Excuse me for a moment my dear apologetic friends and let me quote one of my favorite sayings on leadership; “A leader is best when people barely know he exists.” Now before you guys go googling and find that I quoted from a Taoist philosopher and send me hate mail, let the proverb sink in. For those of you who want to see apologetic training in your local church or community, you must either lead, or pray for leadership. If you desire to lead, remember that first and foremost you are not in this for your own glory. I will reiterate what I just stated with a biblical proverb (this time for emphasis), “The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.” (NIV). See, that carries a bit more weight doesn’t it?

We in the apologetic third column (as Greg Koukl likes to describe it) know what it is like to be disappointed when it comes to local church training. We desire to see and show brothers and sisters in Christ what we discovered for ourselves: Christian Apologetics is incredibly empowering both evangelistically and devotionally. It is frustrating when you know you have good evidence for the Christian worldview yet the evangelical church almost refuses to take notice. Of course, my friends, we all see it coming. We see the tide turning one church and community at a time. We have at our fingertips remarkable materials and speakers that when utilized correctly can equip believers and make them effective ambassadors for the faith. One of the ways we can add to the movement in our local communities and churches is through apologetic events. I have personally organized five or six events to this point and I have more coming in the near future. These events range from small to large churches and from local community settings to state-wide events. I am starting to understand where these apologetic events are useful in terms of our goal of equipping saints to defend the Christian faith. Yet, before I go further, I want you all to remember my earlier announcement: if you must lead something, do so with a humble spirit and do it all for HIS glory!.

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How do you pull off a big apologetics event? That's a question I get asked a lot by people who are looking to get their churches exposed to apologetics on a larger scale. It's one thing to get invited to speak alongside big names like J.P. Moreland and Greg Koukl, but it's another thing to actually put the event together. I know, 'cause I've done both.

In this guest post, I'll explain how I partnered with a large church, an apologetics organization and Biola University to bring the first-ever apologetics conference to Rocklin, California. I'll also share the results, what I learned, and the advice I'd give to anyone who's interested in doing something like this at their church.

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In the previous essay series “How to Get Apologetics in Your Church,” I talked about how there are many possibilities and paths to take to get an apologetics ministry started in your local congregation. There is no hard-and-fast formula or rule, but rather the process depends on a lot of factors, not the least of which are your own interests and how open and receptive your church is to the apologetic enterprise. My own experience began with formal training through Biola University’s MA in Christian Apologetics program, which helped prepare me for teaching opportunities in both a Sunday school class and small group setting in my local church. For this essay, I’d like to take a just a few moments to relate some lessons I have learned so far and to give some advice to those just starting out in their own endeavors.

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I receive a handful of emails a year from people who are interested in apologetics, recognize its importance, but struggle to have it seen the same way in their local congregations. Many of these people find me through my ministry's online apologetics academy, which is specifically geared towards 'lay' apologists. It is very often the case that apologetics is a recent discovery of theirs that has profoundly helped them, and they are shocked that others do not have the same perspective. This is, of course, after they ponder why it took them this long to hear about apologetics in the first place.

Most of the time, the obstacle is simply a lack of enthusiasm. Occasionally, it is outright hostility. Sometimes a lack of enthusiasm, especially among the staff and clergy, is a mask for deeper opposition. It would be wise to have some deliberate conversations to determine what the real hindrance to apologetics within the congregation really is.

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Incorporating apologetics as a seminal role in the ministry of your church may not be the easiest task. I had a teaching pastor internship in the summer of 2008 with my hometown Independent Baptist church in Richmond, VA. I entered my internship during my junior year as an undergraduate with the support of the two pastors I was working with, the senior pastor and the youth pastor. I was given the task of starting a college ministry from scratch and doing what I could to ensure that the ministry would persevere when I left. Most of the students were coming out of the senior high youth group; so what better way to deepen and strengthen their faith than through apologetics?

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“Introducing a strong and aggressive apologetics program at our church was one of the single best decisions I have made in my ministry.”

That is a pretty strong statement for a pastor to make about any ministry or program his church has implemented, but I made the statement and I wholeheartedly stand by it. By creating an “atmosphere of apologetics,” we have challenged people within the church to dig deep into their faith and to question if what they believe is really true or not. One of the mottos that has become a mainstay in our church is “Questions are a good thing.” What we have found is there are many people that feel churches and/or pastors really do not like people to question the things they are teaching. We have created a culture in which people are comfortable knowing that questions can be asked and our faith will stand firm against any question.

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There is a difficulty in implementing apologetics into our churches. This difficulty arises from the notion that apologetics has no real practical value; that apologetics is employed only by scholars in their ivory towers—who think themselves wise—which is warned against multiple times in the Bible (e.g., Proverbs 26:12). This attitude is a serious problem and it must be dealt with. The best way to debunk this myth is for Christians to get out (literally) and show that this is not true. Some may argue from the Bible the necessity of apologetics in our church, but as James says, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do” (James 2:18b). Therefore, we must go out to the frontlines of this spiritual war and show that the proof is in the pudding.

I started an apologetics discussion group on my college campus to extinguish this problem. This was a weekly event where I took my group to evangelize for an hour or so, and then had everyone rendezvous, with visitors, at a specific place where I would give a brief ten to fifteen-minute lesson where we would get into the Word and talk about an issue such as the existence of an afterlife, the existence of God, the problem of evil, religious pluralism, a difficult passage in the Old Testament, and a variety of apologetically themed topics.

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The following is a summary of how I started an apologetics ministry at West Huntsville Baptist Church. Instead of including advice and lessons learned at the end, I included them as they fit in the story. I’ve also included extra details to show that things don’t always go as planned and the need to be flexible.

I approached my pastor in the fall of 2010 about offering “The Truth Project” to small groups at the church. The Truth Project (TTP) is a systematic study of the Christian Worldview that shows the Bible applies to all areas of life. It helps Christians know why they believe what they believe, both for basic doctrine (who is God, inerrancy of Scripture, sin, the trinity, etc) and practical worldview (role of government, family structure, ethics, employer-employee relations, etc). It was developed by Focus on the Family and is a 13-week, DVD-based, small group curriculum.

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I recently had the opportunity to meet with an atheist relative and share with him some of the reasons that I had decided to become a follower of Christ 10 years ago. [1] The conversation was enjoyable and thought-provoking. Upon reflection, one particularly interesting part of the conversation was when I shared my conviction that the Bible encourages and models critical thinking and defending one’s beliefs with reason and argument. I shared the biblical directive for the Christian to “…always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you…” [1 Peter 3:15]. Moreover, the Bible models the Christian “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” [2 Cor. 10:5] and instructs us to “…examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good” [1 Thess. 5:21]. Further, throughout the Old and New Testament, we see apologetics used and modeled by various figures; most notably Jesus and His apostles. You the reader may not be surprised by these facts; however, my atheist friend surely was! He seemed to marvel at the idea that the Bible actually taught some of the things I mentioned. He seemed to have been under the false, but widely believed, impression that "faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." [2] He said at one point, “Most of my friends who are Christians haven’t even looked into what they believe as much as I have.” He is not alone.

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by Ron Pantalena

Our apologetics ministry has been in existence for 11 years. I was a seminary students studying for an MA in Apologetics from Southern Evangelical Seminary and felt that there needed to be application in the local church. So I approached the person who oversaw the ministries in our church with the idea of starting an apologetics ministry. After several meetings where other like-minded people were identified, we wrote an interim mission statement.

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by Randall Chase

When I speak on the topic of Apologetics and designing an apologetics program I always try to implement a few key foundations that the student can take away with them. The four keys that I have seen to be most successful are:

1. Relationship building
2. Don’t speak beyond your knowledge base
3. Always be willing to learn
4. Listen first, respond second

Point One: Remember true relationship building is going to have the greatest lasting impact. This means that it's not about how well you argue a point if the person that you're speaking to doesn't respect you as an individual enough to receive what you're saying. While you may get the point across, chances are he will not develop a lasting, life-altering outcome. The old saying “they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care” holds true even in the world of apologetics. This is the case too in the event of large debates, where two speakers are standing in front of an audience. The two speakers must have enough respect for one another to remain calm and collected, otherwise it simply becomes an argument. Not much is usually gained through simple argument..
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by Peter S. Williams, Philosopher in Residence, Damaris Trust UK

For five years now Highfield Church Southampton has run a yearly ‘Reasonable Faith?’ apologetics course.  We have a presence on our church website (cf. www.highfield.org.uk/reasonablefaith), including a recording archive of talks going back to 2010.

We try to pitch our material to be useful both to Christians looking for a more grounded faith and for the non-Christians who come along. However abstract some of the discussions might get, we always try to tie our subjects back to the gospel and the choice facing everyone as to how they respond to Jesus.
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by Steve Schrader, Mt. Airy Bible Church

While a student at Southern Evangelical Seminary in 2001 I had a dream that one day there would be an apologetics conference in the Washington DC area. A couple years later I had a dream that one day a well-known apologist would speak at my home church, Mt. Airy Bible Church (MABC). Today I can report that God has shown me how small my dreams were. As of February 2012, Mt. Airy Bible Church, in the small town of Mt. Airy, MD (pop. 9,000) has hosted the following world class apologists (some multiple times): Norman Geisler (6X); Craig Hazen (3X); Greg Koukl (3X); Frank Turek (2X); Brett Kunkle; Ergun Caner; Gary Habermas; Greg Ganssle; John Mark Reynolds; Joseph Holden; J. P. Moreland; Nabeel Qureshi; Ron Rhodes; Scott Klusendorf and Sean McDowell.

It all began during a couple difficult witnessing encounters in 1997. While working as a vice-president in a telecommunications business I learned the hard way that apologetics and evangelism go hand-inhand. I had simultaneously run into a hard-core, angry, irrational atheist and a very polite, very rational agnostic and learned quickly that I either needed to get some answers or stop sharing my faith. I chose to get some answers.
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