Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions, by Gregory Koukl ★★★
This book was highly recommended to me by friends. Evidently, it has been around a while, now existing in the 10th anniversary edition. The focus of the book was in detailing how one can encounter the unbeliever in the public square. He offers sage advice, such as to avoid being argumentative, to be kind, to ask questions in order to focus the contact person toward discovering the logical inconsistencies of their thinking. Koukl owes a deep debt to Francis Schaeffer, who he quotes frequently. Koukl talks a lot about abortion issues and intelligent design issues.
The strength of this book is in reminding Christians to witness, and that their witness needs to be as ambassadors for Christ, while behaving always in a Christ-like manner. The weakness is that the tactics are presenting in a cutesy “Columbo” style, which was a little annoying. This approach is great for a teenager but not for a more mature adult, in that it reminded me of the pop books of yesterday, like Fritz Ridenour’s books or Josh McDowell’s Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door. It’s easy to get hung up on tactics when one just needs to “do it”. Witnessing should come as natural as breathing.
I purchased a second book by Gregory Koukl Street Smarts, which looks like it is more of the same thing. I’ll probably skim the book and then offer a second Koukl review.
