Millikin hosted an open microphone Q and A session on Oct. 4. The event was hosted by bestselling author and Christian motivational speaker Mark Mittelberg.

Mittelberg is the author of several books on the topic of the Christian faith including: “The Questions Christians Hope No One Will Ask (With Answers),” “Confident Faith,” and “The Reason Why Faith Makes Sense.”

Mittelberg is also the Executive Director of The Center for American Evangelism. Before holding this position Mittelberg was the original evangelism director at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago, as well as Executive Vice President of the Willow Creek Association – which is an Evangelical Christian organization made up of many different churches from a variety of different denominations and locations. He served there for many years.

This session was part of a larger series called Room for Doubt. It is a 6-week series in which churches are addressing, in both through sermons as well as in small group discussions, some of the top issues that cause people to doubt their Christian faith.

Joining Mittelberg with this series, are Dr. Richard Knopp, a professor of Philosophy and Christian Apologetics at Lincoln Christian University in Lincoln, Ill. as well as Wayne Kent, a local pastor from First Christian Church here in Decatur. The three were at the Q and A session taking any questions that students had related to the Christian faith and answered them to the best of their ability.

During this session, there were a variety of questions asked and many different topics were discussed, but the main topic that was focused on was if it’s okay for churchgoers to doubt their faith.

When asked about other topics that have been covered through this session, Mittelberg said that “In the other weeks, we have covered how we can know God exists, reasons to believe Jesus was God’s son, evidence to believe the Bible is God’s revelation, reasons a good God would allow tragedy and suffering and the final week discussed whether Jesus was right when he claimed to be ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’”

The event had a large turnout according to Mittelberg.

“I believe the count was between 500 and 600 people, though some said that having experienced it they wished they had brought more friends and family members,” Mittelberg said. “We were very careful to respect people and their opinions, but also to clearly present what we’ve discovered to be true about God and his message of the gospel. People seemed to find that kind of open discussion invigorating, so I think if we did it again we’d get even more people to attend.”

When asked why they chose Millikin for this session Mr. Mittelberg said, “The churches wanted to come together for a region-wide event, and chose the Kirkland auditorium both for the quality of the facility, and because it had plenty of space. And the reason for the open-mic Q and A session was to literally make room for people to raise their doubts, questions and objections.”

Mittelberg thanked Millikin campus by saying,”Thank you for opening up your beautiful campus and your auditorium up to us, I had a great time being there.”

If you are interested in other sessions like this one then visit http://rfddecatur.com for a list of churches in the Decatur area that are participating in the Room for Doubt program and will also be hosting Q and A sessions that are similar to this one.