If you’re looking at this…
…it’s because I think you are uniquely gifted to give me feedback on a ministry offer I’m developing. The ‘ask’ is the time it’d take for you to review and tell me what you think. If you can’t or don’t want to, no worries.
To be sure, what follows is a) work-in-progress and b) brief — I’m not citing the volumes of research that lead me to this. Please holler if I can clarify OR if it’d be easier to give feedback by talking rather than writing.
unless I’m missing something, the need is huge
All Christians are called to ‘be prepared to give a reason for the hope they have and to do so with gentleness and respect’ (1 Pe 3:15). But when it comes to resources in this discipline of apologetics, there is a lot of information, but far less in the way of application.
A best-selling book in the business world is Exactly What To Say (Phil Jones), but the world of equipping Christians has nothing like it. The (rightfully) popular book Tactics (Greg Koukl) is an excellent tome, but there’s still a gap in one significant area: knowing the ‘bottom line’ exact words to use in response to specific situations and objections.
If my analysis is correct, many (most?) Christians are just regular people who often leave the conversations to the ‘real’ experts. In other words, they don’t speak up. But I think we could change that for potentially millions of them.
So to meet the need…
The problem isn’t the availability of information, it’s the format and delivery. The format needs to be training oriented, and the delivery needs to be (largely) “just in time.”
The idea: Create bite-sized, self-study lessons/lesson plans that enable practicing highly-specific talking points (“what to say”).
The work: This “equipping” is different in that it curates the excellent work of other apologists and experts and adds the lesson plan (examples below).
The model: In the truest sense of ministry, these would be available for free (albeit perhaps with a suggested donation).
The topics: There is further research to be done here. Many topics we know instinctively, but if the objective is helping people engage where they’re at, the topics will necessarily be not just Bible or theology, but cultural apologetics.