Meet New AiG Speaker Bryan Osborne

Bryan described his salvation testimony for me like this:

When I was about 12 years old, I went to a church and I thought I needed some “fire insurance,” so I made a commitment. But I wouldn't say dogmatically that’s when I truly got saved. Then when I was 17 years old, I was driving down the road in a state of rebellion after church on a Wednesday night. Well, apparently family and friends were praying for me at that moment as I was driving down the road. For no apparent reason to me, I just got hit with my sin. The only way I can describe it is as a road-to-Damascus-like experience. It just broke me; I was sobbing like a little baby. I was realizing my sin, being broken, led to true repentance, and to a joy of salvation I’d never experienced before. From that point on my life changed, as it should when God intervenes and makes you a new creation.

Bryan also gave some details on his education and work history:

I grew up in North Carolina and went to a high school there. After that I went to a Christian college in Dayton, Tennessee—Bryan College. I did not go for the name, but it was Bryan College, even spelled the same way as mine. So now I can’t wear the t-shirts from my own college because people make fun of me! My degree was in biblical studies with minors in Greek and Christian education. And from there I went to another Christian university, Lee University, and got my master’s degree in education. Once I graduated from college, I worked a couple of odd jobs while my wife finished school. And then through God’s divine intervention I became a Bible history teacher in a public school system, and I did that for 13 years. Teaching Bible history meant that I had an open door to answer kids’ questions about things like evolution, homosexuality, drug use—any question they had—from a biblical-history perspective. It was a tremendous ministry and I loved it. After 13 years God opened up other doors and brought me to AiG.

Bryan arrived here at AiG through a series of God opening some doors:

About ten years ago I was teaching Bible history in the public school and a friend of mine who was a youth pastor, said, “Hey, I’ve got this DVD about dinosaurs. Want to check it out?” And I said, “Sure.” And at the time, I was one of those Christians who thought “God could have used evolution and millions of years. It doesn’t matter, just love and trust in Jesus.” So I watched this DVD, and it just blew me away. It was about a biblical understanding of dinosaurs from the right creation perspective. And I realized for the first time that we as Christians have answers for things and that evolution and millions of years are an attack on the authority of God’s Word.

I started watching that video over and over again, and then I started watching the other videos he had, over and over again. Then I started reading books. For about two years I was just absorbing this information because I’d never had it growing up. After about two years my wife looked at me and said, “What are you going to do with all this info?” So I started putting together creation presentations and doing those at my church. They gained so much popularity that I started doing them in other churches.

During the midst of this six-year period, I became more and more familiar with Answers in Genesis. As I kept doing my study and kept teaching these classes, what became apparent to me was that this is important and relates directly to the authority of God’s Word and the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that’s what I was passionate about ever since God got ahold of me when I was 17. So that’s when it really meant something to me and when I saw the desperate spiritual need for this teaching. I began to realize that my heart was also the heartbeat of AiG.

A few years ago, Ken was speaking at a church in Tennessee, and I thought, “I’ll introduce myself to him and I’ll give him a sample of my teaching and see if he thinks he can plug me in somewhere. Maybe I could be of use to the ministry.” We went to hear Ken, and I was so nervous my hands were shaking because I felt so silly. Well, I introduced myself and told him about my experience teaching. Then I offered him a sample of my teaching. I had a one-hour summary or a thirteen-hour complete set of the thirteen-week course I teach. No surprise, he chose the hour sample! Now, I wasn’t looking for another job; I loved teaching Bible history. But I thought, “God, if you open up doors, I will walk through them.” So I practiced my relevance talk and then came to AiG to give my first talk in front of Ken and other AiG staff, including some of the speakers. It was nerve-wracking. But it went well and they invited me back, and I started doing some adjunct speaking, and eventually they wanted me to come on full-time. God kept opening doors and I kept walking.

Bryan also explained why he thinks it’s important for believers to bring an AiG speaker to their church:

One of the main things we do as a ministry is bring awareness to where the attack on Christianity is taking place. Most Christians don’t realize the stealth attack that’s taking place on God’s Word. They don’t realize how the enemy is attacking the Bible’s history to undermine the authority of God’s Word and to undermine the gospel. Once we put it out in front of them, they realize, “That’s it! I knew something was wrong, and I knew we weren’t reaching the culture like we used to, and I didn’t know why, but now I do.” It’s the relevance of Genesis and the importance of it to biblical authority and the gospel that makes it click for people. It gives them the foundation so they can understand how important the answers we’re going to give them later really are.

To have Bryan or any of our engaging and qualified speakers come to your church and introduce your congregation and community to the importance of biblical creation and get them on fire to share the gospel with those around them, request an event.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.