God has always placed a burden on my heart to reach Muslims and atheists, so when I started my studies at George Mason University, I wanted to become more equipped to give a rational defense of Christian truth to skeptics and adherents of other religions.
Last year, I had several Muslim friends I was intentionally pursuing on campus. We met regularly to play chess and discuss faith. Through these discussions, and with encouragement from my friends at Harvest, I felt God leading me to be a better witness to my friends through evangelism and apologetics.
God worked in my heart to seek out a campus apologetics organization called Ratio Christi (Latin for "The Reason of Christ"), and I called the contact number on the website to find out how I could help start a chapter at GMU. God opened every door, and in the summer of 2017, I was able to go to a Ratio Christi leadership training and begin the process of officially registering Ratio Christi GMU as a new student organization.
Through the process, I had my doubts about how successful this could be; I’d be graduating in a year and I was unsure if the group would continue even if I could get it off the ground. But God was faithful in honoring our efforts, and we were able to start Ratio Christi at GMU and influence students not only on our campus, but around the world.
Currently, we have one atheist student faithfully attending our meetings, and have had other atheists, Muslims, a Hindu, and "nones" visit our meetings. By God's grace, and despite numerous obstacles, in March we were able to host a debate between Dr. David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics and Dr. Shabir Ally of the Toronto Islamic Information and Dawah Centre on the topic: "Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?" The audience was around 250, and over half were Muslims. It has nearly 100,000 views on YouTube, and will continue to reach Muslims all over the globe.
Praise God, the club is still going strong as I prepare to graduate, and leadership has successfully transitioned to the next generation of student officers.
Yet despite seeing the ways God has worked through all of this, I’ve still been reluctant to share this story. Things have been happening in my personal life which often feel as if they overshadow how God has been working in me through Ratio Christi. But regardless of what I may be going through personally, it does not diminish the power of how Christ has used this organization to reach atheists and believers of other religions, and that’s worth celebrating.
I pray God blesses this ministry as it seeks (in the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15) to give reasonable answers to any who have sincere objections and challenges to the truth claims of Christianity, and I look forward to seeing God change the hearts of many who hear the good news of Christ through it.