A few months back, I was invited to a very unique church group. Though I have never seen a church host a group meeting like this one, after leaving I realized that it is probably something every church should have. And if your church won’t create one, consider starting it up at someone’s house.

The group is called Persuade and is hosted every week by Orange County Church in Tustin, CA. This church has a speaker each week (usually a church member) discuss an important or controversial issue. Before I was invited to discuss on creation vs. evolution, they had already covered the kalam, the resurrection, the argument from contingency, and abortion. At the end of every talk, which is about 30 minutes, the audience is encouraged to ask questions and raise objections. In fact, the goal is to stump the speaker.

I was told that they normally spend at least an hour with the questions and objections. They turned out to be serious when they followed up my talk with an hour and fifteen minutes of questions and objections. You could say that the audience was very prepared with questions they had either researched or encountered in personal conversations.

As someone who travels to train churches and students to defend the Christian faith, this was so encouraging. This group had such a yearning to know and defend the truth. They took 1 Peter 3:15 seriously in their desire to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that they have. It was a wonderful privilege to join Persuade that evening and help believers think critically about creation and evolution. I hope that you too are encouraged by the video below to start something like this with fellow believers.

What questions or objections do you have on the topic of creation and evolution? Comment below!

If you are interested in having me speak at your church, camp, or youth group, click on the Endorsements & Speaking page and email me at contact@coffeehousequestions.com. You can select a topic from the list or suggest your own. I am happy to help in any way I can. God bless!