Things are changing here at Confident Christianity. We’ve updated our look and now we’re updating our blog! Beginning next week, we’ll post regularly (crazy, right?) on the four elements of effective communication: knowing, listening, questioning, and responding. Every week of the month we’ll post on one of these elements. The first week will be an article on knowing. The second week will be an article on listening and so on throughout the month. Each month you’ll have access to training in all of the four key elements of effective communication outlined in Why Do You Believe That? A Faith Conversation and in Living in Truth: Confident Conversation in a Conflicted Culture.

For those of you who have participated in or read the studies, you’ll engage further with the ideas in these works. For those who’ve yet to encounter these studies, you’ll get a look at how to more effectively engage in conversation on beliefs. Let’s briefly look at what each week will entail.

KNOWING
The Knowing Week will focus on the knowledge of our beliefs. Sometimes, we’ll work through a basic Christian doctrine and/or a Scriptural passage. Sometimes, we’ll “meet” a theologian from the past. Sometimes, we’ll learn how to help others see the need for thoughtfully engaging our beliefs. Other times, we’ll provide links to other resources that help us understand our own Christian worldview.

LISTENING
I’ve envisioned the Listening Week as taking different paths. Just like the knowing week, we’ll learn about what the Scriptures have to say on this matter. Other times, we’ll discuss how we can become better at this practice when our world seems to be getting worse at it. Further, we’ll learn for what we should be listening.

QUESTIONING 
In the Questioning Week, we will not only learn how to question the beliefs of others, but we will raise important questions about the major issues of our day (and perhaps consider some issues that aren’t major but should be so). We’ll also learn some patterns of questioning that can help us have a more effective conversation.

RESPONDING 
The Responding Week is the time for answering questions, providing rebuttals, and learning a variety of appropriate responses to doubts. In this week, we’ll explore some of the arguments raised against God, but we’ll also learn that not every response we give will be a formalized defense. Sometimes, we have to learn to say, “I don’t know.”  

I hope you will benefit from this new format and the regular blog posts. I also hope you will pass the training and information along to someone who could use it! And I thank you, reader, for giving us your time; may it prove to be well invested.