Naples Italy, the birthplace of Pizza, played host to a team of students and alumni from Southern Evangelical Seminary. This team of teachers, conveniently called T.E.A.M. exists for the purpose of Tactical Evangelism and Apologetics Mission. A brethren Church in Bacoli (a district in Naples Italy), pastored by Rod Jones played host to this motley crew of 7 apologists. 
  Simon Brace, the team leader is the seasoned world-traveler and tireless visionary. Duke Hale, dean of students, was the father of the trip, getting us to bed on time and managing the money. Lanny Wilson and John Ferrer were the college professors and SES alumni. Kyle Macmanamy and Josh Erlien, current students at SES taught as well and lent a much needed pastoral spirit to keep our intellectualism in check.  And of course, Fiorella Weaver, the native Italian and SES grad of 2002, oriented us to Italian culture and translated with the occasional license appropriate to her training as an apologist.
  Our first chance to speak was to an evening crowd at the church in Bacoli. Team leader Simon Brace had the honors of introducing the congregation to the critical need for apologetics in church ministry. The question and answer forum afterwards, however, was where the real action started. These Q&A sessions would prove especially productive as the interactive dimension where apologetics is groomed into a relevant expression for the people of Naples. Our first few teaching opportunities, there at Bacoli were promising. But we did not anticipate the kind of response that would follow.
  Word spread. Other churches called. New venues cropped up. A Baptist church. A few Charismatic churches. A bilingual church. Different towns. Different age groups. Opportunities Word Spread and Invitations came pouring in. Opportunities sprouted. The University of Naples proved to be a staple for us, hosting a four session conference complete with two hours per session for lecture and panel discussion. Most nights, the team would split up from there to go to different churches for more teaching and preaching. However, the real meat was always in the panel discussions and the informal conversations afterwards.  
  Evangelicals in Naples struggle under a history of Roman Catholic traditionalism, years of governmental corruption, and a pervasive mafia influence. For Naples, questions about witnessing to Catholic friends, or about civil disobedience are not idle inquiries but live issues at the heart of Naples. Apologetics should be imminently practical, the agile expression of timeless truth for a timely occasion.
  Several other speaking engagements throughout the two weeks involved orientation into apologetic thinking. But we soon were able to address other fields of apologetic interest. Including Historical Apologetics, Polemics, Scientific Apologetics, World Religions, Cults, Occult, Ethics, Philosophical and Theological Apologetics, as well as cultural apologetics.
  There in Naples, the venues included Brethren churches, Baptist churches, and Pentacostal churches, and the University of Naples. But we did not stop there. After a week and a half of ministry in Naples we traveled north to Rome and spent three days at the Bible College of Rome. This part of the trip, was also a rather late addition to the schedule. But we were able to set up a time for teaching there 15-30 students on the nature of Truth. Lanny spoke and the team hosted another panel discussion afterwards. The Q&A was so vigorous that we had to schedule more panel discussion the next night.
  Everywhere we went, we found that once the people tasted a bit of what apologetics was, we had little trouble coaxing interest. It’s value was evident.  Apologetics is not simply a collection of egg heads arguing esoteric irrelevancies. Apologetics is a dimension of Christian discipleship-a commission to the whole church (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 12:30). It is the mindset where Christians worship God by defending and implementing his teachings, and witness to non-Christians by dignifying their questions, and grow in their own faith by discovering the infinite depths of God’s truth as it interacts with other worldviews.
  This trip has been a smashing success. Invitations kept coming in as the crowds grew more and more. Opportunities found us quicker than we could search for the. But perhaps the most  telling evidence was how the students at University of Naples were almost falling out of their desks they were leaning forward so much. They were reaching out for a robust intelligent faith. The needs in Naples are too great to be satisfied with emotionalism, cold traditionalism, or stoic fideism.
  We have teased them with a glimpse of a apologetics. Now a wise and deliberate follow-up plan is needed to water these budding seeds and capitalize on the work God has done here.