Be Prepared

I kind of shouldn't be blogging at the moment since I'm supposed to be finalising the bulletin for Sunday as well as my preparation for Bloom. But, I am prompted to make a website recommendation to whoever is reading this (and I hope many people are!).

Some months ago, I listened to a cracker of a talk given by Michael Ramsden, called Conversational Apologetics, which you can find here for free download. I can't recommend it highly enough (though you have to be prepared for a lot of fast talking in a British accent to an American audience).

Within the talk, Michael referred to the well-known verse in 1 Peter, exhorting Christian 'aliens and strangers' to 'always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.' And he said that to be prepared takes work, and often hard work. It's getting increasingly difficult to know how to answer the world's questions about life, the universe, and everything (like Jesus, God, and Christianity) in large part because of the widespread and all-pervasive post-modern way that people think about and view the world. These days truth is a relative rather than absolute commodity, and Christianity is just one amongst many 'equally valid' ways of thinking and living. This means that questions about Jesus aren't merely to do with knowing, believing, then accepting or rejecting his claims on our life, but go all the way back to -

How can you say Christianity is true, or the truth?
How can you be sure that's what Jesus meant when words (including his) change their meaning over time?
Isn't Christianity just a happy projection of your own desires for your existence into your own personal perception of your world?

It's hard to know where to begin answering such question isn't it, particularly if your own journey to Jesus completely missed these potholes. But who is going to answer your friends' and siblings' and colleagues' questions if you don't? Which other Christian is going to be prepared to give an answer if you're not?

So what Michael Ramsden exhorts is for all Christians to do the hard yakka to know and understand the questions people are asking, to know and understand the answers, and so to be prepared. This will take time and effort and will probably involve things like reading books and articles and going to seminars and talks. It's hard to do, possibly draining ('ergh, this makes my head hurt'), possibly even irritating ('ergh, I'd rather be watching TV'), but completely necessary. It's part of our calling as God's people in a world that is hostile to Him.

So praise God for fantastic resources that help us be prepared. Here's some to start with:

- this Saturday's QTC seminar with Bruce Winter
- the books in the SLE library or bookstall in the section 'Evangelism and Apologetics'
- the Michael Ramsden talk above (he teaches Apologetic method as well as exhorts it)
- the BeThinking website - full of brilliantly helpful articles on a huge range of post-modern issues

Get stuck in! And please ask us how we're going with it too. :)