Over the last three months, I was able to complete a first draft of the Chinese translation of Norm’s “12 Points” book!
I have also recently completed a series of “Conversational Evangelism” trainings with Bethesda Chapel here in Singapore. I was encouraged by the stories and great ideas of how students are integrating this training into Singaporean Chinese culture to more effectively reach out their pre-believing friends. One trainee told me that because of this training, he has been able to have several meaningful spiritual conversations with his pre-believing friends.
I am excited that NGIM’s direction is towards an integration of discipleship, evangelism and apologetics, instead of focusing on one area only. NGIM is not just equipping Christians with knowledge and skills, but we are truly building a group of a group of a “certain kind” of apolo-evangelists.
Pray for the completion of editing of the Chinese “12 Points” by the end of this year. Pray for opportunities to find mentees who are servant leaders to continue growing the ministry in Singapore.
This past July, I co-led and spoke at the Charlotte Christian Youth Apologetics Conference to about 175 teenagers. Numerous young people prayed to receive Christ on the last day of the conference!
I spoke on “The Perfect Story,” which was about the fact that the Gospel is the greatest story – that God designed our hearts to cling to the Gospel’s themes of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. The stories we love from movies, books, and shows follow these Gospel-related themes. The day after my talk, a young girl showed me the outline of a story she had written after being inspired by what I said. She wanted to create a Gospel-themed story to reach the hearts and minds of other young people!
I was honored by the opportunity to teach at the SES National Apologetics Conference in October, and in November I will be speaking at Winthrop University, a secular school, on the Bible’s historical reliability. Currently, I am in the process of training a group of young people for an evangelistic mission trip to Kenya this January.
Please join us in praying that our evangelistic efforts in Kenya will be fruitful!
The Institute has been busy this last part of summer! The biggest part of this summer was writing my dissertation for my Doctorate of Ministry program. This is huge for the institute because the project is a full semester long, apologetic curriculum leveled for elementary grades 1-2, 3-5, and 6-8, and designed for homeschool families with parents who have little to no apologetic training. This curriculum is based on the 12 Points and utilizes a modified classical education model. That’s a mouthful! But this curriculum is one of a kind and could be a powerful tool for the institute to help “reach the pews” as it will train parents in apologetics as they educate their children! As of mid-August, the curriculum is in testing phases with Victory Home Education of Lexington, TN, where the director there is super excited about injecting solid apologetic curriculum into the Christian Home School movement. The goal is to take pre-orders this spring and have it in hands by Fall 2020.
In addition, I’ve been back to helping churches in Owosso, MI, and Bolivar, TN, utilize apologetics in their evangelism, as well as instituting two conferences local to me in the Fayetteville, NC, area. Apologetic training is rare in my area, and some churches and individuals have caught the vision and are trying to break the ice for churches and pastors across multiple counties!
Please continue praying for the Institute, for connections with churches and pastors who have the vision to fully equip their flock to share, defend, and multiply the faith.
My latest NGIM event was at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. There I shared the talk “The Challenges of Witnessing to Muslims” with a very receptive audience. In addition, I was a co-speaker on the talk “The New World of Apologetics: Questions and Answers with Dr. David Geisler and Don Deal.” That talk dealt with NGIM’s exciting vision for an integrated approach for sharing your faith with a new generation. In addition, I have been very busy working on my PhD in Intercultural Studies and preparing for retirement after 26 years of flying internationally.
Please pray for me as I prepare to transition to the next phase of my life and continue developing the 12 Points Certification Program.
I’ve recently been asked to join the NGIM staff and continue what I began working on with Norm. Since 2012, I have spearheaded the efforts to get Norm’s book The Twelve Points that Show Christianity is True into English (2013), Spanish (2018), Arabic (2019), and Chinese (2020). This dream started soon after I revamped the Normangeisler.com website in 2012. It was then that I began receiving dozens of emails each week for Norm from those who appreciated his books or lectures and from those who had questions for his insights on. For well over a year, it seemed like we received at least two emails per week from people all over the English-speaking world that thanked Norm for writing books that radically changed their lives for the better and played some real part in altering their eternal destinies too!
I saw with my own eyes that there was a real power at work in the twelve-point apologetic schema that Norm spent almost seventy years developing—the power to change minds, change lives, and remove obstacles to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Seeing this fruit inspired me to focus more on the defense of the faith.
Please pray that NGIM would be able to able to help in areas where there is a great thirst for the knowledge of God and the peace of Jesus Christ.
