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Lee Strobel: Creating Dialogue Around the Gospel

Lee Strobel

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Atheist-turned-Christian Lee Strobel is the former award-winning legal editor of The Chicago Tribune and best-selling author of more than twenty books. His classic, The Case for Christ, is a perennial favorite which details his conversion to Christianity and has recently been made into a movie. For the last twenty-five years, his life’s work has been to share the evidence that supports the truth and claims of Christianity and to equip believers to share their faith with the people they know and love. Lee is currently a teaching pastor at Woodlands Church in Texas and recently joined the faculty at Houston Baptist University as a Professor of Christian Thought. Lee and his wife, Leslie, live in Texas.

Key Questions:

What are some things we can do as churches and leaders to present Christianity as truth in a way that will be better received?

Why do you think spiritual discovery groups have been so successful (with an 80 percent conversion rate) with this generation?

How can the church help the world see us again as people who deeply love others?

Key Quotes:

“A lot of people won’t read a book, they may not yet come to church, but they’ll go to a movie.”

“Studies have shown that most of the famous atheists of history: Camus, Sarte, Nietzsche, Freud, Voltaire, Wells, Feuerbach, all had a father that either died when they were young, divorced their mother when they were young, or with whom they had a terrible relationship.”

“The verse that led me to faith is John 1:12: Believe plus receive equals become.”

“It’s not enough just to generally be in agreement with Christian doctrine. I have to receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased on the cross when he died as our substitute to pay for all of our sin.”

“I think we’re entering a golden era of Christian apologetics.”

“Apologetics is making a comeback among student ministries…because their atheist friends are raising a lot of questions, and sometimes the churches haven’t done a great job in training us in understanding not just what we believe, but why we believe it.”

“I think the key…in our culture today is not debate—it’s dialogue. It’s conversations; it’s relationships; it’s doing more listening than talking. It’s sitting down with someone who has different views than we do and having a friendship, having a conversation, and validating them as people made in the image of God and being on a spiritual journey, and allowing them the elbow room to ask questions and to investigate.”

“I think the personal side, the relational side, of evangelism and apologetics is ever-more important these days.”

“We have an unfair advantage—I think Christians do—in the marketplace of ideas, which is: Truth is on our side.”

“We live in an age where truth is a little slippery, but we, fortunately, stand on a solid rock. And we can proclaim that in a way that’s winsome and attractive, but still Scripturally accurate, and I think there’s a generation out there that wants to have their feet on solid ground.”

1 Peter 3:15 says ‘Do it gently and respectfully.’ We’re told in Scripture how to do [evangelism]; not to slap people over the face, but to be gentle and respectful.”

“I pray for pastors virtually every day because I know that apart from the work of God in your heart, it is an impossible job to be a pastor. But with his power and with the Holy Spirit, God is bringing great change into our land and into our hearts.”

Mentioned in the Show:

The Case for Christ movie

The Case for Christ (book)

God’s Not Dead movies

Spiritual Mismatch

John 1:12

1 Peter 3:15