Above Picture: John R. Shook (Atheist), UBC Debate Society President Stephen McCarthy, and William Lane Craig (Theist) faced off last Tuesday to a sold-out crowd.
(Click to enlarge)
oker chen photo / the ubyssey
1200 Pack Woodward for Controversial God Debate is the headline of the review of our recent Does God Exist? debate in the UBC student newspaper “The Ubyssey.”
As promotion of the UBC Debate was an integral part of the launch of our Ultimate Questions Outreach and website I am personally encouraged by the opening statements of the feature article:
"When William Lane Craig crossed the border into Canada, he, like everyone else, was asked the intent of his visit. Craig responded that he was taking part in a debate on the existence of God, to which border security replied, “You mean the one on Tuesday?”
The debate, appropriately titled Does God Exist?, made its presence much known on, and perhaps even off campus. Its slick posters seemed to have found their way to every corner of UBC."
You can read the entire review of the
debate here.
As the designer of the “Slick posters” and the entire Ultimate Questions campaign, I am very pleased that they were as effective as I had hoped. The UBC Campus for Christ staff and students did a great job in getting the word out about the debate. A few staff and students even painted themselves green and put on a sign that said” Are you a cosmic accident? Mimicking the feature promo poster of the 3D Green Brain. They said they were met with many encouraging conversations about the Debate and the existence of God.
Jan 29th the Day of the Big Debate was a snow day. Many of the local schools and other universities were closed. We were concerned with if the weather would effect our attendance, but it did stop snowing in the late afternoon. We had nothing to be concerned about as the debate drew over 1400 people, but unfortunately we only had enough room for 1200 so we had to turn 2-300 away.
We were able to give those who were turned away from the debate a copy of The new UQ booklet as we were able to give over 1000 away at the debate and the corresponding lectures. Please pray that god would use the booklets to open the most skeptical hearts to the truth of Jesus Christ.
Our Ultimate Questions lecture series with Dr Craig was also well attended by Christians and Skeptics alike. Dr Craig is one of the World’s most respected authorities on the Existence of God and the Resurrection of Christ. He has written over 30 Scholarly books and is invited to Speak and Debate around the world. You can check out his excellent website
reasonablefaith.org
2 other campuses are using Ultimate Questions to promote their Does God Exist? debate and lecture series, The University of Saskatchewan and the University of Manitoba.
I just heard a quick report that over 900 students attended the debate at the U of S (Also Sold Out) and they are also expecting a sell out at the University of Manitoba on Wednesday.
Please pray that God will continue to open the hearts and minds of students across Canada as we continue to engage them with Ultimate Questions and the Does God Exist ? debate series.
We are also doing a Success themed outreach at SFU on Wednesday Feb 6 that is featuring local Vancouver business man David Bental of Dominion Construction. Please pray that God would draw 300 students out, and that they all would be open to the Gospel.
I will keep you posted as we now start to personally connect with all of the students who have indicated that they would like to know more about God and Christianity from our events. So far over 200 students are wanting to know more from UBC alone.
Thanks so much for your partnership. Please let us know how we can be praying for you.
God Bless,
Gary
Ps ~ We have had some tech troubles and delays on the website ultimatequestions.org. But we hope to have the full version of the site working within the next few days. The full version will include video of the debates and corresponding lectures as as well as the expanded articles from the booklet. The
download page is working and you can download a copy of the New UQ booklet here. I would really appreciate your feedback.
Thanks for praying.
