too, apart from the question about giving. Doubt and struggle and Marriage and family ask more of him, so pick two or three from those once he has started telling you things you did not ask about. What comes next is where to finish, on any day.
Go first on anything hard
If you want an honest answer about doubt, temptation or money, offer yours first. Many men in church settings are used to being weighed for soundness, and making the exchange mutual from the start is the quickest way past that.
Ask while doing something else
These land better on a drive or a walk than across a table. Side by side removes the pressure of eye contact, which matters most on the questions where the honest answer is embarrassing.
Ask for the example, not the position
When an answer arrives as theology, ask what that looked like the last time it came up. The gap between the stated principle and the recent example is the most useful thing this list produces.
Save the hard ones for later
Temptation, accountability, the fault he excuses, how he gives and what he is putting off need existing trust. Asked early they feel like screening; asked once you know each other they are the questions that actually matter.
Who is asking changes the list
If you are dating him
Everything under Marriage and family will sound like a question about the two of you, however you word it. That is fine once you are both thinking that way and heavy in the first month. Until then, stay in the first two groups and let him raise marriage himself.
If you are his friend
A friend can ask the Doubt and struggle questions sooner than a girlfriend can, because nothing rides on the answer. Choose one, ask it on a drive or over a job you are doing together, and tell him your own answer before the subject changes.
In a men's group
In a small group or at a men's breakfast, one question is enough for an evening: let each man answer in turn, with no comment or advice from the others until everyone has spoken. Start a new group on His story or the work questions, and agree aloud that what is said stays in the room before you try accountability or temptation.
If you do not share his faith
Say so at the start and ask from curiosity. Most of the list still works, and some of it works better, because he cannot answer in shorthand. Leave out the questions that only make sense between two believers, such as praying together or leading spiritually at home. If you are dating him, the one about marrying someone from another tradition is really about you, so ask it that way once things are serious.
What goes wrong
Letting spiritual talk stand in for knowing him
Conversations about faith can create closeness quickly without covering how he handles conflict, stress, family or being bored. Keep the ordinary subjects moving at the same pace.
Correcting instead of asking
If his position on roles, money or a passage differs from yours, ask how he got there before you argue. You learn more from his reasoning than from his conclusion, and the conversation survives to continue.
Taking fluency as depth
Men who have grown up in church can answer any of these smoothly. The follow-up question about a specific recent instance is what distinguishes practised language from lived practice.
Ignoring how he speaks about women
You will hear this in the answers about marriage, decisions and his father rather than in anything he says directly. Pay attention to whether the woman in his examples has views, or only a role.
Follow-ups worth having ready
- When did that last come up?
- Who else knows about that?
- What did you actually do, step by step?
- What would you do differently now?
- Is that something you would want me to ask you about again?