5 Steps toward Preparing Yourself to Protect and Serve as a First Responder
Chapter Two
5 Steps toward Preparing Yourself to Protect and Serve as a First Responder
“Now the true soldiers of Christ must always be prepared to do battle for the truth, and must never, so far as lies with them, allow false convictions to creep in.”
Origen
“Train up a child in the way he should go—but be sure you go that way yourself.”
Charles Spurgeon
“Man down, man down! Holster your weapons!”
I knew I had been hit several times. My right arm and chest were stinging, and I could see my uniform shirt was covered in red. I was more embarrassed than injured, however.
I was a new member of SWAT and the least tenured officer on the team. Although I considered myself a good shot, my opponent was a much better, more seasoned marksman. His uniform was unblemished, while mine (including my ballistic helmet) was speckled with red paint.
We were training in an abandoned elementary school that had been scheduled for demolition. We spent weeks in the facility prior to the arrival of the bulldozers, creating training scenarios that tested our entry teams repeatedly. I can’t even remember how many mistakes I made in these sessions—many more than I care to admit, for sure. But the experience was worth it.
In the early days of training, I was continually peppered with red paint from the paintball pistols we used. The marksman playing the barricaded suspect consistently won these early battles, and I seldom hit him in return. But as the training progressed, my tactics improved, and I ultimately mastered my position on the team. The more we trained, the less I had to wash my uniforms.
Deploy, from the Latin word desplicare (meaning “to scatter”), describes the act of organizing and sending out people (or things) for a particular purpose. As Christians, God wants us to engage the culture as an act of deployment. We can do this either willingly or unwillingly. In Acts 11:19, Luke described how God used the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem to accomplish an important deployment: “Those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word.” If we aren’t willing to deploy voluntarily, God may deploy us in a more dramatic fashion.
Training is essential in law enforcement because officers deploy on a regular basis. If we could handle every call over the phone without leaving the station, none of us would need to exercise or train tactically. You don’t have to train if you have no intention of deploying. The same is true for us as Christians. Think about that for a minute. Most of us see our church buildings as places to gather on Sunday; seldom do we think of them as places to train in preparation for deployment. As long as our experience as the church is limited to meeting in a church (building), there’s little reason to engage in meaningful training. We need to rethink our role so we can rethink our response.
Their Motto Is Also Our Motto
If we are going to adopt the Los Angeles Police motto, we’ll need to understand and accept our role as servants and protectors. If what we believe about Christianity is true, it’s our obligation to serve others by sharing the truth with them. If eternity hangs in the balance and our destiny rests on the central truth claims of the Christian worldview, what kind of people would we be if we let our friends and neighbors spend their eternal lives separated from God?
Christians have a rich tradition of service, establishing hospitals, soup kitchens, and shelters for the homeless. We serve the physical needs of people in our community (by demonstrating the love of Christ) so we can meet their spiritual needs (by sharing the truth of Christ). Christians, therefore, proclaim the gospel in two distinct ways: with our words and with our actions. Our deeds of service allow us the opportunity to demonstrate the love of God as we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
Like officers, Christians are called to protect. The truth of Christianity is the cure for what’s killing all of us; it’s the very source of spiritual life. Like all important cures, the purity of Christian truth claims must be protected. A contaminated cure can be poisonous. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well (in John 4:7–30), for example, He offered her “living water.” But water is of little value if it is contaminated. In fact, contaminated water has been responsible for death since ancient times. Purity is critical to the life-giving value of water, and in a similar way, purity is critical to the life-giving claims of Christianity. If the Christian message is contaminated, distorted, or amended, it ceases to be the Christian message. Like poison, a corrupted gospel leads to death. That’s why the apostles were so adamant about our role as guardians of truth. When saying good-bye to the believers in Ephesus, Paul challenged the Ephesians to guard and protect themselves from error:
Acts 20:27–31
For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert.
Paul wasn’t writing exclusively to leaders (although he did similarly admonish Timothy as a leader in 1 Timothy 6:20–21); Paul was writing to every member of the church in Ephesus, regardless of their leadership role. Peter also understood the importance of protecting the truth. He commanded his readers to treat the truth with great respect and guard it against opposition from outside and inside the church:
While most of us, as Christians, want to be committed to the cause of Christ, commitment, by definition, is more than simply “a promise to be loyal to someone or something.” It is also “a promise to do or give something.” Our commitment must be more than intellectual or verbal. True commitment results in action.
2 Peter 3:14–18
Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Once again, Peter wasn’t writing exclusively to church leaders; he was addressing every member of the Christian family. It’s our common obligation to protect and guard the truth claims of Christianity. The Los Angeles Police motto is also our motto as Christians. We are called to serve and to protect.
Now, more than ever, we need to serve those who have not yet heard the gospel and protect those who have. The secular culture is more aggressive and the Christian culture is more vulnerable than ever before. A recent Barna Group poll revealed that only 9 percent of American adults possess a biblical worldview, acknowledging the existence of objective moral truth, asserting the accuracy of the Bible, believing in the existence of Satan, understanding the relationship between grace and “works,” affirming the sinless life of Jesus, and comprehending the classic attributes of God. Worse yet, only 19 percent of self-professing Christians were found to hold a biblical worldview. In another survey, Barna found that younger generations of Americans are less likely to believe Jesus is God, and Christians are increasingly divided about the sinless character of Jesus and the nature of salvation.
All this is happening as the church continues to teach its members as it always has. In broad sections of our country, traditional Sunday school classes and programs are still in place and an important part of church culture. Other less traditional churches have employed midweek services, small groups, life groups, home fellowship groups, cell groups, and a variety of other models to teach Christians the classic truths of Christianity. But the numbers don’t lie. Few Christians actually understand what Christianity teaches, and even fewer young Christians can articulate what they believe. All this teaching doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Maybe it’s time for a change.
Stop Teaching
I wasn’t a Christian very long before I was asked to teach my sons’ third-grade Sunday school class. I didn’t know much at the time, and I was only inches ahead of the students I taught and led every week. Fortunately, we had excellent curricula, and I learned quickly. I eventually entered Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary and earned a seminary degree. By the time I graduated, I was serving as a high school youth pastor. I’ll never forget my first year with junior and senior high schoolers. It was mostly a train wreck. I struggled to find my voice and understand my mission, and after graduating the first group of seniors, I discovered that all but one had walked away from their faith by winter break of their freshman year in college. I was shocked, and I felt like a complete failure.
In that first year, I focused on my gifting as an artist and musician rather than my skill set as a detective. I was a design major prior to entering law enforcement, and I received my master’s degree in architecture from UCLA before I entered the police academy. As a new youth pastor, I exercised this gifting and created weekly “experiences” for my students. Music, imagery, and environment were important to me as I walked through the Scripture with my group. The ministry grew quickly, and it seemed successful, at least by the metrics we often use to measure success. But once I realized our graduating seniors were no longer Christians, I knew I had to shift gears. Something had to change, and I knew precisely what it was. We needed to stop teaching.
To train is “to make proficient by instruction and practice, as in some art, profession, or work.” Training is more than mere instruction. Training involves putting instruction into practice.
In the years since making this change, I’ve given the same advice to many other youth pastors, church leaders, and parents. Stop teaching your young people. We’ve got lots of great teachers in the church and lots of concerned parents who want to teach their kids. We’ve been teaching young people for generations. But this teaching has obviously become ineffective, if the current statistics related to the departure rates of young people in their college years are even remotely accurate. We’ve been teaching, and students have been leaving. It’s time to stop teaching and start training.
Don’t get me wrong; I recognize the biblical importance of teaching. Paul, for example, affirmed the instructive value of Scripture in one of his letters to Timothy:
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction.
Paul told Timothy he should use the Scripture to teach, reprove, and correct, but he didn’t stop there. Paul identified another important use for God’s Word:
2 Timothy 3:16–17
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Paul made a distinction between teaching and training. It’s time for us to make a distinction as well. We’ve got to understand the role of teaching within the broader context of training. Teaching is focused on imparting knowledge. Training is focused on preparing for a challenge (“equipping” ourselves “for every good work”). Boxers and MMA fighters train. First responders train. Military personnel train. Why? Because they’re eventually going to deploy in the ring, in the fighting cage, on the street, or on the battlefield. These people know they’re going to be challenged and tested. Unless they prepare for this inevitable reality, they’re going to get hurt.
As a young man, I was a boxing fanatic. I loved to watch the sport, and I had my favorite boxers. I noticed that even the best of these athletes gained weight, however, in between fights. Like the rest of us, they were sometimes lazy. But once a contract was signed for an upcoming fight, they got serious and started to train, especially in the weeks immediately preceding the bout. Calendared fights typically result in training, especially if you want to survive in the ring.
My son Jimmy understands this now that he’s a police officer. In his first year on the job, he started training with a well-known local jiujitsu fighter. After the initial session, he came home with a bruise on his forehead. Even though Jimmy was strong and capable, his trainer possessed specialized skills. During that first lesson, Jimmy took a beating. I saw him several weeks later and observed he still had fresh injuries on his head and neck. It didn’t look like Jimmy was improving. He was quick to tell me otherwise: “It takes him twice as long now to strangle me into submission.”
While it may not sound like much, this incremental improvement might someday save Jimmy’s life. If Jimmy ever gets in over his head in a wrestling match with a suspect, he’ll be able to hold on long enough for his backup to arrive. Sometimes just a few minutes can make all the difference in the world. Jimmy is training because he knows the battle is inevitable.
Start Training
As Christians, we’re going to face our own battles as we try to serve and protect what we believe. It’ll be even more difficult for our young people. As leaders and parents, we need to decide whether we’re going to face the challenges unprepared or train in advance. In my years preparing students, I’ve learned the difference between teaching and training. I’ve developed a simple acronym to describe the process:
T – Test
Challenge each other to expose our weaknesses.
R – Require
Expect more from each other than we sometimes think we can handle.
A – Arm
Learn the truth and how to articulate it.
I – Involve
Deploy into the battlefield of ideas.
N – Nurture
Tend to our wounds and model the nature of Jesus.
The challenges facing young Christians are simply an amplified version of the challenges facing all of us. If we hope to fulfill our duty as Christian case makers, we’ll need to rethink our approach to knowledge, information, and education, whether we are leading students, raising kids, or simply becoming better disciples. This training paradigm will prepare us to meet the challenge.
Forensic Faith Step #1:
Test Yourself and Test Those You Love
There are many ways you can test yourself from the privacy of your own home. Our Forensic Faith Readiness Review is one example. You might also try the following:
I’ve been training students for many years, and I’ve learned something you can apply to your own personal discipleship effort. Whenever I work with a youth group for an extended period of time, I begin with a test. This accomplishes two goals. First, it helps me see where specific weaknesses may be so I can focus my efforts. But more importantly, testing helps all of us understand how much we need to be trained.
My experience as a police officer demonstrated why this is so important. We have a bar in our city that is a constant source of fights and disturbances. Officers are often called to the location to handle difficult problems. It’s a perfect place to test new officers. When I was training, my field training officer (FTO) volunteered our unit for any call that was dispatched to this bar because he wanted to see if I could defend myself in a tough situation. At some point, every new officer has to be tested to see if he or she can handle a bar fight, and this bar became the perfect controlled test location. I always knew my FTO would be there to cover me if I got in over my head. He wasn’t going to let me get hurt. Sometimes I held my own; sometimes I needed his help. After a scuffle in which I didn’t fare as well as I would have liked, I understood my need for improvement and started training as a fighter and wrestler. I was determined to do better the next time. The test exposed my weakness and encouraged me to train.
That’s why I started testing Christian students in a controlled setting with role playing. If at all possible, I try to initially conceal my identity and introduce myself as the old Jim, an atheist who has come to discuss what he believes with the group. I spend as much time as possible in this first meeting presenting the case against theism calmly (but unflinchingly) to see if the students (young and old) can defend what they believe. Sadly, they are usually unable to hold their own. These first sessions are typically nerve wracking for Christians who struggle to respond to my claims. My audiences usually begin to squirm anxiously under the weight of dozens of unanswered objections. They don’t fare well in this “bar fight.” When it’s over and I finally reveal I am a Christian who has come to help train them, the relief in the room is palpable. They are delighted to see I am a Christian, even though I am obviously aware of the many objections made by atheists, and they are ready and eager to train. In this controlled environment, I’m able to reveal their weaknesses without letting them get hurt.
Like new officers, there’s a time when every Christian, young or old, must be tested. We can either seize the opportunity to test in the controlled safety of our ministries, churches, and homes, or we can lose the opportunity and allow the first test to take place in school, in the workplace, or on the streets. It’s our choice. If you want to take the next step as a Christian case maker, take a test.
I’d like to offer a simple tool to help you see if you’re “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you.” The Forensic Faith Readiness Review is a simple seven-question survey. It’s downloadable from our website as a printable PDF file, and it’s designed to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a Christian case maker. If you don’t have access to the website or a printer, you can still evaluate yourself in the following manner:
1. Start with seven lined pieces of notebook paper.
2. Write the following questions at the top of each page (one per page). These questions are designed to reflect the most common questions and objections offered by skeptics:
a. Why are you a Christian? (Be honest about this response, in spite of what we’ve already discussed in the preface of this book.)
b. What evidence do you have to believe God exists?
c. Why do you trust what the Bible says about Jesus?
d. Why would God send people to hell just because they don’t believe in Jesus?
e. If God is all-loving and all-powerful, why is there so much evil in the world?
f. If God is the creator of everything, who created God?
g. Why would a loving God command the total destruction of all of Israel’s enemies (including their children and livestock)?
3. Take three minutes to answer each question before moving on to the next page. Set a timer and do your best to respect these time limits. The entire review should take only twenty-one minutes. Remember, in a real conversation, you may not get much more time than this review allows.
4. After answering the questions, make your own assessment about the answers you’ve given. Be honest with yourself. Was it difficult to think of a response for each question? Did you struggle to articulate an answer without simply relying on your own subjective experience? While there aren’t necessarily “right” or “wrong” answers for each question, some responses are definitely more persuasive than others. Do you think unbelievers would be satisfied with your answers, especially if they asked for objective evidence to support your claims? For a point of comparison, you can refer to the articles linked in the Forensic Faith Readiness Review at ForensicFaithBook.com. (You can also find a set of these article links in the Evidence Locker Section at the end of this book.)
If you’re a parent, you can give an abbreviated version of this test to your own children. We’ve arranged these questions in order of difficulty. Older students are certainly capable of completing the review just as it has been written, but you can shorten the number of questions to suit your own situation. If you think your elementary-aged students are up to it, you might ask them to answer the first three questions, for example, allowing five minutes for each answer. Better yet, ask these questions in an informal way during your next dinner conversation or trip in the car.
This brief Readiness Review will likely open your eyes to your own competency and to the readiness of the young people in your family. Don’t be discouraged if you have difficulty answering the questions or are unhappy with the quality of your responses. That’s the whole purpose of the review: to form a starting point from which you can begin to grow and improve. These are the kinds of questions skeptics ask and the kinds of questions young Christians struggle to answer. Many young people, when asked why they left the church in their college years, cited the difficulty they had in finding someone in their Christian community or family who could adequately answer similar objections. We need to prepare ourselves with the answers. If we want to grow as believers and make a difference in the lives of young Christians, we need to stop teaching and start training. It all starts with a test.
Forensic Faith Step #2:
Raise the Bar and Surprise Yourself
How dedicated have you been to preparing yourself as a Christian? What activities and interests have you been placing in front of your effort to make the case for what you believe? Examine the use of your discretionary time. What kinds of sacrifices will you have to make in order to study what you believe?
If you’re like me, you’ve invested many hours training for your profession, preparing for your educational degree, exercising for your personal fitness goals, or even practicing for your favorite hobby. Have you invested the same kind of energy in understanding and defending what you believe as a Christian? We’re capable of much more than we typically require of ourselves as believers. The young people in our midst are also far more capable than we typically believe. Many are already engaged in difficult courses of study as they attempt to qualify for universities around the country. Some are taking “honors” courses and “advanced placement” classes. They’re willing to work hard when they think there is a need or a tangible goal. Yet when it comes to our expectations in church, we seldom require or challenge ourselves to engage the material with passion, and we rarely express the need for training or set a goal. Once we’ve tested ourselves and our students, we’ll understand our inadequacies and our need for improvement, and when this is clear, we’ll be more than willing to do whatever it takes to improve our abilities. We need to raise the bar and require more than ever before.
I’ve learned to push myself, and I’ve learned to teach beyond what others may think young Christians can handle. In fact, I teach the material from my two previous books, Cold-Case Christianity and God’s Crime Scene, in precisely the same manner whether I’m teaching a room full of adults or a room full of junior highers. It’s the same information-packed presentation, regardless of age group. I never underestimate the ability of my audience, even if they are very young; they can handle whatever I’m teaching if they understand what’s at stake.
When I first began my tenure as a youth pastor, my sons and daughters were twelve, ten, five, and four years old. None of them were old enough to be in my ministry, but they chose to sit with me each week as I taught high school students. I was amazed to find how much they understood by the time they were in high school themselves. Even though I was teaching my youth group at a college level, my own elementary-aged children were exposed to everything I said. I was aiming at high school students with high-caliber college-level ammunition, and my elementary children were fortunate to be caught in the crossfire. They benefited from ricochet apologetics.
I want to encourage you to raise the bar and require more of yourself and of those you are discipling. I know it sounds intimidating, but like any worthy, challenging task, it can be accomplished incrementally if you understand the need and are willing to accept the challenge. United States Army Chief of Staff Creighton Abrams once said: “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” That’s the key to raising the bar: Set a goal and get started. Don’t expect to accomplish this overnight. Take small steps, and eventually, you’ll be a mile down the road. A year will pass whether you accept this challenge or not. If you require more of yourself and start the journey, you’ll exceed your own expectations in that same time frame. You can be a year older and equally unprepared, or a year older and a little bit wiser. Which would you prefer? So, take some time this week and stretch yourself with a book on theology, philosophy of religion, or Christian apologetics. Watch a documentary rather than a sitcom. Embrace the challenge seriously, if not obsessively. Raise the bar, and begin studying the case for Christianity.
Forensic Faith Step #3:
Arm Yourself for Battle
It would be foolish to dispatch a new police officer into the field without first providing him or her with the tools necessary to do the job. My first Sam Browne equipment belt was filled with pouches containing my handcuffs, extra pistol magazines, mace, and flashlight. There was scarcely room for my holster and baton ring, and I could barely maneuver in and out of my police unit with everything I had to carry. But I felt equipped. Better yet, my department trained me to use these tools effectively. I had great tools, and I knew how to use them.
When it comes to equipping ourselves as Christians, the truth is our most effective tool. We need to know the truth and how to use it. Before I taught my children and students the case for Christianity, I taught myself. In fact, my lengthy investigation of Christianity was the reason I became a Christian in the first place. I examined the evidence for God’s existence, the case for the reliability of the Bible, and the truth claims of the Christian worldview for months before trusting Christ as my Savior. By the time I was leading students, I understood the role this information would play in their training. I knew these truths were the tools my students would need to survive in a hostile culture. But I also knew my students would need to know how to engage the culture with these truths if they were going to be effective. I needed to give them great tools and show them how to use them.
I applied the same approach my FTOs took with me as a new officer. Training officers are tough and brutally honest. They often told me, “The more you sweat in here, the less you’ll bleed out there.” They didn’t hesitate to show me everything I might encounter in the field, and they readily critiqued my response. I take a similar approach when training myself and others to be Christian case makers. I do my best to prepare myself and those I train by engaging challenges from aggressive opponents. It isn’t enough to understand the evidence supporting our side of the argument; we need to address the claims of the opposition directly. This requires us to examine the most hostile atheistic claims we can find. When I became a youth pastor, I introduced this approach to my students. I wanted them to understand what skeptics and atheists were saying. I was determined to inoculate my students, rather than isolate them.
When it comes to Christian case making, you don’t have to possess a PhD to have a significant impact on your friends and family. Start by surrounding yourself with trustworthy investigators. (Review the list of respected authors and online ministries in the Evidence Locker section to select appropriate mentors.)
Inoculations are created from the viruses doctors are trying to defeat. Physicians expose patients to a dose of the illness so their immune systems will develop the antibodies necessary when they encounter it more robustly in the future. As I began to help my students process the claims of the culture, I prepared an inoculation that exposed them to a dose of the secular worldview. I wanted my students to encounter the claims of nonbelievers like Bart Ehrman, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Victor Stenger, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Peter Boghossian while they were still in my midst. I didn’t want their first exposure to these men (and their ideas) to be while they were in a university setting, far from a Christian response.
While there may be a number of atheist authors writing against the Christian worldview, there are even more educated, articulate Christian case makers defending the claims of Christianity. The answers are available and easier to access than ever before (refer to the Rebuttal Notes section for a sample). Christianity is experiencing a renaissance of Christian case making, due, in part, to the growing hostility expressed by the culture. When I first began to investigate the claims of Christianity, there weren’t many choices available to people who were interested in evidence. That’s not the case today. Christian case makers have emerged from every corner of our culture. There are many accomplished Christian philosophers, scientists, investigators, and authors making the case for Christianity today. I’ve written two books to help you discover and learn the truth. Cold-Case Christianity and God’s Crime Scene include lengthy bibliographies to help introduce you to reliable Christian case makers (along with the leading atheists) working in a variety of fields.
Once you’ve examined the objections to Christianity, take the time to investigate the truth. Seekers and believers who want to hear the case from a Christian perspective have lots of choices today, and most of them are free. I’ve been writing at ColdCaseChristianity.com for many years, and every article, video, and audio podcast is free to download. There are many other reliable resources on the Internet; a simple search for “Christian apologetics” will reveal thousands of pages. Never before in the history of Christianity has it been easier to investigate the truth.
When was the last time you heard what the opposition had to say? Have you been isolating yourself from opposing worldviews in an effort to live comfortably as a Christian? You’re not doing yourself any favors. It’s time to get inoculated. Don’t avoid the books, videos, or podcasts created by nonbelievers. Read what they have to say. Let their claims shake you to the core, if need be, and then begin to investigate their claims with urgency and passion. Remember, the authors of Scripture have invited us to critically examine what they’ve written, using our God-given ability to reason, test, and discern. God’s not afraid of your doubts. He’s raised an army of case makers to help you sort out the truth, and He’s called you to be part of that growing team. You’ll never be able to defend what you believe or help young believers if you haven’t armed yourself with the truth. Get busy; time is short.
Forensic Faith Step #4:
Involve Yourself and Hit the Streets
Police officers deploy into “the field” every day. We proactively deploy into our respective cities, looking for trouble before it happens. We get involved. This is the one characteristic of our work that most dictates our need for training. We train in defensive tactics, for example, because we know we’ll eventually be involved in a fight. When officers gather to train, we spend the first part of the session at the chalkboard, diagramming and illustrating the maneuvers and tactics critical to our survival. But at some point during the session, we get down on the mat with guys who really know how to wrestle. In this hands-on portion of the training, we find out who’s been paying attention and who hasn’t. Because we all know we’re eventually going to have to wrestle, we take the chalkboard sessions seriously. We know we’re going to face real challenges on the street; these difficult tests are looming on our calendar whether we like it or not. The pending challenges turn teaching into training.
In a similar way, if you want to embrace a training model in your own life as a Christian, the most important first move you can make is with a calendar. When leaders and pastors ask me how they can change the nature of their churches and youth groups, I tell them it all comes down to this: If you want to train more effectively, your calendar is more important than your study notes. You can increase your personal growth as a Christian (and any ministry in your church) overnight by simply calendaring the hands-on events designed to turn teaching into training.
Once I realized my calendar had the power to transform my Christian walk in this way, I began to schedule my own opportunities. I joined with others in street evangelism and service projects that stretched my knowledge and tested my character. I knew, in advance of these events, that I would have to prepare myself. The calendared events provided me with the incentive I needed to get off the couch and get to work. My calendar changed, and so did my trajectory as a Christian.
When I became a youth pastor, I immediately looked at the calendar I inherited. It was filled with the kinds of activities we’ve come to expect from youth ministries across the country. There were pizza parties and game nights, surf camps and lock-ins, snowboarding trips and wakeboarding events. I went along for a year until I lost that first class of seniors. I knew my calendar was part of the reason these young ex-Christians were no longer part of the church. So I changed everything.
You may not be able to join a missions trip to Berkeley or Utah, but you can calendar your own challenges:
I began to partner with Brett Kunkle from Stand to Reason (www.str.org). Brett is a professional Christian case maker, and he was once a youth pastor in Colorado. I hired him to lead my youth group on an evangelism trip to Salt Lake City, and after observing the impact the trip had on my students, I asked him to design a special missions trip to the University of California at Berkeley. Our goal was simple: develop two trips designed to turn teaching into training. Brett exceeded my expectations. We began calendaring a week in Utah and a week in Berkeley every year. These two trips required all of us to step onto the battlefield of ideas as we dialogued with Mormons on the streets of Salt Lake City and with atheists in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The first trip taught us orthodox Christian theology. Mormonism has co-opted the language of Christianity but has redefined each term. In order to speak to Latter-Day Saints believers, we had to learn how to defend classic Christian claims about the triune nature of God, the eternal deity of Jesus, the nature of grace, the role of “works” and faith, and the truth about heaven and hell. Mormons reject Christian orthodoxy in these areas, and they are typically well prepared to defend what they believe. To prepare for this trip, we role-played and spent eight weeks training prior to traveling to Salt Lake City. Once we got there, we placed ourselves in a variety of difficult evangelism scenarios. We shared our faith and engaged Mormon believers at the temple in Salt Lake City, on the campus of Brigham Young University, door to door in neighborhoods in the city of Provo, and at a festival in the city of Manti.
Our Berkeley missions trip taught us to think carefully about philosophy, science, and the evidence for Christianity. Like the Utah trip, we began by role-playing and then trained for eight weeks prior to traveling to the Bay Area. Once we got there, we met with atheist student groups on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, discussing a variety of important evidential and cultural issues related to atheism and the Christian worldview. We also invited local leading atheist thinkers and authors to present their case. These sessions were followed by a question-and-answer period. Every Berkeley trip also involved several days sharing the gospel on the campus of the university.
We took the training for these trips seriously. Our trip preparation occupied sixteen weeks of our calendar every year. That’s a serious commitment to training, and it usually wasn’t enough. These trips were daunting and difficult. We came back to our lodging each night eager to study. We were usually frustrated by our own limitations and our inability to effectively communicate what we believed, in spite of all the training we had done prior to the trip. Every night we debriefed our experience, then allowed ourselves some “free time.” Even though we could have used this time to relax, play games, or just get some sleep, we usually didn’t choose to do any of those things. Instead, we stayed up all night cramming. In all the time I’ve been a Christian, I’ve never experienced such an engaging, intense, or purposeful time as I did on those trips. When we finally got home, we were exhausted but equipped.
These battlefields brought the educational experience to life. We learned what it meant to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask[ed us] to give the reason for the hope that [we had],” and we did it “with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who [spoke] maliciously against [our] good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” We were trained to understand why we believed what we believed, and we came to truly love the people of Utah and the students at Berkeley. These difficult, taxing, labor-intensive opportunities turned teaching into training.
Forensic Faith Step #5:
Nurture Others by Demonstrating the Nature of Jesus
I’ll admit that, as a new Christian case maker, I often focused on the first part of Peter’s biblical command rather than the second. It’s sometimes easier to “give the reason for the hope [I] have” than it is to do it with “gentleness and respect,” especially when the opposition can be harsh and unloving. I’m actually embarrassed of some of my behavior on our first trips to Utah and Berkeley. I was a protective “papa bear” youth pastor, and I often reacted harshly to atheist presenters who mocked or lied to us. I was probably less than Christlike in these settings.
Peter understood the relationship between evidential confidence and Christian character when he combined these aspects of Christian case making in 1 Peter 3:15–16. Our mastery of the “reasons” we have for our “hope in Jesus” should result in an attitude of “gentleness and respect.” The more we prepare ourselves for battle, the calmer and more poised we will be in the height (and heat) of the struggle. The more “ready” we are, the more “gentle” and “respectful” we will be. If we hope to properly train ourselves to become good Christian case makers, we’re going to have to develop the evidential confidence of Jesus so we can display the assured character of Jesus. His nature will guide us as we nurture those with whom we serve.
One thing is certain: there will be times when our interactions with the unbelieving world around us will require us to nurture and care for those who are injured on the battlefield of ideas. When we got the opportunity to engage non-Christians in Utah and Berkeley, we began to appreciate what was waiting for every young Christian outside the safe, protective environment of our church family. We often encountered smart, informed nonbelievers who challenged our ideas and beliefs. Sometimes these challengers were aggressive (and even hostile). When that happened, we began to understand our role as nurturers and modelers.
As a new officer, I participated in the California Police Olympics for three years. One of the most popular sports at the games was boxing. If you’ve ever watched a boxing match, you know how important trainers and “cut-men” are in each fighter’s corner. Jacob “Stitch” Duran is a well-known cut-man who has worked in the corner of many famous boxers and mixed martial arts fighters. His job is simple. When a fighter returns to the corner at the end of a round, bleeding from an injury suffered in the past several minutes, it’s Duran’s job to stop the bleeding and get the fighter back in the fight. There are times when we also need to be “cut-men” for Christians who have been injured in the battlefield of ideas. Duran is effective because he knows how to address critical concerns quickly and return the fighter to the ring. As Christian case makers, we also need to be able to address the critical concerns of our Christian family members so we can overcome the “injuries” we may suffer in our ever more hostile culture.
Duran wouldn’t be of much use to his fighters, however, if he lacked the right tools and training. Your effectiveness as a good, nurturing “cut-man” is similarly dependent on your tools and training. You don’t have to have all the possible answers or be an expert to respond effectively. If you can simply start to make the case and know where to find the additional answers you’ll need to help others, you’ll be able to nurture people through their questions and concerns. As a parent and youth pastor, I didn’t always have all the answers, but I was familiar enough with each issue and objection to nurture my students through a crisis. Our youth ministry team faced one such crisis on our first missions trip to UC Berkeley.
We took a student, Jenna, with us on this trip. Jenna wasn’t a regular member of our group. She joined us late in the training process and missed the first two training sessions. Being new, she didn’t have close relationships with many of the students in our group. On the first night of our trip, we invited a local atheist to come in and present his case for atheism. He was particularly aggressive, and made the following statement:
Okay, students, I am going to describe an ancient deity and I want you to tell me who it is. The god I am thinking of was …
Born of a virgin, in a cave, on December 25
His birth was attended by shepherds
He was considered a great traveling teacher and master
He had twelve companions (or disciples) and promised his followers immortality
He performed miracles and sacrificed himself for world peace
He was buried in a tomb and after three days rose again
His followers celebrated this event each year at the time of his resurrection (and this date later became “Easter”)
He was called the “Good Shepherd,” was identified with both the Lamb and the Lion
Few church ministries are as short handed as youth ministries. For this reason, most youth pastors are eager to accept help from people who are willing to serve wherever needed. When I first started working with young Christians, I was simply asked to sit in with a Sunday school teacher to help in any way possible. I found that most of my time was spent answering questions. I learned how to nurture in that early classroom, and it never would have happened if I hadn’t put myself in a place where young people needed a mentor.
He was considered to be the “Way, the Truth and the Light,” the “Logos,” the “Redeemer,” the “Savior,” and the “Messiah”
His followers celebrated Sunday as his sacred day (also known as the “Lord’s Day”)
His followers celebrated a Eucharist or “Lord’s Supper”
So, students, who am I describing?
I was sitting in the back of the room, and I already knew where the speaker was trying to lead my students. Although most of them were prepared for his approach, Jenna was not.
“You’re talking about Jesus,” she said confidently.
“No, I’m not talking about Jesus at all,” the speaker responded. “I’m talking about Mithras, an ancient Persian mythological figure who preceded Jesus by four hundred years. In fact, the story of Jesus is simply a borrowed piece of mythology, stolen from other similar myths. None of the story about Jesus is true; in fact, there is no evidence to support the claim that Jesus lived at all.”
Jenna was visibly shaken. At that time, I wasn’t an expert on Mithras, but I knew enough from my reading to know the speaker was wrong about his claims. The list of similarities he offered between Mithras and Jesus were fallacious, and I knew any limited resemblance between Mithraic followers and early Christians was actually due to the borrowing on the part of Mithraic followers after they were exposed to Christianity. In addition, there is significant historical and textual evidence to support the claims of the New Testament about Jesus (as I’ve described in Cold-Case Christianity). Although I knew the truth, Jenna was unaware of the facts.
The hypocrisy of Christian believers is often cited by nonbelievers. One popular Internet meme declares, “I’ve got nothing against God; it’s His fan club I can’t stand.” Author Brennan Manning once put it this way: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” How would you respond to this common objection?
After the talk, Jenna approached me and was at the point of tears. “That was so disturbing. It really shook my confidence, if I am honest with you. I’m not even sure that I can pray tonight because now I’m not sure there’s really a God to pray to.” I’ll never forget her words. We spent the next two hours as a team, debriefing our time with the atheist and examining the evidence related to his claims. I shared what I knew about Mithras and turned to some of the texts and resources we brought on the trip to highlight the many factual errors our atheist guest had presented (since this trip, I’ve written extensively about Mithras at ColdCaseChristianity.com). As a team, we knew enough about the truth to act as Jenna’s “cut-men.” By the end of our trip, Jenna was more confident than she had ever been.
If you want to nurture those who are wounded by aggressive challengers, you’ll need to be prepared in advance. Like “Stitch” Duran, you’ll have to be ready before the battle, so you can be helpful during the battle. Duran comes to the fight prepared for the worst. He knows he can’t “ramp up” and learn how to treat the injury once the fight has started; he needs to be ready beforehand. Are you ready? Do you know enough to at least get started? When a fellow believer comes to you with his or her first doubt, unanswered challenge, or skeptical question, are you prepared with an answer or a resource? Has your preparation helped you to develop the certainty and character of Jesus? Are you able to respond with gentleness and respect? All too often, we are unable to answer critical challenges or nurture ideological injuries. I do my best to be prepared, in advance, so I can equip and nurture my injured friends and family members.
I know this sounds like a daunting task, but remember, you don’t have to become an expert to nurture and lead others. If you’re willing to improve your case-making abilities, you’ll be far more prepared next year than you are today, and even the simplest step of preparation may be enough to make an impact on the people around you. Don’t be intimidated. A little preparation is better than no preparation at all. Start now: train yourself so you can help others.
Good Christians Need to Be Great Trainers
One Sunday after writing Cold-Case Christianity, I was speaking at a church in Southern California. At the book table following one of the services, a woman approached me and asked to buy a copy of my book. She asked me to sign it for her twenty-six-year-old son. She told me her son became an atheist in college and she was hoping my book would persuade him to reconsider. I felt bad for this woman, but I knew I needed to be honest with her.
“I’ll be happy to sign a copy of my book for your son, but I bet he won’t read it.” The woman seemed surprised by my statement. “If he’s already told you he’s now an atheist, odds are good he won’t even open my book. But let me ask you a question: Years ago, when he first came home from college on winter, spring, or summer break, did he give you some reason to believe he was starting to doubt Christianity?”
“Yes, he asked a few questions. I couldn’t really answer them. I knew he was being challenged by some of his professors, but I wasn’t sure what to tell him,” she replied reluctantly.
Every officer in the state of California must continue to train on a regular basis to be certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Agencies accomplish this by calendaring regular training for their personnel. It’s expensive and time consuming, but necessary. If you want to be a competent police officer, you need to train regularly.
It was heartbreaking. “I completely understand, and I hear this from parents all over the country. When our kids start to express their doubts, we usually point them to a Christian ‘apologetics’ book for answers. That’s not actually what they want, however. When our kids share their doubts, they need to hear what we have to say about their concerns. It turns out that the first Christian ‘apologist’ our children need to hear from is us.”
I handed her a copy of my book and challenged her to accept her duty as a Christian case maker. I encouraged her to begin training, “I’ll give you a copy of Cold-Case Christianity, but you have to promise me something. I don’t want you to give this book to your son until you’ve first read it. Master the evidence I’ve described, then begin to talk to others about what you’ve learned. In fact, I want you to start to actively share your faith and plan interactions with nonbelievers. I know this sounds like a lot to ask, but if you do this, the next time you get a chance to talk to your son, you’ll be ready to answer him in a loving way, given what you know about him as your son. Is your son worth this kind of effort? You know he is.”
Now, more than ever, parents need to raise their children with a forensic faith. We need to be ready to answer their questions and raise them with the evidential confidence they will need to stand tall in the midst of the pressure they will inevitably experience in the university. Training matters.
“Muscle Memory” and Christian Case Making
Police officers understand the importance of training. In fact, training opportunities are regularly scheduled into our deployment calendar. We train every month, especially when it comes to the use of our weapons. Officers are required to visit the pistol range on a regular basis so we can qualify with our handguns and rifles. Our range masters take these opportunities to run drills in an effort to ingrain important principles. One of these exercises is known as a “failure drill.” The range master inserts a plastic “dummy round” into our handguns in a position within the magazine that is unknown to each shooter. As we begin to shoot through the exercise, each of us will eventually engage the dummy round. This plastic round will cause the weapon to misfire or jam. It’s at this moment that each shooter must employ a series of steps in order to clear the jammed dummy round. As officers, we’re familiar with the required steps because we’ve been doing this drill for many years. Repetition pays an important dividend. When our weapons fail, our prior training helps us to reflexively clear the jam and assess the weapon. In fact, we don’t even need to think about what we are doing anymore; these steps have become a part of our “muscle memory.”
When you repeatedly perform the same physical process over and over again, your actions become a matter of muscular “habit.” Your body almost seems to be working on its own, responding from muscle memory rather than reacting to mental commands. Muscle memory is important to police officers, because real gun battles are unpredictable and often involve an ammunition jam. The last thing you want in a situation like this is the mental distraction of a weapon failure. If you can relegate the resolution of this failure to muscle memory (rather than mental effort), you’re far more likely to succeed. That’s why we repeatedly conduct failure drills. These drills reveal an important principle:
When the pressure is on, we resort to our training.
Read that again. It’s an important truth. In stressful situations, it all comes down to muscle memory, and muscle memory is a product of repetitive training.
That’s why the best Christian case makers are the ones who continually engage the culture and respond to the challenges levied by unbelievers. The best case makers see each opportunity to engage others as an act of training, if nothing else. It doesn’t matter how small the opportunity. You may be in a brief one-on-one conversation with a coworker, or you may be talking with a waiter about issues in the culture; whatever the situation, the more you engage, the more you train, the more your case-making efforts will become part of your muscle memory.
If you’re eager to embrace a forensic faith, you’ll need to start by embracing your duty as a Christian case maker and dedicating yourself to training. Once you’ve taken these two steps, you’ll be ready to take the next: now it’s time to develop the investigative habits of a detective.