Objections - learn to face them head on

If you want an authentic faith, and want real confidence in your message, you should learn to face objections head on.

As you deal with the objections, rather than hiding them under the rug, you will gradually form a message that integrates well with the rest of your life and is harder for objectors to ignore.

At the very least, you should face objections because people are good at sensing when you are bluffing your way through.  Much better to know why the objection is no real challenge to your faith.

One strategy to prevent being overwhelmed by objections is to deal with one at a time.  Pick one and deal with it inside and out.  Often many other objections fall away when you do this.

Happy New Year, and God bless!

Quarreling and Patience

In your debates and arguments, remember to be polite and reasonable.

It is easy to think that the natural course of a debate or argument is to become loud and angry.  If this happens, you will be very unlikely to convince someone to adopt an alternative position - even if you are perfectly reasonable and right in your position.

Instead, we are called to be patient and gentle (though gentle does not mean you can't be firm).  It is God who will grant repentance, if that is to come.  A person will not "get it" unless His Spirit acts on them to open their eyes. And again.

Tactics, by Greg Koukl

Recently I read the book "Tactics - A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions" by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.

I summarised the book in three parts on my personal blog and it occurred to me that this is a good resource to share here.  Feel free to discuss these in the comments below.  I thoroughly recommend reading this book.  My summary is a simplified reference but there is benefit from going slowly through the entire book, especially to get dialogue of discussion examples.  Enjoy!

Part One
Part Two
Part Three