Fun Questions to Ask Your Church Leadership Team
Twenty questions for a leadership dinner, a small group evening or a coffee with your pastor. They ask about the funny things that happen on a Sunday, how leaders pray and rest when nobody is watching, and what they wish the congregation understood.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What's the funniest thing that's ever happened during a service?
Why ask it
The safest possible opener, and every church leader has three of these. Microphone failures, a toddler at the pulpit, a baptism that went sideways. It also signals early that you are not here to raise a complaint.
What's your role on a Sunday that nobody in the pews knows about?
Why ask it
Congregations see the thirty minutes on the platform and none of the hours around it: chairs, sound cables, a difficult phone call at 7am. The answer usually reveals how much of church work is logistics.
What's the strangest thing you've been asked to bless, pray over or attend?
Why ask it
Pastors get asked for everything: a new tractor, a fantasy football league, a dog. It is a story question rather than a theology question, so it stays light while showing how oddly varied the job is.
Which part of the church calendar do you love, and which one exhausts you?
Why ask it
The second half is where the honesty is. Christmas and Easter are the peaks for a congregation and often the hardest weeks for the people running them, and hearing that changes how a volunteer offers help.
What passage do you keep coming back to, and has that changed over the years?
Why ask it
The follow-up matters more than the verse. A passage that has stayed constant for twenty years and one that replaced an earlier favorite tell different stories, and the change usually has an event behind it.
What's a passage you find genuinely difficult?
Why ask it
Braver than asking for a favorite, and the answer signals whether this is a leader who can sit with an unresolved question. If they hand you a tidy explanation instead, that is an answer too.
Where do you feel closest to God when you're not at church?
Why ask it
Separates the professional setting from the personal one, which leaders can lose track of. Answers tend to be specific and physical: a garden, a drive, a swim, an early hour before the house wakes.
What does your own prayer life look like on a busy week?
Why ask it
The qualifier keeps it honest and lets them describe something short and interrupted rather than an ideal. It is also a relief for anyone in the room who assumes leaders manage an hour of stillness daily.
Who taught you how to lead, and what did you copy from them?
Why ask it
Shifts credit to a mentor, often someone from a previous church who never gets mentioned. The specific copied habit is more useful than the name: how they ran a meeting, how they visited the sick.
What did you think this job would be, before you started doing it?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone in ministry expected more teaching and got more administration, conflict mediation and building maintenance. It is a fair question because it invites honesty without inviting complaint.
What's the most creative act of service you've seen someone in this church do?
Why ask it
Points the answer at the congregation rather than the leader, which they will usually welcome. It also surfaces quiet volunteers by name, and those names are useful to know.
What request from a member has stayed with you?
Why ask it
Deliberately open, so they can choose something they are free to share. Leaders hold a great deal in confidence, and a general answer here is appropriate rather than evasive. Do not press for detail.
What's a tradition here you'd protect, and one you'd happily retire?
Why ask it
Pairs affection with candor, and the retirement half is the interesting one. It rarely gets asked because it sounds like criticism, but framed as a pair it gives permission to say the annual thing that nobody enjoys any more.
What would you do with the building on a Tuesday, if resources were not a factor?
Why ask it
Better than asking about their vision, because a specific empty day and a specific room produce a concrete answer. It also tends to reveal a need in the neighborhood they have already noticed.
How do you rest, and does it actually work?
Why ask it
The second half stops the polite answer. Ministry rest is often theoretical, and a leader admitting that their day off gets eaten every week is telling you something the congregation should probably act on.
What's the hardest part of leading people you also worship alongside?
Why ask it
Names a real tension of the role: the pastoral relationship and the friendship in the same room. Only ask this once trust is established, and accept a short answer without pushing.
How do you encourage someone in the middle of something you cannot fix?
Why ask it
Asks for method rather than sentiment, and the answer is usually practical: show up, say little, keep coming back. Useful for anyone in the room who has been avoiding a difficult visit.
What has changed in how you understand God since you started leading?
Why ask it
Set late, because it is the most searching question here. It asks for movement rather than doctrine, and a leader who has genuinely changed will name what caused it, often a hard season in the church.
What do you wish the congregation understood about this job?
Why ask it
A rare invitation to be plain, and the answer is often something practical rather than emotional: how far ahead planning happens, how much conflict they absorb, how few people volunteer twice.
What could someone like me actually take off your plate?
Why ask it
Closes on something you can act on rather than another reflection. Ask it directly and be prepared for a real task. If they demur, offer two specific options and let them choose one.
Talking With Church Leaders, Not At Them
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Pick the Setting Deliberately
Not in the ten minutes after a service
That window belongs to whoever needs pastoral care that morning, and leaders are running on adrenaline and half a conversation with four other people. Ask for a coffee during the week instead.
Keep the harder questions to a small table
The questions about rest, about a difficult passage and about leading friends need two or three people, not a room. In a larger group, stay with the Sunday stories, the traditions and the service question.
Say plainly that this is not a complaint
Leaders learn to hear any request for a private conversation as the start of a problem. One sentence at the top, saying you are just curious about their experience, removes a real burden.
Ask the whole team, not only the pastor
Elders, worship leaders, youth workers, treasurers and administrators do very different jobs and have very different stories. The administrator usually has the funniest answer about the building.
What to Leave Out
- Salary, housing arrangements, and how the church spends its money. Those go through the proper governance route, not a friendly chat.
- Anything that asks them to break confidence about a member, a family or a pastoral situation.
- Doctrinal tests dressed as curiosity, where you already know the answer you want.
- Questions about another church, a former leader, or a departure the congregation is still processing.
- Their spouse and children's faith or behavior. Ministry families are asked this constantly and it lands badly.
- Using a fun question to open a grievance about music, service length or a decision you disagreed with.
- Asking whether they ever doubt, in front of an audience. If they want to say it, they will pick the moment.
After They Answer
Take the practical answer seriously
If the answer to what they wish people understood is about volunteers not returning, or planning happening months ahead, that is an actionable request. Following up on it a week later is worth more than the conversation itself.
Do not offer solutions to the exhausting parts
When a leader admits a season wears them out, the instinct is to suggest a fix. Most have heard the suggestion. Asking what would genuinely help, and then doing that one thing, is the useful response.
Keep what you hear where you heard it
Candid answers about tiredness or a difficult passage travel fast in a congregation and can be repeated as concern. Assume anything past the light questions is not yours to pass on.