Christian Apologetics Standup Program

"Churches have an obligation to equip their congregations to answer the questions that inevitably arise from living in a post-Christian society. Both young people and adults are subject to a constant barrage of secular and pagan ideas.

Churches, schools, and families must take the responsibility for providing cogent and compelling answers."

Finding Truth, by Nancy Pearcey

Who Am I?

I am a Christian apologist passionate about helping other ministries, especially through research and general consulting services, and mentoring others through their journey in apologetics. I'm developing Sudoku Apologetics and my current research focus is Progressive Christianity. For my full bio, click here.

What is CAPS?

The Christian Apologetics Standup Program, or CAPS, is designed to equip, in a rather short time period, church lay leaders to be able to field questions or doubts from their community and to start study groups to help the church better understand the faith they confess.

Over six months we'll go through six books and six in depth, focused live Zoom meetings driven around not just understanding the book, but understanding how to use it and how to teach it.

Why is this important?

According to the latest American Worldview Inventory Survey, only about 6% of professing Christians and 37% of pastors have biblical worldviews. And no, that's not "a Baptist" or "a Catholic" worldview. That's things like "do you agree that Jesus is the only way" worldview. And consider what scholar J P Moreland has to say:

"In a recent Barna poll, researchers tried to see why Millennials... are abandoning the church and the faith. They identified six reasons for the exodus: (1) The church is overprotective and fails to expose people to anti-Christian ideas. (2) The church’s teaching is shallow. (3) The church is antagonistic to science and fails to help believers interact with scientific claims. (4) The church treats sexuality simplistically and judgmentally. (5) The church makes exclusivist claims. (6) The church is dismissive of doubters.

Note that every single reason involves a failure to engage the life of the mind and employ apologetics to answer people’s questions. Last spring, I received an email from someone I did not know. The gentleman shared that he and a few others were working with about twenty-five Millennials. Some were atheists, but most were Christians on a razor’s edge in abandoning Christianity. When they shared their doubts in church, they were either dismissed (e.g., stop over-thinking things and get into the Word) or given weak answers. He asked me if I would come to his home and have a question-and-answer time with the group. I happily agreed, and the evening consisted of two and a half hours of question-and-answer with about twenty-five people. After our time, several shared with me that their faith had been restored by the evening."

J. P. Moreland

In Cultural Apologetics, by Paul Gould

Why am I passionate about this?

I've attended dozens of churches over the years, and unfortunately, the majority of them don't have anywhere the church members can go to where they can get explanations to their faith questions. At the same time, I see so many anti-Christian groups providing very well-designed and engaging content that's creating a lot of opportunity for doubt.

While I know faithful pastors do want to help with these questions, they usually end up busy with counseling, administration or sermon prep. I want to help pastors by equipping their members to be ready with answers and explanations for the one faith given to us.

Enter the apologetics lay leader: able to help field those questions and train others to support their pastors to equip the local church for the good works prepared for them.

Okay, give me the details

So, here's what I'm offering: if you have an interest in the deeper questions and want to help others (or you have someone in your church you want to sponsor), but don't know where to go or think you need seminary to become capable, I want to help raise you up. For six months, I'll work with you through six books that cover Christlike behavior, over 100 common questions, false teachings, and Christian living; pour my experience in dealing with challenges to Christianity, both from inside and outside of the faith; and prepare you to be a resource for your community. I want to help raise up a generation of Question Takers, ready to help their local church. I want to help raise up people who are trained and ready for hard questions, able to answer with grace and confidence. I want to raise up church members who are leading study and Q&A groups and being active in training others.

I want to take you through six books over six months with dedicated support and monthly Zoom calls, designed specifically to build your confidence and competence to start helping others.

This program is definitely NOT the end goal, but it is a great stepping stone in preparation towards further studies and ministry.

What will we be going through?

That's a great question!

Tactics, by Greg Koukl

This is a great book that covers Christian behavior, how to have charitable discussions, and how to reasonably handle objections.

Keeping Your Kids on God's Side, by Natasha Crain
Talking With Your Kids About God, by Natasha Crain
Talking With Your Kids About Jesus, by Natasha Crain

These three books cover, between them, 100 common questions asked about the faith and are a great introduction to many of the challenges the world presents.

Another Gospel, by Alisa Childers

Through Alisa's story, we learn about false teachers within the church, and see how to identify them.

How Now Shall We Live, by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey

Through stories and cultural analysis, Chuck and Nancy prepare us for life as Christians, not just theologically, but also practically and effectively.

If you want to be notified for the next CAPS session, please sign up for the Newsletter.

What about other programs?

Now, I do want to be upfront: this isn't the only option available for something like this, but I believe it's a great choice in many cases.

Seminary.

Description: a formal university.
Cost: upwards of $10,000 per year, usually.
Time commitment: multiple hours every week.
Program Length: usually not less than 3 years.
My position: Seminary is usually the best choice as it is the most thorough and tested, but also the expensive, both in time and money. If you're able to go, do so!

Colson Fellows

Description: an intensive Christian leader program run by the Colson Center.
Cost: ~$1000
Time commitment: around 30 minutes a day.
Program Length: 10 months.
My position: I wish that every Christian would go through Colson Fellows. It is absolutely amazing! However, it only runs once a year.

CAPS

Description: a six month lay training program.
Cost: $100/month or $500/up front
Time commitment: around 10 minutes per day.
Program Length: 6 months
My position: This is a great choice to raise up lay leaders and prepare them for immediate use in the church and future training.