Dear ITEM Next Gen Partners,
The two day apologetics seminar here in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe is over but it is only the beginning. We have already set up a WhatsApp group of those in attendance to carry on the training and encouragement online. This group is the second that has been set up. The first was in Rwanda last week. Rwanda is where I am headed next.
The four talks today were: Why Believe Christianity is True, How We Are to Respond to the LGBTQ Movement?, Is Christianity Just a White Man’s Religion?, Using Questions to Answer Questions.
It was a full day and we all we were on the mountain top when it ended. During the day I received written and verbalized questions. Here are the ones I remember:
· Some have said that the Bible was just a book of preferred documents that some chose because they preferred them over the others because they said what those who assembled them believed. How do you answer that? (Remember, answer a question with a question.) ANS: That’s interesting, I’ve never heard of that before. Where did you find that information? How do you know that information is accurate?
· There is a man in our church, who is married, who has stopped going to the Christian church and has gone back to a traditional religion. What should the wife do? ANS: (This is a Bible question.) From what I see in Scripture is that the only Scriptural reason to file for a divorce is unfaithfulness.
In response to my talk on responding to LGBTQ in which I talk mostly about God’s design for marriage, sex, having kids, an raising a family, someone asked:
· What about family planning? (I was assuming they were asking about contraception.) ANS: (Again, this is more doctrinal.) There are different views. At some point you may have more children than you can provide for so there might come a time that you should stop having children. But this is a topic that generates a lot of discussion.
· What is a child is born with two sex organs? How do you go about it? (Also, in response to my talk on LGBTQ.) ANS: I am not educated in that area. I know there are rare cases like this but I am not sure there is any one right answer.
· In the US, are marriages permanent of do they expire after a number of years? ANS: Divorce before 1980s was not and easy process. You needed a valid reason. Then the president signed a law legalizing no-fault divorce and that opened the door and now divorce is common place in America. But it is supposed to be a permanent arrangement, for life.
· What is the role of apologists in the church? ANS: Apologist is not an office or a special role in a church. According to 1 Pet 3:8, 15, every believer is to be prepared to defend the faith. Every time any of us answer the question of a skeptic, a doubter, or an unbeliever, we are doing apologetics. The question is, how effective are we in defending the faith?
· Can a man live without God? ANS: Some think they can but no one can live without the laws of nature, and God created those laws. So, in reality, they can’t.
· Is religion geographical? ANS: Obviously, many geographical regions seem to be dominated by one religion or another. Northern Africa is dominated by Islam. Southern Africa is dominated by Christianity. But that doesn’t mean there is a different “true” religion for each region in the world. Islam is attempting to dominate the world and we are told to go into all of the world and make disciples. And Christianity is growing in every region of the world.
I was encouraged by the way the seminar coordinator continued to divide the participants into groups to discuss what they were learning. Then each group would send a rep to take one minute to share what came from their group. Then at the very end, he had them pair up and tell each other what they are leaving with after the two days, and what they plan to do with what they have heard.
We all plan to stay in touch via WhatsApp and it will be up to me to keep feeding them with insights, encouragement, and more training on how to do apologetics, how to have conversations and answer questions with questions.
Wednesday I have an evening flight back to Harare, Zimbabwe, and Thursday I fly to Rwanda via Nairobi, Kenya (connecting flight there). I will have a similar two-day seminar there on Friday and Saturday, and was just asked to speak to a youth camp on Friday night.
Thanks for following the trip. Thanks for praying. Pray that my connections are on time Thursday. Thanks.
Here is the link to the PHOTO ALBUM to see several new pictures.
I am not sure if the email link I’ve been putting into these reports are working so if you want to reply to me, copy and paste: steve@iteministries.org into your email client.
By His grace,
Steve
CLICK HERE. to see some pictures of today’s meeting.
Click REPLY HERE to send a question or reply to me.