Spiritual Enrichment
ACSI Region: Southern California
Program Objectives : (1) to prepare Christian middle school students to defend their faith by teaching them apologetics in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades and (2) to strengthen the individual faith of students by introducing them to answers to the toughest questions and oppositions facing Christianity
Summary of Program
The Middle School Apologetics program at Mariners Christian School came from a desire to better equip our graduates to make an impact for Christ in their possibly secular high schools and colleges. In 2001, we began the Introduction to Christian Apologetics class. Meeting two days a week, this 6th-grade apologetics class covers six basic units ranging from the case for Creation and the problems with evolution to cults. The students use as their text the student edition of Lee Strobel’s book The Case for Christ (2001).
For the 7th graders, we developed a one-day-a-week apologetics class to address the topics in the student edition of Strobel’s follow-up book The Case for Faith (2002). The topics range from the problem of evil to beliefs about hell.
Finally, in 8th-grade Bible class, students go through a cumulative review, using Norman Geisler and Joseph Holden’s book Living Loud (2002). The final oral exam includes giving a personal testimony, presenting the gospel, and answering a series of objections.
We try to make the apologetics classes meaningful, engaging, and fun. Lecture is a key component. The students learn all the apologetics material in bite-size chunks, and the classes teach acrostic memorization techniques to make the material easier to learn.
The students learn how to ask good questions. For each unit, students receive training in asking questions of the skeptic, such as, “How did you come to that conclusion?” or, “Why do you believe that?” This nonthreatening tactic, practiced in class by pairs of students, is effective in putting the skeptic, not the Christian, on the defense. We also use the Internet as an important tool in stimulating student interest in Christian apologetics. The students learn to use Internet sites that offer a wealth of information to answer some of the toughest attacks against Christianity. Guest speakers and field trips also add a wonderful variety to the apologetics curriculum. Guest speakers and field trips can also expose students to various worldviews that the students can critique under the careful guidance of the teacher.
By including cumulative projects, the classes use authentic assessments that challenge the students to use high-level thinking skills to apply their newly acquired knowledge. We design these cumulative projects to be fun and interactive. They include dramas, mock trials, press conferences, and “grill a Christian hot seat demonstrations.” The students who are less inclined to perform in front of others can do assignments such as writing letters to a skeptic, designing murals, and making illuminated poems.
This program has had a tremendous impact on our students. Every year, graduates email us or come by to tell us how they have used the material they learned in apologetics. In class, students will frequently ask questions that they are facing from their non-Christian friends. And in most cases, our students are not getting this kind of teaching anywhere else.
While the topic of apologetics can seem intimidating, it doesn’t have to be. Teachers can take small, simple steps by reading and discussing the books mentioned above and by using the Internet to help investigate tough objections to Christianity. Or, with administrative support, a school can form an apologetics class. Whatever the means of teaching apologetics, students who receive this kind of training will be better equipped to handle many of the challenges to their faith.
References
Geisler, Norman, and Joseph Holden. 2002. Living loud: Defending your faith. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Strobel, Lee. 2001. The case for Christ: A journalist’s personal investigation of the evidence for Jesus. With Jane Vogel. Student ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Strobel, Lee. 2002. The case for faith: A journalist investigates the toughest questions to Christianity. With Jane Vogel. Student ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Middle School Apologetics