Hey, everyone!!!

The Credible Faith for a Skeptical World conference last month was received very well. Here's some feedback that was received when I did the conference or afterwards. After the talk 'How can a good God allow so much pain, suffering, and evil? And why a God who wants to save sinners must permit horrendous evils, an Anderson University student named Jacob wrote, 'I have always wondered why Jesus Christ had to rise from the dead. After this talk it was all cleared up for me and it was so awesome how you opened it up to me and made it all make sense.' Someone else wrote regarding some or all of the conference that "It educated and inspired us. It also gave us tools to use when speaking to others."

After the conference, Pastor Proctor sent me this recommendation: "We invited Dr. Paul Larson to our church for a one day Apologetics Conference. He gave three talks: “Why Objections to the Traditional Authorship of the Gospels Fail” and “The Resurrection in a Secular Age” and “How can a good God allow so much pain, suffering, and evil? And why a God who wants to save sinners must permit horrendous evils?” Each talk was thoroughly researched and presented. It was a full day for our congregation and Dr. Larson as well. We sincerely appreciate his willingness and flexibility to work within our schedule. Our goal was to help our church understand objections to God’s word and His goodness, and then provide clear and concise arguments to defend the God of the Bible. We believe Dr. Larson greatly helped in achieving this goal. From a logistic perspective, Dr. Larson was extremely helpful in determining which talks would be helpful for our context. He answered all our questions and was flexible with our planning the event. We felt Dr. Larson was timely with correspondence and provided us an accurate assessment of the ministry. In other words, there were no surprises or frustrations in our communication or during the event. Dr. Larson was punctual, friendly and prepared. We would have liked to have had more time to hear several other talks or presentations, but we are thankful for the three we had."

After the conference, I spent a lot of time researching what equipment would be needed for an audio studio and a video studio that would permit me to produce high quality podcasts and videos. Much of that equipment has come and I will be working towards producing some Credible Faith podcasts and Credible Faith videos. On the family side, my nephews Hosea, Toby, Silas, and Joal stayed here for two nights, and it was great to spend time with nephews. There was of course a number of other visits from nephews (not overnight stays, though) in September, but I don't remember much of what else happened. I did go to a soccer game of my nephew Hosea, and I saw him score a goal and show good teamwork and field positioning when he did it. He had two games where he scored two goals in one quarter. Pretty sweet!!!

PRAYER REQUESTS
1. Fundraising. Financially, one of the hardest seasons for a ministry is the beginning. Please pray that God would bring monthly supporters alongside Credible Faith. Credible Faith is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and donations are accordingly tax-deductible in the US as permitted by law.

2. Ministry Opportunities. Pray that doors would be opened for ministry in churches and on campuses and for relationships to be formed that would be mutually beneficial for ministry in those places.

Have a great month!!!

Sincerely,

Paul

Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Groveland, Illinois, USA

Quote of the Month

A quote from Keith Yandell's book, 'Philosophy of Religion: A Contemporary Introduction', p. xv: As Aristotle once said, a proposition is true if things are as it says they are, and not otherwise. Aristotle, and most devotees of most traditions, have no difficulty in understanding what this means. It is possible to educate oneself out of all possibility of learning anything. Aristotle and ordinary religious people have not suffered this injury.