Speaker Bio
Matt Schmidt is the founder and CEO of Engage 360 Ministries which exists to help people share their faith in everyday conversation. After a three-year process of wrestling through questions of God and Christianity, he came to faith in Christ. This process has given him a passion to help others know their faith and to share it effectively. Matt earned a master’s in philosophy (with emphasis in Theology, Bible, and Apologetics) at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Matt and his wife Erica have 6 children. Erica is a trained educator and is homeschooling their children on a small acreage south of Charlotte.
Workshops handouts available for download below.
Speaker Workshops
Invisible
Four Essential Definitions
Faith is blind, hope is wishful thinking, love is love, the Gospel is to love people. You may have heard these phrases or similar ones used outside (or even inside the church). However, an important overlooked question is, “What is the biblical understanding and definition of these terms?” In this session we will use interactive role plays to wrestle through a biblical understanding of each term and ideas of how to communicate the truth of these terms in an increasingly anti-Christian and biblically illiterate world.
How we can know Christianity is true
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, New Age, and Atheism are just a sample of the claims vying for adherence today. But the question is, “How do we know which (if any) is true?” As Christians, can we effectively communicate to others that Christianity is true? How can we know Jesus is the only way? How can we know Jesus rose from the dead? In this session we will use interactive scenarios to wrestle through and come out with an overwhelming conviction that Christianity can be shown to be true and stands far above the other options in doing so.
The Three Wrong People
Jesus was consistently doing things wrong given the culture of the time. Eating with tax collectors, telling parables about the good Samaritan, and going against the traditions of the religious leaders. The inclusion of details that would be problematic in the culture in which Christianity began gives credibility to the truth of the Gospel. Jesus highlights the unique degree of faith in three individuals: the Roman Centurion, the Canaanite woman, and the Samaritan woman. In this session, we will consider these interactions and what they teach us about the nature of faith and the credibility they give to the New Testament.
Creation Cries Out
Whether towering mountains, a giant canyon, a tropical reef, or your local park, there is a profound beauty in nature. There is also a brokenness in the created world. Whether disease, disaster, or man-made destruction, we know that the world should not be this way. Critics of Christianity miss the implications of the beauty in the world and use elements of the brokenness to reject God. However, our intuitions about both beauty and brokenness point to the reality of God. In this session we will discuss the evidence for God and the Gospel from the beauty and brokenness of the world.
