Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing your Christian Convictions (Gregory Koukl)

Tactics

A Game Plan for Discussing your Christian Convictions

This expanded anniversary edition includes updates and expansions of existing tactics, as well as the addition of an all-new tactic and a chapter on Mini Tactics filled with simple maneuvers to aid in discussions.

In a world increasingly indifferent to Christian truth, followers of Christ need to be equipped to communicate with those who do not speak their language or accept their source of authority. In Tactics, 10th Anniversary Edition, Gregory Koukl demonstrates how to artfully regain control of conversations, keeping them moving forward in constructive ways through thoughtful diplomacy. You’ll learn how to stop challengers in their tracks and how to turn the tables on questions or provocative statements. Most important, you’ll learn how to get people thinking about Jesus. Tactics provides the game plan for communicating the compelling truth about Christianity with confidence and grace.

Drawing on extensive experience defending Christianity in the public square, Koukl shows readers how to:

• Initiate conversations effortlessly
• Present the truth clearly, cleverly, and persuasively
• Graciously and effectively expose faulty thinking
• Skillfully manage the details of dialogue
• Maintain an engaging, disarming style even under attack

Endorsements

“In this wise and compelling book, Greg Koukl—who has thought long and hard about not only what to say but how to say it—provides a game plan for equipping believers through an artful method of careful thinking and winsome conversation. If you struggle with how to talk about your faith and respond to questions and objections in a meaningful and effective way—and most of us do—there is no better book to buy, read, and put into practice. I could not recommend it more highly!”

— Justin Taylor, “Between Two Worlds” blog; Editor; and author of Suffering and the Sovereignty of God and The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

“When I want someone who can help me train ambassadors for Christ, the first person I call is Greg Koukl. Now his proven ideas are in this book. I wish I had known these tactics twenty years ago. They are some of the best I’ve ever seen to help Christians be more effective ambassadors for Christ. Trust me—if you read Koukl’s advice and learn his methods, your impact for Christ will skyrocket.”

— Frank Turek, author of I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist

Contents

Part 1: The Game Plan

• 1) Diplomacy or D-Day
• 2) Reservations
• 3) Getting in the Driver’s Seat: The Columbo Tactic
• 4) Columbo Step 1: Gathering Information
• 5) Columbo Step 2: Reversing the Burden of Proof
• 6) Two Reliable Rescues
• 7) Columbo Step 3: Using Questions to Make a Point
• 8) Perfecting Columbo
• 9) Turnabout: Defending against Columbo

Part 2: Finding the Flaws

• 10) Suicide: Views that Self-Destruct
• 11) Practical Suicide
• 12) Sibling Rivalry and Infanticide
• 13) Taking the Roof Off
• 14) Steam Roller
• 15) Rhodes Scholar
• 16) Just the Facts, Ma’am
• 17) Inside Out
• 18) Mini-Tactics
• 19) More Sweat, Less Blood