Wow!

God is incredible. And I don't say that generically. I was truly amazed at how God worked in last Sunday's events. I know that you'll rejoice with me when you read this report of God's goodness. After I had accepted the nonspecific invitation to speak at Covington Church of the Brethren, my event scheduler followed AiG's procedures and faxed a copy of AiG's statement of faith to the church. We do this just so that the church will know, without question, where we stand on certain doctrines, and on what doctrines we choose to take a corporate stand. Interestingly, the church faxed back their church doctrinal statement. No church has ever done this before, but we assumed that they understood it as a cordial exchange of doctrinal positions. I've been in Baptist churches most of my life (though I'm not a typical Baptist), and I really haven't studied all the different denominations. Church of the Brethren is one such set of beliefs with which I was not very familiar. So, I was interested to read their church beliefs. A couple things stood out to me from the statement. I read that they observe certain New Testament rites, and several were listed. But I got worried when I read of the "love fest" that they observed and of feet-washing. "Oh boy," I thought, "this sounds like a hippy, feet-washing church." But as I studied their denomination, and spoke with others familiar with it, I learned, to my embarrassment, that I read "love fest" where it said "love feast." This is simply a Christian meal of fellowship that the church hosts every now and then. And the feet-washing, if they still do it, is usually part of the communion ceremony, which I can fully appreciate. On Saturday night, I went to bed shortly after posting to my website about the coming day. When I awoke on Sunday at 6 AM, life seemed to slow down. Every physical motion, every look, every thought, almost seemed surrealistic as if in a dream. I felt like I couldn't speak, not even to pray, but I already knew that God was present. We drove up to the church and immediately begin getting ready with testing and setting up final equipment, comparing resource tables to my presentations, and getting familiar with the church and its history. Covington Church of the Brethren has an interesting history. Gene Kraus, the organizer of the event in the church, showed me through the church and explained how it's halls had once been bustling and its pews full. He said that they had a membership of nearly 500 people back in the '50s, and a Resurrection Day service would pack the sanctuary to overflowing. Sadly, the membership is fewer than 230, and attendance averaged only around 100 each Sunday. This church knows firsthand the signs that the world has changed and that people are leaving church. I took a mental note of this and later included it in one of my four talks. My first talk, "The Relevance of Genesis," started at 10:55 and progressed for almost an hour. I have my own version of this classic AiG talk, but still followed the basic standard. I included a video clip from a MacWorld wedding that illustrated how marriage is defined without Genesis, and I also covered a couple basic science examples that confirm the Bible's history and oppose the world's teachings of millions of years. I closed with the powerful section preaching on where the battle is in our culture. I wasn't as comfortable with the delivery of this message as I was when I presented at AiG, but my good friend, Jeremy L. (whom I was very encouraged to see there) , said the I seemed more personal in this presentation than my first to the AiG staff. That was understandable. Immediately after this first talk, I met a kind gentleman that was really having difficulty understanding the new truths that he had just heard. We talked for a few moments, and my family had also talked with him. He was exactly as Ken Ham had "warned" that I would encounter—a person so new to these ideas that he can't quite grasp it even after two talks. Of my four talks, my favorite was my second, "Six Literal Days or Millions of Years?" because it's core message is, "This is what the Bible clearly says. Will you believe God's infallible Word, or place your own opinions above God's?" Again, this particular gentleman couldn't quite grasp the concepts, so we spoke some more with him and I think that he began to understand. I was very glad to see him back for the evening session. The morning and evening sessions both hosted about fifty-five people, but the evening crowd was about 3/4 different from the morning/afternoon audience. This evening group was mostly younger families who came from other churches after receiving the postcard that advertised this event. It seemed much easier to communicate with this audience because I could see their responses. I spoke on "Fossils and the Flood," which my dad said was my best talk yet. I kept things on a basic level of science, and kept things practical as I explained what the Bible says about the global flood of Noah's day, addressed several compromised positions (including Bill Gothard's "appearance of age" argument), and then explained how the fossil record and rock layers actually confirms the Bible's history, as we would expect. I closed by reminding everyone to write a question that they would have on some pieces of paper and I would address them at the end of the next session. The break between this third talk and the last talk was a flurry of activity at the resource tables. Several people shared encouraging words with me and a few of the kids asked me some good questions. One young boy timidly asked, "What about the UFOs?" I told him that this was a great question, and that I would answer it at the end of my next presentation, "Answers to the Most-Asked Questions." We began the last session and I could tell that the people were excited to be there, and especially excited to hear answers to defend their faith. I had already prepared for a few of the most-asked questions—"What about evolution?" "Where did the races come from?" "Where did Cain get his wife?" and "Why is there death and suffering?" In a conversation with Jeremy H. a couple months ago, I remembered a powerful illustration of how Christians giving the wrong answers about death and suffering, and thus we're losing the culture. I used a short video clip from Contact, the movie based on the late Dr. Carl Sagan's book by the same title. This was just after the main character's father died when she was a young girl. A priest attempted to comfort her by saying, "… sometimes, we just have to accept [these things] as God's will." WRONG! What kind of a god would will his people to tragic deaths? Certain not the God of love that the Old and New Testaments teach us about. I had also prepared to address "dinosaurs and the Bible," but cut that in order to have time for the submitted questions, which were "What about UFOs?" "Are there human fossils, and isn't this evidence of human evolution?" "What about glacial movement [that supposedly took more than 10,000 years]?" and "If God said to Adam and Eve that they would "surely die," why didn't they die on the day that they ate the forbidden fruit?" I was absolutely amazed at how God provided answers to these. Especially with the question of aliens and UFOs, Scriptures were coming to mind left and right from 1 John, 1 Corinthians, Genesis, Exodus, John, and other books of the Bible. But in all of this, what was most encouraging is to hear directly from the people. Being on staff at AiG for five years, I've heard many praise reports from AiG's speakers about their events and how exciting it was to see the Christians equipped in their faith. But that was nothing compared to hearing it directly from the people after my presentations. One gentleman told me of his works to get Bible-based science teaching in his church Sunday school classes! Some of the kids were excited because they were taking home books about dinosaurs that would help them understand dinosaurs through a biblical worldview. And one young lady is currently studying at Wright State University and plans to begin a science teaching career in public schools. A friend had told her about this event and she was so excited to see that she could use science to confirm the Bible. I helped her with some resources that would allow her to teach creation science in a public school without getting in trouble about "teaching religion." Most of you know that I'm usually not a person of many words … unless I'm excited. And you can tell that I'm obviously excited. And why shouldn't I be? This event was so incredible and even fulfilling because I knew this was where God has been leading me ever since giving me this dream about ten years ago. When my event scheduler asked if I wanted to do this again, I responded without hesitation, "YES!" Wow. Now I won't be able to sleep. These and so many more memories are so exciting. But above all, "To God—and God alone—be the glory!"