The third annual meeting of the International Society of Christian Apologetics was held on June 6 and 7, 2008 on the campus of Liberty Baptist Seminary and Graduate School in Lynchburg, VA. Dr. Ergun Caner was the official program chair, and Dr. Fred and Laverne Smith were in charge of most of the local arrangements, including compiling the program, making room assignments, and taking care of any special needs that arose on the spur of the moment, such as providing technological assistance where necessary. Everything went smoothly.
A particularly valuable innovation that I would strongly recommend other hosting institutions might copy in the future was to provide an informal gathering area. In this case, it was a corner of the rather large room for plenary sessions, though it could also be a smaller room set aside for that purpose. The area contained some comfortable furniture to sit and chat and a free snackbar with simple items such as bagles and a few toppings as well as bottled water and soda (pop). Having this area went far in making it easy to attend a conference where accommodations are in a nearby, but not immediately accessible, hotel. Participants were able to meet informally for conversation, and nobody had to worry about finding a snack to make it through from lunch to the banquet.
In contrast to the first two years, we started on Friday morning (rather than afternoon), and were consequently able to provide more opportunity for parallel sessions. The rooms for the parallel sessions were in close proximity, so there was none of the rush to hurry from session to session over great distances that has become commonplace at the meetings of other organizations.
As the society is still in its early stages of formation, and since we want the first years to be learning-and-correcting years, at the business session, several amendments to the by-laws were passed. The main changes were that the president's term will be limited to two years, and that he or she may serve a maximum of two terms, which need not be consecutive. In order to ensure continuity, past presidents may remain on the executive committee for five years subsequent to their service. In order to ensure that the executive committee will not just be an ingrown group of the same people, it was agreed that there should be a member-at-large on the committee, nominated from the membership and serving for two years. The society also ratified the amendment that the webmaster would be an actual officer of the organization.
There were two votes held:
For President: Dr. Win Corduan, who will also remain webmaster;
For executive committee member-at-large: Dr. James K. Dew of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
For more details, plese see the Officers Page.
A highlight of the meeting was the unveiling of the first issue of JISCA, the Journal of the International Society of Christian Apologetics.. Chad Meister worked hard all year in order to get the journal ready for this meeting. All members present received a copy of the journal. Member who were not present will receive one in the mail as soon as all the arrangement are in place to send them out. Once everything is ready, libraries will be able to subscribe to the the journal for $10.00 per issue, and individual non-members may purchase one at the same price. Members, please watch your mailbox for the journal about two to three weeks from now; libraries and non-members, please watch for the relevant announcement to appear on this website.
Once again, the only complaint I heard with regard to the parallel sessions was that it was not possible to attend four sessions simultaneously. Presenters, would you please send me electronic copies of your papers, preferably in MS-Word, so that I can post them on this site. So far, I have received only three papers. Remember that we are asking only for the right to digital on-line publication of your paper, and that you are not forfeiting the apportunity to publish it anywhere else in print. Please send them to me as e-mail attachments.
Yours in Christ,
WIN
President and Webmaster
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