TNG with Mark Mittelberg

Best-selling author, speaker, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland.

Best-selling author and apologist, Dylan Burroughs. Together, bringing you truth for a new generation, this is TNG Radio. The Word of God is clear that the Church is called to proclaim the Gospel to every generation. And verses like Mark 16 and 15 say, go into all the world and preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

And Matthew 28, 18, 19, and 20 very famously is called the Great Commission where Jesus said, make disciples of all nations. Hi, Alex McFarland here, along with Dylan Burroughs. And I am so excited about today's program, folks.

You're listening to TNG Radio. And, you know, Dylan, that's one thing I remember as a new believer. Shortly after I became a Christian at age 21 when I was in college, I was in a New Believers class, and they were talking to us about how we could share Jesus with our friends. And I had a lot of friends at college that needed the Lord.

And as far as I remember, my entire Christian experience has gravitated around evangelism. And that's what we're going to talk about today. And Dylan, I am so excited, because the person that we have as a guest today is somebody that I have just admired for years and years. It's been a great privilege to have him speak in some of our conferences. I could go on and on, but I'm sure everyone listening knows the name Mark Middleburg. And, Dylan, do you remember the book Becoming a Contagious Christian?

I think that's the first time I saw Mark Middleburg's name. You probably have that book in your library as well. But Mark has been kind of a standard and a benchmark for evangelism and outreach strategies for a long time, hasn't he? Well, certainly an entire generation of American Christians have been influenced by this evangelism resource he put together.

And I was one of those. I went through not only the book, but the video curriculum that was put together based on the Contagious Christian book. And so I am very much a direct influence of his work.

So I've been a big fan. I've met him in the past at Truth for a New Generation conferences, and I'm excited about this new book he has, one called Confident Faith. And Mark, as we get started, tell us just a little bit about the title.

What is Confident Faith? What is the message here for our viewers and listeners today? Well, first, it's just great to be with you guys, and I just appreciate all your kind words. I do feel a little old when you say, influenced a whole generation.

I'm not that old, but... We mean it in the best way, yes. Well, and again, I'm honored that the Contagious Christian training course went around the world and is still being used today and is in over 20 languages. So that's cool and very encouraging and gratifying. And you asked about Confident Faith. I did write a book a few years ago called Confident Faith and gave 20 arguments for the Christian faith that, you know, I think can be helpful for any Christian. I'm even more excited about a new curricula that I just finished and released with my ministry partner, Lee Strobel, the author of the Case for Christ book that has been read by about 5 million people, and then they made the movie out of it and told the story of Leslie Strobel coming to Christ and then Lee Strobel coming to Christ.

And that movie really inspired Lee and me to do this new curricula. It's called Making Your Case for Christ, and it's all about how we can all do what you see the people in that movie doing when they were reaching out to a young atheist named Lee Strobel. We can all give reasons for our faith and share the message in ways that can connect and really make a difference in our friends' lives.

Mark, Alex here. I want to give a little backstory, and I do... One of the reasons that we wanted to have you on is I just had the privilege... A couple of days ago, I got my hands on the Making Your Case for Christ resource, and it is exceptional, folks, and we did want to make everybody listening aware of this, and as you all know, anything done by Mark Mittleberg and Lee Strobel is first class, top drawer in every way. Before we go too much into your story, Mark, where can people find the Case for Christ product that you and Lee have created, and your other books?

Where's the best way people can find your catalogue of content? Yeah, well, this new course, which is kind of related to the Case for Christ book and movie, is called Making Your Case for Christ, and it's available... Zondervan publishes it, but it's available through christianbook.com, it's available through amazon.com, I think barnesandnoble.com, your Christian bookstore might have it, but it's available all over the place. So your story is fascinating, and you were very influential in the life of Lee Strobel as he was a new believer, but give us your own backstory.

I mean, how did Mark Mittleberg come to know Jesus and become the advocate for the gospel that you are? Well thanks, I share some of that in the earlier book that was mentioned, Confident Faith. I grew up in a Christian home, and knew what was right, and walked away from it anyway. Not so much intellectually, it's not that I quit believing in God, but just lifestyle-wise.

I kind of became a low-key prodigal son for about five or six years, all through high school. And it was close to the age you came to faith, Alex, it was when I was 19 that God used a variety of frightening things in my life, and some good things in my life, but woke me up spiritually. And I made my commitment to Christ when I was 19, and immediately started sharing my faith, and when you do that, when you start talking to people about your faith, you immediately get hard questions and pushback, and people going, well that doesn't make sense because I don't believe the Bible, or, you know, and I ran into people from different cults and other religions, and just a variety of things started hitting me, especially when I went to college and took a philosophy class, and had my faith challenged. All of that forced me to begin to study and say, you know, I know what I'm supposed to believe, but I don't know why I believe it.

You know, what is the evidence, what is the information that really backs this up and gives me assurance that I'm not just, you know, believing something because my parents believed it? That study, which is, you know, called apologetics, studying the defense of the faith, is what got me to the point of being really a confident Christian myself, and saying, this makes sense, and it is true, and I have reasons for it, and so forth. And then just to quickly finish answering your question, a few years later I moved to Chicago to go to graduate school and then get my master's degree in this area, and while doing so I went to a church and got hired as their first director of evangelism, and I was hired alongside a guy named Lee Strobel, who was actually my assistant in the evangelism area. He was a newer Christian, and we immediately became best friends and have been ministry partners for many years. Well, not many people can say Lee Strobel was their ministry assistant, so, you know, quite fast with Lee Strobel that is unique to your experience, but we're excited to hear about your journey, and also want to hear more about your new resource that encourages friends to follow Christ and techniques to do that. We'll be right back in just a moment at Truth For A New Generation.

Stick with us. If you're a Christian parent, you of course want to instill a biblical view of life in the hearts of your children. If you're a pastor, you want to offer ministry that draws young families to your church. This is Alex McFarland encouraging you to check out my new book and video curriculum, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. Why do bad things happen? I interviewed hundreds of children, ages 5 to 12, and we address actual questions from actual children, the spiritual issues that are on the minds of your kids.

Did Jesus ever sin? The book and video lessons are great for groups of any size and was produced with the goal of equipping kids to stand strong for Christ in any situation. The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, the book, study guide and video series. You'll find it at AFASTORE.net.

That's AFASTORE.net. Over centuries, the Bible has inspired humanity and shaped the very world we live in. But how do we know this book is the Word of God and not merely the words of men? What we believe about the Bible is based on what we believe about its source. The God Who Speaks explores the evidence of the Bible's inspiration and authority through some of the world's most respected biblical scholars. We have essentially a dual authorship, so it's true to say that Paul wrote Romans. It's equally true to say that God wrote Romans. He says, we saw this, and that sets the Bible apart from almost everything else in the ancient world and its religious pantheon of gods and goddesses. The God Who Speaks is a feature-length documentary from the American Family Association.

Available now at TheGodWhoSpeaks.org. Welcome back to TNG Radio, Truth For A New Generation. Alex McFarland, Dylan Burroughs, with our very special guest this week, Mark Middleburg.

Before we return to our conversation with Mark Middleburg, I do want to remind everybody that Truth For A New Generation is coming up really soon. We're going to be in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Central Tennessee. Just about 30 minutes from the Nashville airport, we'll be there with Josh McDowell, Jay Warner Wallace, and a host of great speakers. Please, folks, pray, promote, and plan to attend. We're going to be in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the end of October, and we're already working on a big, big calendar for 2019.

We've been on the phone all this week with people and places. So, folks, go to the website truthforanewgeneration.com. That's spelled F-O-R, truth, F-O-R, truthforanewgeneration.com. And you know, Dylan, all of these events that we're working on and the ones we've done, it's not just because we like to get great crowds of people together. We honestly believe that God has a plan for this nation and to reach the lost and equip the saved. That's a big part of an awakening, that we need a Christian awakening. And so, folks, please be a part of the Truth For A New Generation event, whether you travel around the country or when we come to your part of the nation.

Please, be a part of TNG and be equipped. And you know, Dylan, I've got to tell you, all these events we've done, rarely have we ever had feedback as positive and glowing feedback like we get from Mark Mittelberg. He's spoken for us a number of times, and Mark is with us now. And again, I want to say what a blessing it is to have you on. And I want to commend you, Mark, for your stand for Christ, your commitment to equip the body of believers. And there are a lot of books we could talk about, but I'm going to bring a title up that you wrote, I don't know, five, six years ago, that I personally think is one of the greatest things in apologetics in the last 20 years. You wrote a book on answering the tough questions that most Christians hope nobody is going to ask. Do you remember that book?

Yeah, sure do. And still teach a lot out of that, and talk about these questions that we're afraid to deal with. And it's just the fact that as Christians, we get hit with hard questions that are tough to answer, and that's why 1 Peter 3.15 tells us to get prepared and do a little study and get ready, because these are important questions, they make a huge difference in the lives of the people who ask. I'm curious, you studied philosophy, you earned your degrees, you've served at some of the nation's largest churches. Where do you see ministry in the 21st century? What are some of the differences between when you first went into the ministry, and is it the same? I mean, is human nature the same, and we just share the gospel, or are there some unique dynamics of ministering to the culture today?

Good question. Certainly human nature is the same, we are still sinners desperately in need of a Savior, and the gospel message of the cross of Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf, that still, as Romans 1.16 points it, that is the power, that message is the power of God unto salvation. So you don't stop getting back to that basic, powerful message of the cross of Christ. But I would add quickly that we live in so much more of a skeptical culture today, and you know, back when I started doing this, you could pretty much say, you know, here's what the Bible teaches, and there was just sort of this inherent trust and at least respect for the Bible among most of the people you would talk to, and then they'd say, well, how do you know it says that? And there'd be more of a debate of what does the Bible really mean? Whereas today, you say the Bible says, and they go on, well, that's an outdated book, it's full of myths and mistakes and contradictions and, you know, why should I care about that any more than the Quran or the Book of Mormon or, you know, the Hindu scriptures or whatever?

Not that everyone's there, but you hear a lot more of that kind of doubt and skepticism. And so that's why I think now more than ever, this whole area of what's called Christian apologetics, giving reasons for our faith, you know, giving a defense of our faith as it tells us to do in 1 Peter 3.15, that's more important than ever. And I agree with our mutual friend, J. Warner Wallace, when he says, you know, evangelism today is spelled, and then he spells out the word apologetics. I agree. That's why I'm so excited about these new materials that combine both outreach and apologetics.

Well, certainly, and we're excited about that as well. As we look at Making Your Case for Christ, what really led to starting this new project with Lee Strobel, and what has been the reaction so far? Well, kind of the inception of it was they were making this incredible movie that came out about a year and a half ago called The Case for Christ, and it was the story of Leslie Strobel coming to faith, and then trying to share that with her skeptical atheist newspaper reporter husband, named Lee Strobel, and the two-year search he went through before he finally comes to faith.

It's a great movie, and I was pretty involved in helping shape it and revise things along the way, so I kept seeing different versions of it, as did Lee and Leslie, and we were watching this thing over and over a minute finally came out, and we saw it a lot then as well. And what kept striking both Lee and myself is the fact that there were great illustrative parts of that movie that showed Christians answering questions, or showing love, or initiating conversations, or sharing their testimony in ways that were all part of the puzzle that God was putting together in Lee's mind to lead him to faith in Christ. And Lee and I finally said, you know, we've got to do a new curricula that helps everyone else make their case for Christ, and use clips from this award-winning movie in each of the sessions, and that's what came together.

It's a six-week study guide that you can use in a small group or a Sunday school class or even a whole church could go through it together, and it has video portions on DVD where Lee Strobel and I teach, and then there are clips from the Case for Christ movie in each of those six sessions to illustrate what we're talking about and kind of put it into real-life situations. Well, we're going to have to take a break, but folks, if you're just tuning in to Truth for a New Generation Radio, we're talking with Mark Middleburg. He and Lee Strobel have created a number of great resources, and the newest is called Making Your Case for Christ, and we're going to continue in just a moment with our conversation with evangelism strategist ministry leader Mark Middleburg.

Don't go away. First Peter 3.15 tells us to be ready always to give an answer for the hope we have. We're instructed to be prepared to defend our faith. This is Alex McFarland for the Life Answers Teams, students we train at North Greenville University, a leading Christian college in South Carolina. The Life Answers Teams are made up of students who will inspire and equip your congregation. These apologetics teams we train speak in churches to youth groups and train Christians of all ages to address key issues of our times from a biblical perspective. Like, is there a God?

Is the Bible true? What about gender and moral issues? Call me at 864-977-2008 and we will arrange for the Life Answers Team to come to your church and give a presentation that will benefit your people for years to come.

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To the skeptic, it might sound crazy. To believe in a God who loves. In a world where our hearts are breaking, and we're lost in the mess we've made. Like a blinding light in the dead of night, it's the gospel, the gospel that makes a way. This is Dylan Burrows back at Truth For A New Generation with Alex McFarland. We are interviewing Mark Middleburg, who is co-authored with Lee Strobel, Making Your Case For Christ. This exciting book joins Lee Strobel and Mark Middleburg, teaching you personally via video and through this new curriculum, your best ways to encourage friends to follow Christ, knowing the evidence for what you believe, how to present it, and so much more. We're excited to have Mark with us, and I want Mark to take a little bit of time to share with us what it's like to maybe give us an example of how this works out in practical everyday life for somebody.

Yeah, I'd love to, and I've had the privilege of seeing God use the approaches we teach in this Making Your Case For Christ training over the years, including a Muslim guy I met on Twitter who came to Christ a few weeks ago. I was a small part of it, but I got to be an influence there. But the story that stands out actually goes back years ago when Lee Strobel and I were both on staff at a large church in Chicago, and I was the director of Evangelism. He became a teaching pastor. By the way, he started as my assistant. He ended up becoming one of the key pastors, so I didn't hold him down, let me tell you that. I'm so proud of Lee and what he's doing, but at that time we were both involved in the Evangelism ministry, and I got a call one morning.

The receptionist said there was a young high school student who asked for me by name, and so I answered his call and he said, hi, we don't know each other, but he introduced himself and he said, I'm calling you because I used to be a Christian. And that got my attention, and I said, well, what do you mean? And he unfolded in detail a story about how that previous spring of the year, he's a high school student, he started having questions and doubts about his faith, which I told him was very natural. That's part of growing up in your faith, is saying, how do I know? And he said, well, that's what I thought, but my youth leader told me I needed to quit asking these questions, I just needed to have more faith. Like it's a muscle or something, try harder to believe this nonsense or something. That's how it struck him.

Do more reps. Yeah, do more reps mentally or something. And I said, well, no, you need information, you need answers. He said, well, that's what I thought. That was in the fall when he was calling me, and as the story unfolded, he told me not only had he really essentially lost his faith, but he had previously had a Bible study where they invited all their friends from the high school to study the Bible together, they were part of a public school that they would meet in his parents' home where he lived. He said, now that I don't believe this stuff anymore, I still want to meet with my friends, so we've changed our Bible study into what we now call, this is his term, we call it our skeptics group. And I said, wow, I'm glad you called me. I said, I'm curious why you called me, and he said, well, someone told me before I totally jettisoned my faith, you were someone that could give me answers. And I said, well, I hope I can, I sure would like to try, can we meet today? And we met that day for several hours, he brought a friend with him, then he invited me to his skeptics group. Alex, I think you'd take this invitation too. He's like, you want to come talk to a whole room full of high school students who are all losing their faith?

I'm going, yeah, I'll come to the next one! And I brought Lee Strobel with me, and we went, we had a great night, and the best way I can describe it is we did what we teach in all of our stuff, but especially in this newest curricula called Making Your Case for Christ. We went and presented our stories, which is part of what we teach in the course, how to naturally talk about your faith, we presented the evidence that convinced Lee and the information that reassured my faith as a doubter when I first got to college, and we spent about three and a half, four hours with these students, and we presented the Gospel, and by the end of the night, the guy who had first called me had recommitted his life to Christ. Two weeks later, his friend who he had brought to my office that day made a first-time commitment to Christ, and my favorite part of the story, they turned their skeptics group back into a Bible study. Oh right, that is awesome.

That is so awesome. Mark, for somebody listening right now, maybe somebody driving down the road in their car or wherever, and that person is wondering, how can I know that I'm ready to meet God? How can I know that I'm saved?

Explain that to us, Mark. I'd love to. It starts by knowing and being honest with yourself and with God that you need salvation, that you are a sinner who needs a Savior, and admitting that, and just quietly—I was actually driving—it's funny you use that illustration, Alex—I was driving when I made my commitment. I highly recommend keeping your eyes open and just doing what I did, just saying, God, I'm sick of running, I know I've disobeyed you, I've sinned against you, I deserve your punishment, but I believe in Jesus and His death on the cross for me, that you paid the penalty for me. And so I receive that, God, please apply what Christ did on the cross to my life, forgive my sins, change me, come into my life, fill me with your Holy Spirit, and guide me. And if you pray that with an honest heart and—by the way, you don't have to get all the words right, but just express it the best you can, with real faith, and God will answer that prayer, He will forgive your sins, and He'll begin right now to put you on the adventure of a lifetime as a follower of Jesus Christ. Folks, if you prayed right now and you said, Lord Jesus, forgive my sins, save me, you know, we have a little booklet that we want to send you, no strings attached.

You just ask for it. And the book says, what does God say about my relationship with Him? And we've given out thousands of these in the conferences around the country. And you can reach out to us if, like Mark shared, you know, Jesus loves you. God is not mad at you.

God has His arms open, and He's as close by as a prayer. And you know, Dylan, everything that Mark Middleburg is talking about and what he's devoted his life to, that's what we know is for everybody, to know Christ and to make Him known. Isn't that right?

Yes. And if you've enjoyed this and want to hear it again, you can pick it up at truthfornewgeneration.com and select the radio tab. You can share this with your friends, get more information about how to pick up Making Your Case for Christ.

This is an excellent resource we hope you'll pick up and enjoy with your friends. Mark, thanks for being with us. And from Alex and Dylan here at Truth For A New Generation, we're glad to have you here with us.

Join us next time. Truth For A New Generation, in association with Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries, exists to equip Christians with a biblical worldview through conferences and camps. For information about upcoming events, visit truthforanewgeneration.com or give us a call at 877-YesGod1. That's 877-YesGod1.

TNG radio is made possible by the friends of Alex McFarland Evangelistic Ministries. P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. That's P.O. Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. Or give online at alexmcfarland.com or truthforanewgeneration.com. Thanks for listening and join us again next time as we bring you more truth for a new generation on TNG radio.