So much has been happening with our NGIM ministry in the last year, since my father went home to be with the Lord.
This year, we have more open doors for partnerships, a growing staff, a new women’s ministry, an expanded list of classes offered through the Norm Geisler Institute, a larger internet presence, and a more global strategy in partnership with the movie. In short, despite the potential limitation of ministry caused by Covid 19, God continues to open new doors!
More Open Doors for Partnerships
Since Covid 19, we now have a partnership with a Bible college in Mexico and we are helping to establish the first Doc. of Ministry program in Apologetics with a Bible college in Nepal. We are finding a growing openness by many schools to partner with us online. For example, other bible colleges and seminaries in Malaysia are exploring the idea of a partnership with us online. You may remember that for the last 5 years I have had the privilege to go to different seminaries in Indonesia and teach our Conversational Evangelism materials. But I realized after teaching the same class in Malaysia last year, that Malaysian Christians have to be even more careful how they talk to their Muslims friends, and so our C.E. approach needs to be further adapted in Malaysia.
That is why I personally am interested in doing more online teaching in Malaysia and other bible colleges in Asia this next year. For example, this past Tuesday we had the opportunity to speak to 180 college students and seminary students in Malaysia, the Philippines, in Singapore, and Latin America online on our zoom channel. But other doors are opening also! The prior week, my staff person in Singapore, Raymond Kwan, and I had a chance to speak to the staff, students, and volunteers for Union of Evangelical Students in India online. This mission organization has contact with thousands of students all over India. Raymond Kwan is also helping me develop some transition questions to give these staff based on talking about the issue of Covid 19. Also, each week now I have three C.E. coaching classes online with students from different parts of the globe.
A Growing Staff
I am so thankful that God is bringing us some quality staff to carry out the mission of NGIM!
Some of you may know from our Live Stream Discussions that we now have a director for women’s ministry, Alana Arguello. Alana was a student of mine when I taught in California six months ago, and is graduating this November with a Doc. of Ministry Degree at Veritas International University. Her husband Jose was also one of my students, and is a recently ordained pastor with Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel Church. Together God is going to greatly use them in the days ahead!
Some of you may also know that we now have a director for Latin America and Spain. Roberto Lozano is originally from Venezuela and recently graduated with a M.A. In Apologetics from Liberty University. He currently is working on doing more M.A. classes at SES so he can get into the Doc. of Ministry program at SES. Keep him in your prayers. One of his burdens is to see more of my dad’s key books translated into Spanish!
A New Women's Ministry
Let me offer you a little perspective on why we need a women’s ministry at NGIM. Josh McDowell says in our upcoming movie Norm Geisler: Not Qualified, “…I don’t think myself, Ravi, my son and others would be where we are today without Norm. He paid the price; he paved the way.” It’s really great that God used my father to raise up so many strong evangelical thinkers like Ravi, Josh, and others, but I want you to know that my dream for NGIM is somewhat different. Ravi even said in our interview with him for the movie that it will be up to each of us to carry the mantle now. For me personally, my lifelong dream is to play a role to see every Christian around the globe have the opportunity to have a similar kind of Christian training that I had as a child! I would like to see kids early on, growing up in a Christian family, knowing what they believe, why they believe it, and how to apply it!
But for that to happen, moms and dads have to see training their kids in apologetics as an essential part of their responsibility as parents. So I am asking the question, as a first step, “How can we get Christian moms to care more about equipping their kids so that after high school their kids have a chance to survive when others question their faith? I asked that question recently to the over 700 plus women in our new private NGIM women’s apologetics face book group, and some have shared some good insights that we are using to explore next steps. I am thankful we now have a women’s director like Alana to help these women connected to NGIM to grow deeper roots.
Our prayer is that these Christian moms will be motivated and equipped to similarly train their kids. We at NGIM would also like to see other Christian women move out of their comfort zone and share their faith on a more regular basis. Please keep these prayers for our women’s apologetic ministry in your prayers.
An Expanded List of Workshops
As part of the global effort to continue my father’s legacy, many of you know we have taken his videos and developed self-paced and mentor-led workshops online at NGIM.org/Institute for all of those Christians who do not want a seminary degree, but who are interested in the kind of deeper training that my father taught seminary students.
The good news is that in the fall we are offering an expanded list of these classes. These classes include:
The Doctrine of God; Logic; A New Testament Survey; Biblical Sexuality; and a class on Critical Race Theory, which seems to be on everyone’s mind right now.
We also continue to offer the standard coaching classes like Bibliology, our 12 Points training, and Conversational Evangelism and many more!
A Larger Internet Presence
You may be encouraged also to hear that NGIM now currently reaches an average of 168,000 people per month through social media, and we expect to see continued growth as branding and resources continue to develop. Through social media on our Facebook pages for NGIM, the Norm Geisler Institute, and Norm Geisler ministry, as well as other platforms on social media, we find ways to remind people of the key ideas and phrases that my father used to communicate key points about his apologetic approach. Doing this kind of reminder is one way we are attempting to better equip the next generation of Christian youth, and to help people better understand the kind of training we offer.
You may also know we now do live streams to our Facebook pages and Youtube channel every few weeks. Go to NGIM.org/livestreams and you can watch all of these!
A More Global Strategy in Partnership with the Movie
We are now in the process of contacting churches who may be interested in hosting the movie in their city for church leaders in their area. The interviewees, press articles about the movie, and sign up for the global premiere event June 13th, 2021 at Calvary Church in Charlotte can be found at the movie website NormGeislerthemovie.com. If you would like your church to consider hosting the movie, Norm Geisler: Not Qualified, please have them contact me personally at dg@ngim.org to hear more.
On July 24th, we are going to unveil our Norm Geisler Legacy Initiative, to help continue my father’s legacy in an even greater way, so that many more can pick up the mantle. We will host a special live stream to discuss this and the four battles my father said we would face, with Joe Holden, Bill Roach, and Chris Haun on our Facebook page and Youtube channel
Thank you for your partnership in supporting all that we do around the globe!
His Servant,
Dr. David Geisler