July is a great month of the year. Those of us here in the ‘Great White North’ look forward to July as a time of waking up from our long cold winter hybernation. We throw off our layers of animal skins and emerge from our concrete caves ready and eager to begin our annual hunting and fishing and campfire routines in our cottages by the lake. For our friends south of us, July is a time to remember their independence as a new country. Our neighbors to the south join us July 1st for Canada day for our nation’s anniversary and we join them July 4th for their Independence Day. July 7th of this year also marks 15 years of marriage to my wonderful wife Heather. This July also marks a very important milestone for a good friend of mine, Paul Carden. Paul has a heart for the lost that extends beyond the borders of our two countries. This year marks his 25th year in full time ministry. The following is a recent letter sent to supporters of his ministry at The Centers for Apologetics Research (CFAR):

Dear Friends,

Friday July 1st of 2005 marks a personal milestone: my 25th anniversary in full-time ministry.

On July 1, 1980, I reported for my first day of work at Walter Martin’s Christian Research Institute in Anaheim, California. Walter hired me as a researcher/editor, largely on the strength of a recommendation from a former Mormon temple worker (a mutual friend).

I could hardly imagine what I was getting myself into.


The next year, Walter sent me to Africa for three months a trip that would change my life. Seeing the spread of cults and the church’s lack of preparedness grieved me so deeply that I resolved to do anything God asked of me. Two years later, Walter sent me to Brazil, where I had an opportunity to learn from the ground up how countercult ministry really works in a developing nation. In 1989, after six years (and two children) on the field, I returned to the U.S. and, shortly thereafter, begin six years of broadcasting on “The Bible Answer Man.” During that time I took my first steps toward countercult ministry in Russia.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My wife, Lisa, said: “You never write about yourself. You should tell people how you came to the Lord and how you got started in ministry,” (Of course, this isn’t about me and shouldn’t be. It’s about God, in His kindness, making even a life such as mine useful for His purposes.)

To make a long story short, I accepted Christ during my sophomore year in high school. An upper-classman witnessed to me, kindly but relentlessly, for weeks before I surrendered my life to the Lord. Sometime during the next year or so I was at the home of a friend on a rainy afternoon and discovered a book called The Kingdom of the Cults on her shelf. I picked it up, and soon I couldn’t put it down. It introduced me to an entire world I barely knew existed. Not long after I started college I learned that the book’s author, Walter Martin, was teaching every Sunday at a nearby church. I began attending weekly, then found myself taking Wednesday-night classes taught by members of Walter’s staff at the Christian Research Institute. Along the way I took part in my first outreach to Mormons. It involved marching up and down Santa Monica Boulevard in front of the Los Angeles temple holding placards with provocative messages, which seemed daring (and even innovative) at the time.

One night the class featured testimonies by members of a group called Ex-Mormons for Jesus. I was captivated. I took one look at their newsletter, which was pretty primitive, and knew there must be some way I could help. For the next few years, except for working and sleeping it seems most of my time was spent immersed in books about Mormonism, evangelizing Mormons, and organizing conferences and new chapters for EMFJ.

My employers at the Mormon firm where I worked were not pleased. When they eventually let me go I thought I would see whether the Christian Research Institute needed anyone familiar with Mormonism; happily, it did.
So that’s how I started. Twenty-five years later, I’m still provoked by all the cruelty and confusion caused by cults in Jesus’ name … and still thrilled to see Him transforming hearts.

What have I learned? Among other valuable lessons, experience has taught me that … 

 Motives matter even more than methods (as vitally important as good methodology is!) cf. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, 13.

People join and leave cults for more than just doctrinal reasons. They cannot be helped and healed without caring for their emotional needs.

There’s a permanent shortage of workers who have the “Four C’s”: Character, Competence, Calling, and Commitment. CFAR can have no ministry apart from such people. God has blessed us with several.
No matter how hard we try, this ministry is doomed to ineffectiveness and irrelevance without consistent, committed prayer.

What do I foresee? Speaking broadly, I believe that …

The church in China, Africa, and even Latin America is still desperately underserved in terms of overall countercult ministry; we neglect them at our peril. (And we’d better prepare ourselves for Cuba!)

The Word-Faith movement will continue to corrupt and weaken the Third-World church unless we resist and refute its errors and advocates far more aggressively.

We must inoculate special constituencies with special vulnerability to cult recruitment - especially women and the young.

Creative, audacious use of radio, video, and the Internet will be necessary to equip Christians and evangelize cultists in vast numbers.

Unless we commit to full-time workers in full-service agencies in the developing world, we will never gain a strategic advantage in the battle against the cults.

What a God of mercy we serve! What a privilege I’ve had to see his hand at work in so many lives across so many continents over nearly three decades. He has sustained us through pain and doubt, uncertainty and opposition. His Word has been proven faithful and true.

Has this been a cause worth more than half of my life? Without any doubt whatsoever.

Undreamed-of opportunities lie before us. Together, by God’s grace, we can change the world.

Here’s to the next quarter-century!

In His love and hope,

Paul Carden, Executive Director

Posted by David_Upton at 03:25 PM