A Day of Apologetics with OCCA

Last Friday, we had the absolute joy of spending the day with some of the OCCA (Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics) team. If you want to know more about them, check out www.theocca.org

In the morning, Alanzo and Tom joined Step at Townsend School for nearly two hours with about 30 of their Year 12s and a couple of students from NBS. They shared their powerful testimonies before an hour of Q&A (with a few icebreakers and games to stretch legs in between).

Many of the questions were about science and religion, truth in a technological age, the afterlife and much more. The initial feedback from the students was really positive and they were impressed with the intelligent and culturally aware answers that were given. Alanzo and Tom not only communicated expertly up the front, they were engaging with the students on a one-to-one level and nearly missed their lunch as conversations flowed after the session had finished.

We were hoping that more schools would join us but although they were exceptionally keen on the event, sadly the time of year wasn’t ideal due to exam pressures. In light if this, we are already working out how we can run similar events like this in the autumn term to gather more schools together.

OCCA then delivered some brilliant training for youth leaders across the area in the afternoon and also joined the Illuminate team for a youth event in the evening at Forest Town Church. It was a fabulous evening with many youth groups represented. Again, loads of amazing questions were answered and there were several young people deciding to follow Jesus on the night.

We are now excited to see how this new partnership with OCCA can develop.

Geoff