News > North America

On Oct 29th, St. Louis UBF had the Fall Bible Symposium at Washington University. Unlike the previous years, we avoided the conventional Bible school program with messages, testimonies, worship, and instead had an open forum with several controversial agendas which drew skeptics, atheists, and agnostics to the table of discussion.

The agendas were 1) The problem of evil, 2) The exclusiveness of Christianity, 3) Can I doubt and be a Christian?  The three Bible answer men Kit West (Ben West’s father), Michael Lanier (SIUE Grad 1), and Nirosh De Silva (Springfield, IL UBF) were willing to give answers to everyone who would ask about their hope (1 Pe 3:15). The symposium started with a brief introduction message by the presider David Sheloff (Wash U. 2).

God sent more than 15 new students including 5 students who came informed through the fliers around campus, and they filled the room. Among them, Adam (Wash U 4) asked many sharp and difficult questions about Christian faith, and Nirosh answered most of them based on the Scriptures and his own testimony. Before we prepared for the symposium, some missionaries worried about the possibility of destructive arguments because we didn’t have much experience regarding such a symposium. So, all our missionaries gathered early every morning and prayed for God’s mercy and guidance for the meeting. We prayed that all the speakers might have words and wisdom from the Holy Spirit (Lk 21:15). By God’s grace the meeting went smoothly from the beginning to the end in a friendly atmosphere without any hurtful arguments.

We all thanked God who answered our prayer and blessed all the attendants with the truth of God. Through this symposium we learned that there are many students who are seeking for the truth in this post-Christian culture. Now we are praying for the coming Christmas worship service which will be held on Dec. 7th at Wash U. May God send many truth-seekers like the Magi who will worship the baby Jesus in a manger.