This evening, we will be participating in the Apologetics Canada Conference 2012. We are very excited about this event, what we will be learning, and the time we will be sharing with excellent speakers, friends, and apologetics colleagues. Since we will be running a promotion at the event, we wanted to write up an article to introduce new folks to our site. But, since this post will be a bit more personal than our About page, it might be nice for our current readers as well.
TilledSoil.org was started to fill what we believe to be a huge hole in apologetic training among Christians; the nurture of such training within our churches. In fact, we believe this to be a huge hole in education and disciple-making in general. Add in the culture in which Christians find themselves today, and this moves from important to crucial. Just read some of the comments on our About page by some of the top Christian thinkers and apologists!
This hole is represented in the graphic for this article (which matches the promo at the conference). The current state of apologetics is typically made up of conferences, books, DVDs & CDs, web sites, and podcasts. We’re not putting down these modes of education; they are excellent and we can use even more! However, the downside is that they often reach those already sold on apologetics and miss the majority of people in the pew. While this group of professional apologists and their students are doing tremendous work, there simply are not enough of us. We need to find a way to increase our numbers, exponentially. As conference speaker J. Werner Wallace has often said, we don’t need more million-dollar apologists; we need more one-dollar apologists.1 (We can use many more of both, but hopefully you see his point.)
TilledSoil.org has decided to try to focus on meeting Christians where we think we can find the most of them; our churches. We want to try and create droves of those one-dollar apologists, and hopefully some of them will also go on to become ten, one-hundred, one-thousand, and even million-dollar versions. To do this, we have designed a basic-training, of sorts, apologetics program that we can present in a day or a few sessions. The point of this isn’t to turn out fully-ready apologists, but to put the basic concepts in mind and to introduce (and provide) resources to go farther. Our experience has been that once people are exposed to Christian Apologetics (often for the first time), they hunger for more.
We also realized that most churches simply do not have the resources to provide this kind of training. Sure, they could purchase a curriculum, but without a trained apologist leading it, it will only be somewhat effective as the instruction ultimately ends up being more delivery than the full potential of teaching and training.2
We basically come into churches, alongside pastors and teachers, to provide interactive training in Christian apologetics. This begins at a ‘whet the appetite’ day course, and can transition into more in-depth training with a longer course, or training on a specific apologetic topic.
Our model:
To put trained apologists in place to support various geographical areas with long-term relationships and training.
Some of our core principals for this training and our ministry:
Hands-on – as much as possible, we strive to keep class sizes down so learners have the opportunity to interact with the instructor. We feel this is the best mode for learning, so is important whenever possible.
Inter-denominational – we recognize different groups of Christians hold various positions on various apologetic topics. We do our best to explain and interact with the various positions, even when the instructor personally disagrees. We try to balance this, however, with being true to Scripture, and not simply compromising the truth in order to be overly-ecumenical. This is a tough balancing act, and we probably won’t be able to please everyone. But, we promise we will do our best in this effort. If you read some of the articles on this site, you should get the feel for this (even more so, as we add writers who disagree). We try to fairly represent the positions, but point-out (or rule-out) views which are clearly non-Biblical.3 We might also be tough on aspects of a particular view that don’t seem quite right, even when it is the most commonly held view. The goal should always be to seek truth, but to leave room for discussion where there is disagreement in things which aren’t as certain.
Respectful – This hopefully goes without saying, but our instructors do their best to be respectful to everyone they are instructing and their views, while trying to maintain a fair and orderly environment for the other learners.
Accurate – We try really hard to present accurate information and constantly correct aspects of our curriculum and this site that we find to be in error or which could be better explained. As you read the articles here, you will often encounter updates, corrections, and clarifications. We’re not afraid to admit when we’re wrong, as we seek truth!
Integrity – It is bad enough when we fail as sinful people in our personal lives, as we all do. But, worse, is when we fail in the actions of doing Christian ministry (apologetics or otherwise). Too often, even in Christian circles, things can fall to the level of “good-ol’-boys club” politics, defaming others, or lying and deception to benefit the ministry.4 We at TilledSoil.org feel very strongly that we not fall prey to this type of behavior. We also feel we should not “aid and abet” this type of behavior when we see it taking place. This won’t always make us popular, but we believe it to be the right thing to do. And, we ask your help in this; point out our failures in this regard as we teach and write. We promise to do our best in this regard.
We need your help:
- Please keep our ministry, as well as all other ministries of the church, in your prayers.
- Please invite us to your church to assist in the advancement of apologetic training.
- If you are able to help us financially, please contact us.
- If you are an apologist who wants to help in the effort and has a broad level of apologetic training, please get in touch with us. We would like to get to know you and see if you are a good fit for what we are doing.
- And before you reach to guard your wallet, don’t worry, it’s just a catchy slogan… I know of no apologist really making millions! Professional apologists are in this because we love Christ, not to get rich. ↩
- Again, more good curriculum is certainly needed, but we really feel people learn more from an experienced teacher. That’s why people pay so much money to go to university or seminary vs. just buying some books. ↩
- Note that our instructors are allowed to favor a particular view and point out why they hold that view and feel it to be superior. ↩
- Ministries, even though Christian, are made up of sinful human beings. People are often shocked to find similar behavior in the Church as in the rest of the world. This shouldn’t shock us, but Christian ministries SHOULD work diligently to be different. ↩
I agree, and think that any church with an Education Pastor slot, and detniafely the youth pastor slot (look at the statistics of youth leaving church upon graduating HS) needs to have someone with an apologetics background fill that position. Too many churches have M.Div folks in almost all pastor positions these days, and as lauded as the M.Div programs are at just about every evangelical seminary out there, the quality of pastors and assistant pastors they have collectively produced across America is well, just look at the current state of evangelicalism and make the connections. I intentionally went for the apologetics program at Biola rather than an M.Div program anywhere so as to insure I don’t become part of the problem, but part of the solution with evangelicalism these days. As long as jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none M.Div degrees are held in such high esteem among evangelicals they NO LONGER deserve (maybe it was different thirty years ago), the same cookie-cutter people will be churned out of seminaries to lead our churches into the intellectual gutter. This may sound anecdotal, but every person I have met that got a M.Div in the last ten years from anywhere can’t really proclaim the Gospel, can’t exegete and exposit texts, and can’t answer tough questions. They just look for a post somewhere to give themselves the opportunity to spew out their versions of the five week sermon series on whatever latest relevant drivel that crosses their minds paired with three proof-texts or so. There is a correlation between the anemic modern evangelical churches and the seminary programs that put out the leaders of them armed with the M.Div as it is today.
Hello,
I agree somewhat with the spirit of what you are saying, but I’m not sure I agree with some of the details or possibly with the identification of the core problem.
Certainly the church needs more apologetics training, hence this ministry.
But, I think the church is just being kind of slow at recognizing the need and facing the reality of the situation at hand. While I’d love to see pastors get more apologetic training (even one required introduction class in the M.Div program would be a HUGE improvement!), I’m not sure that ultimately, they can spend the necessary time to specialize in the manner needed. This is especially true for solo pastors in smaller churches.
Now, why this is, is partly due to pastors having all sorts of duties dumped on them that should be lightened, at least, by elders and deacons. But, in some manner, I think a pastor has to be a jack of all trades, as you say. Hopefully, though, they WILL be a master of exegesis and proclaiming the Gospel. There, I agree, too many are not these days.
But, ultimately, the M.Div is more in reaction to what churches call for, than something seminaries are trying to push. The ‘old’ model has been the do-everything pastor, with congregants just showing up for Sunday service. The M.Div tries to meet that need (which is wanted by the congregants, remember). I agree that too much emphasis has been shifted from exegesis and preaching, but an M.Div is already one of the most demanding Masters degrees in education, period.
Education in general, is in a sorry state in our churches. I think often pastors feel trapped in trying to communicate their knowledge to this crowd of uneducated people. Where they make a mistake, I think, is in underselling the possibilities. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been in a couple churches over the years where pastors have aimed high, not for the lowest common denominator. Those churches tend to thrive, with more people than you might think rising to the occasion. I think too many pastors don’t think that is possible, or are overly concerned with the people who simply aren’t going to expend the effort necessary to learn.
And, this is where I think ministries like this one can come in. We have the specialized education and can help come along-side the pastor and other teachers in the church to bring apologetics training in. What we need is for more churches and pastors to recognize the need and help support our efforts. In our present culture, I think this is the only way we will have strong evangelism and strong churches. But, the churches need to make this a priority. Once they do, the seminaries will follow with the programs. But, I’m not sure there is anything fundamentally wrong with the M.Div itself.
Hello, Steve
Since you invited us to meet you here, I wanted to meet the guy who added so much to the Hawking debate on CNet just now.
Your ministry looks very interesting. I’m not a pastor, but I appreciate the need for apologetics training for pastors. You are quite right — they are too bogged down with stuff that a pastor shouldn’t be doing, should be better at their main job.
In my church, Covenant Presbyterian in San Diego, CA, we are presently without an official pastor. Our main preacher, Gregg Hamann, is actually the owner of a large construction company, but isvreally an fine preacher. Our “official” pastor-pro-tem is our youth pastor. Our denomination is the Evangelical Presbyterian Convention (EPC), who will provide us with a pastor of our choice when we’ve settled on the church’s format. Our last Pastor resigned a few months ago, and we’ve been experimenting with different worship strategies, trying to find a mix that will attract all ages into a single service. We’re doing well, with a growing membership and attendance.
Of course, that doesn’t seem to mix too strongly with your ministry, but was just an introduction. I’m the editor of our church “newsletter” (a 40-page booklet). I’m a bit of an amateur theologian.
Thanks again for pitching in at CNet. I suspect that debate was a bit of a surprise to them!
Bob Di Giorgio
Hi Robert,
Thank you for your kind words! I probably spend too much time out on the Internet, interacting in those kind of articles when I see some of the crazy stuff that is being posted by others. I’d get more done here if I didn’t do that, but it’s also good practice…. and I’m always trying to remember that thousands of people read that kind of stuff who aren’t commenting.
I hope things go well for your church and growing ministry, and hope you find a great new pastor. Regarding worship strategies, my input would be to try and accomplish what might be called a ‘blended’ service, where you pull the best of worship music across time and genre, always examining the content theologically. Keep the liturgy as well, in some form. I always it to be an incredible deficiency in churches I visit when they don’t have it. Liturgy, both in structure (confession, absolution, etc.) as well as content to be an aspect of church to be treasured.
And, while I would never say to make a service non-welcoming or un-evangelistic, I think it is important to keep in mind that worship is worship of the body of Christ primarily. We’ve tried to cram too much teaching and evangelism into worship time. We often end up watering things down and starving the sheep in order to meet lowest common denominator and be visitor-friendly. I think the thing that makes a service most visitor friendly (and isn’t bad for the regulars) is to take a few moments here and there, and explain aspects of the service in with the liturgy and flow of it.
Regarding the pastors time and training, you should read the previous comment and response (if you haven’t done so). Pastors usually act on the needs/wants of the congregation, and are trained to do so. If the congregation isn’t trained in apologetics, the pastor has to try and handle that (many don’t very well due to little training), be an evangelist, be the teacher, be the care-giver, be the counselor, be the administration, etc. If the pastor could be freed more to focus on sermons and teaching, I think it would contribute to growth…. of well trained people who would better step up to the plate and take on many of these things. This, in turn, would prompt seminaries to focus more on teaching and apologetics training.
Keep studying theology! We can’t have enough theologians or apologists these days. Blessings, and thanks again.