Windsor Hosts Abdu Murray and RZIM

I had a very interesting and full week. Yesterday, I was part of a group of Windsor Pastors who hosted Abdu Murray of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Abdu is a world-class Christian apologist who converted to Christ from Islam.

He also was a very good trial lawyer in the Detroit area before he went into full-time Christian Apologetics ministry. He founded Embracing the Truth Ministries and has just become the North American director of RZIM. The emphasis of RZIM is learning to love God with your mind. Christianity doesn’t just involve our emotions and our spirits, but it also involves our mind. We are called to love God with our entire being.

Christians like Ravi Zacharias and Abdu Murray have appeared on many university and college campuses debating a variety of atheists and agnostics. Their conviction is that the core beliefs of Christianity are based on historical facts and objective truths. They go to the hallowed halls of academia and many other places where Christians tend not to to go “to give an answer to everyone who asks (them) to give the reason for the hope that (they) have (in Christ)”. (1Peter 3:15)

I find it very interesting that these debates and other seminars that people like Zacharias and Murray conduct are very well attended. I think it speaks to the search for God in our culture, even in academic settings and other venues where the Christian faith is not embraced. It is just amazing that despite the prevalence of atheistic evolutionary thinking in almost every major field of university study, it cannot quench the thirst for God.

A Very Strategic Ministry

I believe that ministries like RZIM have a very strategic importance in the Western world today. I believe that people like Ravi Zacharias, Abdu Murray and Nabeel Qureshi (another former Muslim who works for RZIM), have been raised up by the Lord for 2 major reasons.

First of all, discipleship of the Christian community, especially university-bound students, in learning to love God with your entire being, including your mind.

Secondly, for the evangelism of an increasingly secular population in the West, and the evangelism of the new immigrants who are coming to us from the Islamic world in great numbers.

A Great Kairos Moment For Windsor?

Some of us went to lunch with Abdu and a RZIM representative, Dave Cottrill, after our main meeting, and we discussed the possibiilties of a major thrust for Windsor in 2017. It would involve both discipleship and evangelism and would be something similar to what RZIM did in Calgary. May the Lord open the door for such a ministry outreach in our area. It would have great potential to be a truly transformative event for this area and for the glory of God. Please join us in prayer as we beseech God to make this event a reality.