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Links Get Involved Glossary Leadership Endorsements Taped messages of the EAN Budapest Conference Online
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have Dr. Bill Craig or Dr. David Cook in your town to make a presentation or answer questions. Now they are! We are excited to offer to you the lectures and lecture notes from the EAN conference in Budapest May 2002 on line. You can listen to these lectures and view their outlines HERE These lectures are also available in audio or CD format from The Audio Partnership for a reasonable fee, P.O. Box 36618, London, SE1 1XR, United Kingdom. Contact: info@tapemodern.org.uk
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We are very excited about what God is doing in Europe in the area of apologetics. You will find more information about some of this in the History link and the Newsletter link. If you have suggestions concerning the content or format of the EAN web site, please contact us. A Forum to Train Evangelical Leaders in Europe Sponsored
by the The 2003 annual Meeting of the European Apologetics Network will be held in Sopron, Hungary in May in conjunction with the European Leadership Forum. In the midst of modern Europe's relativistic and pluralistic fog, a clear biblical vision is desperately needed. The goal of the European Leadership Forum is to strengthen evangelical Christianity in Europe by providing biblical, intellectual, and spiritual resources to feed and encourage Christian leaders. In addition, the European Leadership Forum seeks to equip local churches as living, witnessing communities. For more information go to http://euroleadership.org
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Dr.
Lars Dahle is the Academic Dean of |
Confident Christianity Do you ever feel that your evangelism skills could be honed? Do you long to get the gospel message through to your friends but struggle to communicate? Or perhaps you worry about the difficult questions that might get thrown at you should you share your faith. If you can identify with any of these feelings, or similar ones, then worry not! Help is at hand in the shape of Christian Medical Fellowship's Confident Christianity evangelism training course. This tried, tested and popular day conference began in 1989 and since then has been run at scores of venues up and down the United Kingdom. Hundreds of students have been encouraged, equipped and enthused to communicate their faith more effectively both on and off campus. Every three years Confident Christianity has a nationwide tour and the next one runs from October to March this year (see below). All EAN members can sign up and take this class if they are going to be in the UK sometime during the next 8 months. EAN leadership plans to offer this very course to individuals across Europe. To do this, we need to find sponsors who first experience the course and see its potential in their local setting. Thus the first step in the process is for EAN member to attend a CMF Confident Christianity course and then seek to sponsor the same in their locality. If you are planning to travel to the UK in the next 8 months we would strongly encourage you to take in the training. The
course So what is Confident Christianity? It is a 10am-5pm day conference run by experienced trainers in several modules. It's interactive, fun and above all highly relevant. One of the most important requirements to sharing the gospel is knowing what it is! Yet it's easy to spend time talking about peripheral issues instead of what's really important. The `What is the gospel?' module looks at apostolic sermons in Acts to tease out the essential requirements of a good presentation. But once we know all that, how many of us still find ourselves fumbling around, using ‘Christianese’ language that non-Christians don't understand, or rambling when we should be getting to the point? The section on `A gospel outline' uses a simple method (God, man, God, what if I do, what if I don't?) to help us remember the key facts and talk briefly or at length depending on the situation. Skills are immediately put into practice as students are given two minutes to convince their friends before nuclear disaster wipes them out (OK, so the last bit doesn't really happen!). Dialogue is an important concept to be grasped. So many evangelistic talks give little opportunity to raise questions afterwards, but the apostolic method was to do evangelism in a language people understood, in an environment they felt comfortable and with the opportunity for discussion. This is explored using the excellent example of the early disciples. Perhaps one of the most paralysing fears that stops us from sharing our faith is the idea that our friends will be full of impossible questions that we can't even begin to answer. It's a comforting fact to know that most of these questions fall into a few categories that get repeated time and again, such as `is Jesus the only way to God?', `why do the innocent suffer?', or `isn't the Bible full of errors?'. These are known as the `Seven Deadly Questions' and learning a basic response to each goes an awfully long way towards allaying our fears. After all, if I went into an exam knowing what the questions would be, I would make sure I had done my homework, then lighten up and enjoy myself! Hence part of the day is spent going through the Seven Deadly Questions, followed by role plays with the trainers, who get to have a bit of fun playing the agnostic! Getting
practical Confident Christianity is not about dry theory, but about helping you put essential skills into practice so your friends can hear and respond to the gospel. As well as the role plays, there is a session about putting on evangelistic events that are tailored to non-Christians, such as dialogue suppers, where they can enjoy good food and the chance to ask any questions, with non-Christians outnumbering Christians! The day is a great preparation for a CU mission or other evangelistic outreach. Participants will receive the comprehensive Confident Christianity manual and an excellent evangelistic booklet, The Greatest Person, whilst copies of Bernard Palmer's very useful book Cure for Life will be on sale at discount prices. Spread
the word To
ask questions about the course write to students@cmf.org.uk For detailed information look online at
www.cmf.org.uk/evang/conf/intro.htm
What are you waiting for? Confident
Christianity 2002-2003 tour dates • 26 October - Belfast • 2 November – Sheffield • 9 November - Oxford • 16 November - Leeds • 23 November - Newcastle • 30 November - Bristol • 18 January - London • 25 January - Glasgow, Plymouth • 22 February - Edinburgh, Leicester • 1 March - Manchester • 8 March - Southampton • 15 March - Cardiff Beginning Rumblings of a Russian Speaking Apologetic Network
Two members of the EAN, Georges Carillet of the Crimean-American College and Sergei Golovin of the Christian Center for Science and Apologetics have since the inaugural EAN event in Budapest initiated a Russian speaking Apologetic Network. The Christian Center for Science and Apologetics (Ukraine) mails out apologetic news and papers in Russian to interested parties as well as makes them available at CCSA web site http://www.creation.crimea.com. Alongside with EAN materials translated from English (including recent lectures by Dr. Bill Craig in Budapest) it includes materials written by Russian apologists. Beyond equipping Christians with apologetic materials this new network is involved in research and strategy development for the most effective apologetics and evangelism in post-communist worldview context. Recent materials are available in English at http://www.creation.crimea.com/engl/g9.htm
The Christian Center for Science and Apologetics is offering an intensive Apologetics training course in Russian on EFFECTIVE CHRISTIAN PERSUASION. The course will be held on October 11-15, 2003 at the Black Sea coast of Crimea. For information, contact Sergei at creation@home.cris.net |