Once again New Horizon has come and gone and once again what a week it was! Thought I’d share a short reflection on the whole experience.

For me I didn’t really hear anything I didn’t already know, it was simply encouraging to hear other people say things that confirmed my thoughts on the same issues and also hear it said in a much more poetic and intelligent way than I ever have or ever will most likely. However, I personally was richly blessed especially through John Lennox and his exposition on Daniel.

Firstly I am glad that these topics were brought to Northern Ireland during the week. As a country that has had little to no “attack” from other worldviews outside of Christianity, it’s easy for us to get soft and lazy when giving “reason for the Hope we believe in.” I hope Christians use what they’ve learnt from this week to create a much better “intellectual playing field” for debate which I feel will most likely be needed in the near future.

As important as I feel apologetics is, I can’t help but reflect on some things said to be by many unbelieving friends and also some people who perhaps didn’t like me so much in PC. I don’t claim this to be the majority say in my year on this matter just what I’ve hear from a few folk. In response to the question “why are you not a Christian?” The main response wasn’t “I just don’t have enough faith” or “it’s just not more me.” I can’t even remember hearing “God does not exist.” (to that kind of questions people usually just shrugged) The most common answer (by a long long way) I heard in response to “why are you not a Christian?” was almost always, I’m not a Christian because of “other Christians.” This was the big turn off for the people I heard from. In my own year the general Christian “group” has mostly (not all but most) kept themselves to themselves. One of the locker areas has even been referred to as the “Christian lockers.” I have fallen into as Michael Green said, the “Christian manure pile” time and again and I really don’t think it’s done much for the Kingdom.

I say this in hope that other Christians(especially younger Christians) will be well aware of this pitfall of how our sinful nature encourages us to huddle into little “self-protective” groups to meet other Christian friends and be comfortable and safe and continue to be disobedient to the great commission.

This can be found in many places not just school but work, home and also church and I hope people can find the application here, that perhaps our problem may not be just intellectual but more so relational as well.

Ben