Good Questions to Ask a Pastor About God
Questions for a pastor about God: what sensing God's presence is actually like for them, how they hold suffering alongside a loving God, what they do with difficult passages, where doubt fits, what they think happens after death, and what they say to people the church has hurt.
The questions
Open any question for the note
When you say you sense God's presence, what is that actually like for you?
Why ask it
Asking for description rather than doctrine gets past the vocabulary. Some pastors describe something felt, others describe almost nothing and rely on practice instead, and knowing which you are talking to changes how you hear every later answer.
What do you say to someone who prays and hears nothing back?
Why ask it
A pastor who has sat with people in that position will not reach for a formula. Watch for whether silence is treated as the person's failure, which is the answer most likely to do harm to someone already struggling.
How has your picture of God changed since you started in ministry?
Why ask it
Change here is a sign of a faith that has met real situations. It also gives you permission to have your own understanding move, which is often what someone asking these questions actually needs to hear.
How do you hold together a loving God and a child with cancer?
Why ask it
The oldest question in theology, and the speed of the answer matters. A quick, tidy resolution usually means the question has been handled in the abstract, while a slower answer that admits it stays unresolved tends to come from someone who has been at the bedside.
What do you do with parts of the Bible that seem to contradict each other?
Why ask it
You are asking about method, not about a verse. Answers range from harmonising everything to reading different texts as different kinds of writing, and the choice shapes everything they teach.
Which passage about God do you find hardest to preach?
Why ask it
Naming a text they struggle with is a fair test of candour, and the specific passage tells you where the pressure sits in their theology. An answer that no passage is difficult is worth noting.
Where does doubt fit in a healthy faith?
Why ask it
The distinction to listen for is between doubt as a stage to be got through and doubt as a permanent companion. A pastor who treats questions as a threat is not someone to bring your hardest ones to.
How do you tell the difference between God's guidance and your own preference?
Why ask it
This is the practical heart of discernment and it is where a great deal of harm gets done. Useful answers include checks outside themselves: counsel from others, time, scripture, and whether the outcome is one they wanted anyway.
How do you square God's judgment with God's mercy?
Why ask it
The balance they strike here will predict what they say about sin, forgiveness, and who is in or out. An answer that collapses one side entirely into the other is usually a clue about the tradition rather than about the text.
What difference does it make in practice that people are made in God's image?
Why ask it
Abstract doctrine, concrete consequences. Look for whether it extends to people they disagree with, people outside the church, and people the congregation finds difficult, because that is where the idea either does work or does not.
What do you think happens when someone dies?
Why ask it
Ask it plainly and expect a careful answer, since pastors know how often this question is being asked by someone recently bereaved. Note whether they distinguish what their tradition teaches from what they personally hold.
Do you believe God still heals people, and what have you seen?
Why ask it
The follow-up is the important half. Look for honesty about the times nothing happened, because a pastor who only recounts successes is not someone to trust with a serious illness in your family.
What do you make of scientific accounts of how the world began?
Why ask it
The answer tells you whether the church treats enquiry as a threat, which matters if you or your children will be asking questions there. Positions vary widely within every tradition, so ask rather than assume.
Is God's character the same in the Old Testament and the New?
Why ask it
A common stumbling block for readers, and the answer reveals how they handle the violent passages. Watch for whether they acknowledge the difficulty before explaining it.
How do you understand the Trinity without turning it into a puzzle?
Why ask it
Asking for it in plain words is a reasonable test of whether they can teach. Analogies all break down at some point, and a pastor who says which one and where is more useful than one with a neat diagram.
What does being saved actually mean in your tradition?
Why ask it
Answers differ sharply between traditions on whether this is a moment, a process, or a belonging. Ask what it does not mean as well, since that is often where the practical difference shows up.
What do you say about people of other faiths, or none?
Why ask it
This determines a great deal about how a congregation treats family members, neighbours, and newcomers. Listen for whether the answer describes respect in practice or only a position on final destinations.
Have you been through a season when God felt absent, and what did you do?
Why ask it
A pastor willing to say yes makes it possible for you to say it too. What they did in that time, often keeping ordinary practices without any accompanying feeling, is more practically useful than any theology of dryness.
What do you say to someone the church has hurt?
Why ask it
Listen for whether the answer includes any acknowledgement of fault by the institution, and whether it moves too quickly to forgiveness. Rushing that step, particularly where there was abuse of power, is a serious warning sign.
What do you still not understand about God?
Why ask it
A closing question that either opens the conversation up or closes it. Certainty on every point, from someone whose job is to sit with people in the worst weeks of their lives, is worth thinking about carefully.
Having This Conversation Well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting it up
Say what prompted the question
A pastor will answer differently, and better, if they know whether you are grieving, deciding something, considering faith for the first time, or simply curious. Without that context most will default to a general answer pitched at nobody in particular.
Ask for a set time, not a doorway conversation
Sunday morning is the worst window, since they are working. A scheduled half hour midweek gets you a different quality of attention, and it lets them think about anything you send ahead.
Pick three questions, not twenty
These questions open up rather than resolve, and following one of them down two or three levels will teach you more than covering the whole list. Let the conversation go where the first honest answer points.
Hearing the answer clearly
- Ask whether you are hearing their own view or their tradition's teaching. The two often differ, and most pastors will tell you when asked.
- Ask what someone in another Christian tradition would say to the same question. The contrast makes the answer legible.
- If a term is unfamiliar, stop and ask. Nodding through the vocabulary is how these conversations become useless.
- Notice the difference between an answer that has been lived and one that has been read. The first usually includes a person, a hospital, or a year.
Where these conversations stall
- Questions asked to win rather than to understand. Most pastors recognise the shape of them immediately and become careful.
- Expecting certainty on every point. Anyone honest about suffering and prayer will have places where they say they do not know.
- Treating the pastor as the tradition. One minister's view on hell or healing is not the whole church's position.
- Arguing with an answer before it is finished. Ask the follow-up question first.
If you are asking because something has happened
- Say so early, even briefly. It changes what a good answer looks like and prevents the conversation being pitched as a seminar.
- It is reasonable to say that you do not want an explanation right now, only company. Most pastors would rather be told that than guess.
- Ask what they can and cannot keep confidential before you tell them something you would not want repeated.
- A pastor is not a physician or a therapist. If the situation involves illness, mental health, or safety, ask who else they would point you to.