Mission Frontiers

July-August 2013:

A Historic Wind is Blowing Through the House of Islam

Contents:

God is Doing Something Historic

by David Garrison

Welcoming Muslim Neighbors into God’s Kingdom in East Africa

by Ben Naja

Why Are Muslims Coming to Jesus Like Never Before?

by Robby Butler

Start a Disciple-Making Movement Among Your Muslim Neighbors

by Paul Bartlett, Robby Butler

Any-3

Lead Muslims to Christ Now!

by Mike Shipman

Guide Muslims to the Bible

by AJ Hague

A Novice’s Guide to Fielding Common Muslim Objections

by Shane Bennett

Kingdom Kernels

CPM Essentials On a Napkin

by Steve Smith

How One Man Dared to Shake Up World Missions

The Ralph D. Winter Story

by Chuck Huckaby

What Should We Do With All Our Money?

When Global Generosity Destroys Local Generosity

by Jean Johnson

12 Months Blocs Spotlight for July 2013

South Asian Peoples With Emphasis on India

by

12 Months Blocs Spotlight for August 2013

Tibetan Peoples

by Gabriel Arinim

Further Reflections

Training in Action

by Greg H. Parsons

Feature

God is Doing Something Historic

by David Garrison

A wind is blowing through the House of Islam. The House of Islam, Dar al-Islam in Arabic, is the name Muslims give to an invisible religious empire that stretches from West Africa to the Indonesian archipelago encompassing 49 nations and 1.6 billion Muslims. Dwarfing the size of any previous earthly kingdom, Islam directs the spiritual affairs of nearly a quarter of the world’s population. But something is happening today that is challenging the hold that Islam exercises over its adherents.

Today, in more than 60 separate locations in at least 17 of the 49 countries where Islam holds sway, new communities of Muslim-background followers of Christ are emerging. Each of these movements has seen at least 1,000 baptized believers and at least 100 new worshipping fellowships, all of whom have come to Christ over the past two decades. In some countries the communities have grown to number tens of thousands of new Muslim-background followers of Christ.

Though the total number of new Christ followers, perhaps as many as one to five million, may be a statistically small drop in the vast sea of Islam, they are not insignificant. Not limited to a remote corner of the Muslim world, these new communities of believers are widespread, from West Africa’s Sahel to the teeming islands of Indonesia — and everywhere in between.

The price these converts pay for their conversion has not diminished with the arrival of modern times. Qur‘anic prescriptions remain unflinching: “…if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them” (Qur‘an An-Nisa 4:89b). And these religious renegades are paying an incalculable price for their spiritual migration to Christ. Yet they continue to come. What began as a few scattered expressions of dissent is now emerging as substantial, and historically unprecedented numbers of Muslim men and women wading against the current of their societies to follow Jesus Christ. And it is only beginning.

To grasp the weight of this phenomenon, one must view it in light of the nearly 14-century backdrop of Islamic expansion and interaction with Christian populations. Within a century of the Prophet Muhammed’s death in 632, his Arab warriors had defeated both Byzantine and Persian superpowers that had dominated the world, directly and through their predecessors, for more than a thousand years. Along the way, they subjected millions of Christians to Islamic governance.

Islam’s advance did not stop until it had reached the Pacific Ocean in the 13th century and breached the walls of Constantinople in 1453. In many respects the advance of Islam, though more subtle, continues to this day. But, following the example of its founder, the Christian faith does not die easily. Though conquered by Islamic armies, Christian populations lingered for centuries before persistent pressures and incentives to conversion eventually took their toll, relegating Christian ancestry for millions to a distant memory.

As the first millennium of Christian Muslim interaction drew to a close, tens of millions of Christians had been assimilated into the House of Islam, while not a single uncoerced Muslim movement to Christ had taken place.

Muslim Movements to Christ Through History

The Colonial Era

The 16th and 17th centuries launched the age of Western colonial expansion with Spanish and Portuguese trade and conquests in Africa, Asia and the Americas, with Dutch, French and English traders racing to catch up in the 18th and 19th centuries. Though European colonization went hand-in-hand with the missionary enterprise in most of the non-Western world, the same could not be said of the colonizers’ encounters with Islam. European traders typically took one of two approaches in relation to the Muslim populations they encountered. If the ports were controlled by Muslim sultans, the Europeans conspired with local non-Muslim factions to divide and conquer to gain an advantage. If the foreign lands contained insurmountable Muslim populations, the Europeans took a more accommodating approach, suppressing missionary efforts so as not to enrage local sensibilities.

By the close of the colonial era, Catholic mission historian Joseph Schmidlin had to admit:

Taken as a whole, the Moslem world with its two hundred million worshippers of Allah, has up to the present hour held aloof from both Catholic and Protestant Christianity, despite valiant efforts of individual missionaries.1

Schmidlin went on to lament,

…the Crescent in Asia and Africa has even pressed forward to such an extent as to have become the most powerful rival of the Christian missions. Nevertheless, one must not for this reason declare that the Moslem is absolutely unsusceptible to conversion or incapable of receiving the Gospel, since

Christian communities were actually formed from among them, even during the nineteenth century -- at least by the Protestants in the Dutch East Indies, and in isolated cases as the result of Catholic efforts in Kabylia (Algeria) -- and have continued ever since.2

The two exceptions that Schmidlin highlights, “the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia)” and “Kabylia (a Berber region of Algeria)” bear closer scrutiny, as the only examples of Muslim movements to Christ in the great age of Western colonial and missionary expansion.

In the century following their 1806 arrival on the island of Java, Dutch armies rolled over most of the independent Muslim sultanates of what would become Indonesia. As had occurred in other European conquests, the Dutch pattern of colonization avoided conflict with the Muslim populations. Of the 245 missionaries that soon arrived in Indonesia, most were sent to evangelize the outer islands where Islam had not yet become established; only a few were sent to Java and their task was to minister to anyone except Muslims.”3

For their part, Indonesians generally found the austere Dutch Calvinism unappealing, while Muslim nationalists pointed to its foreignness as a reason to embrace Islam and resist the West. By 1914, Abraham Kuyper, the most influential Dutch Reformed Church leader in Holland, suggested that with only 1,614 converts including women and children, perhaps it was time for the mission to exit Java due to its lack of response.4

Even as European churchmen were mired in frustrations, Eurasian and Indonesian lay evangelists began espousing a more indigenous gospel witness and making progress. A local Javanese evangelist named Radin Abas Sadrach Surapranata (1835-1924) built on the approach of these early Indonesian indigenizers to greatly expand the response to the gospel. For this he is remembered by Indonesian Christians as “Sadrach: The Apostle of Java.”

Sadrach used the newly published Javanese Bible translation and aggressive apologetics to engage Muslim leaders in debate, then gathered converts into contextualized, indigenous mesjids of Javanese Christian communities called Kristen Jawa, rather than extracting them into the local Dutch Christian churches.

At the time of Sadrach’s death in 1924, between 10 and 20 thousand Javanese Christians could be traced to the Apostle of Java’s ministry.5 Though they represented only a fraction of the world’s most populous Islamic country, these Kristen Jawa marked a historic breakthrough, as the first uncoerced Muslim movement to Christ in nearly 13 centuries of Christian witness to the Muslim world.

On the other side of the Dar al-Islam another experiment in ministry to Muslims was counting some success. In 1830 Algeria came under French control and was ruled as an integral part of France until its independence in 1962. Yet it was not until 1868, following a devastating famine that left many Arab and Berber orphans, that the Catholic church began actively witnessing to its Algerian Muslim citizens.

Charles Martial Lavigerie (1825-1892) arrived as the archbishop of the See of Algiers in 1868 and soon began gathering famine orphans into villages for ministry. Fearing popular unrest, the governor-general of Algeria, Marshal McMahon, forbade proselytizing Muslims. Lavigerie complied, ordering his priests to refrain from baptizing any of the non-Christians among whom they ministered.

In 1874, Lavigerie took an important step in removing barriers to Muslim reception of the gospel when he founded the Société des missionnaires d’Afrique (Society
of missionaries of Africa), popularly known as the Pères Blancs or White Fathers, after the white Arab cassock and woolen scarf they adopted. The White Fathers learned Arabic and embraced many of the customs of the Muslim peoples among whom they served in hopes of easing the way for gospel transmission.

Nonetheless, the first baptisms did not take place until 1887, when three Kabyli Berber boys who were visiting Rome for the jubilee of Pope Leo XIII “tearfully implored baptism and received it...”6 That same year, Lavigerie allowed religious intstruction for the first time, and then only if the local community was in agreement.

The Kabyle Berbers proved to be the most responsive of North Africa’s Muslim peoples, but they hardly exhibited

what could be called a movement to Christ. Many Islamic and Catholic obstacles stood in their path, not the least being the burden of Algerian subjection to the foreign, culturally Christian, French occupation force. As a

result, as late as 1930 one could count no more than 700 baptized Catholic converts among the Kabyle.7

The latter decades of the 19th century saw the arrival of numerous Protestant missionaries into North Africa. Despite the heroism of the many who labored there, history records accurately and succinctly: “not many converts were won.”8

Though the 19th century was heralded as “The Great Century” of Christian expansion around the world,
the century closed with only one Muslim movement to Christ, comprised of at least 1,000 baptized converts,
in nearly 13 centuries since the death of the Prophet Muhammad. It would be 65 years into the 20th century before the next Muslim movement to Christ would appear, and this one occurred under great duress.

Twentieth Century Breakthroughs

In 1965, Indonesia had the largest Communist Party in the world. In October of that year, an aborted Communist coup triggered a bloodletting that would not stop until half a million Indonesians were dead. Anyone with Communist or atheist leanings was imprisoned, executed, or massacred.9 Indonesia’s New Order government that rose to power in the wake of the violence abolished Communism and atheism in one fell swoop, demanding that every Indonesian citizen adhere to one of the nation’s five historic religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism or Buddhism. In the scramble that followed, two million Indonesians, some of whom had come from at least a nominally Muslim background, entered the nation’s Protestant and Catholic churches.10 Though it would be difficult to see this as a volitional turning of Muslims to Christ, it did result in many individuals later receiving Christian instruction and coming to faith who might otherwise not have.

Additional Muslim movements to Christ in various corners of the Muslim world did not begin appearing until the 1980s. Young Christians in the West invigorated by the Jesus Movement embraced the call to frontier missions to the world’s remaining unreached people groups. Near the top of every list was the world’s nearly one billion unreached Muslims.

The next movement emerged in the most unlikely of places. After the shock of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, many Iranians discovered that an Islamic state was not the panacea they had imagined. By the mid-1980s, Armenian Pentecostals in Iran were seeing growing numbers of Shiite Muslims turning to them to hear the gospel. By the end of the 1980s, in the face of severe government persecution, there was an indigenous growing swell of Muslims into the Christian faith.

The late 1980s and 1990s also witnessed the resurgence of Christianity among the Kabyle Berbers of Algeria. As a bloody struggle between the military government and Islamists raged, eventually claiming more than 100,000 civilian lives, Berbers in Kabylia renewed their search for alternatives. They were found in late-night shortwave gospel radio broadcasts and illicitly distributed JESUS films. This resulted in thousands of Berbers quietly turning to the gospel while the rest of the country descended into civil war.11

The early 1990s saw the fall of the Iron Curtain and the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. Millions of Turkic Muslims in Central Asia who had grown up under Soviet atheism were suddenly faced with a new horizon of possibilities. American, European and Korean evangelicals seized the window of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) to bring the gospel to the descendants of the Golden Horde. By the end of the 20th century, evangelical Christianity could claim indigenous movements among Azerbaijani, Kirghiz and Kazakh populations with beachheads of believers among most of the other Turkic Central Asian people groups.

South Asia’s Bangladeshi population also proved to be fertile ground for the gospel in the 1990s. Widely viewed as a cyclone-addled, failed nation state, Bangladesh was, in fact, a churning mass of hard-working and intellectually vibrant humanity who were transitioning from their ancient animistic Hinduism to a growing Islamic identity conflicted by the still-raw wounds of atrocities committed by their Pakistani co-religionists in the 1971 War of Independence.12 In the midst of this percolating Bengali cauldron, the gospel was spreading virally, prompting tens of thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims to seek out baptism as evidence of their newfound faith in Isa al-Masih, Jesus the Christ.

Multiple Movements

To recap our review of the history of Muslim movements to Christ, in Islam’s first 13 centuries we found a handful of coerced conversions to the Christian religion, but only one voluntary movement of at least 1,000 Muslim conversions to faith in Christ: the Sadrach Movement in late 19th and early 20th century Indonesia. This was followed by the fear-induced influx of two million Indonesians into Christian churches in 1965. Then, in the final two decades of the 20th century, there was a surge of eight additional movements. These occurred in Iran (2), Algeria, Bangladesh (2), and Central Asia (3). By the close of the 20th century, 1,368 years after the death of Muhammad, there had been only ten movements of Muslim communities to faith in Jesus Christ. It is this long history of frustration, a history that has seen millions of Christians absorbed into the Muslim world, that makes the current events all the more striking.

In the first 12 years of the 21st century an additional 64 movements of Muslims to Christ have appeared. These 21st-century movements are not isolated to one or two corners of the world. They are taking place across the Muslim world: in sub-Saharan Africa, in the Persian world, in the Arab world, in Turkestan, in South Asia and in Southeast Asia. Something is happening, something historic, something unprecedented.

A wind is blowing through the House of Islam.

About The Author

For more than 25 years Dr. David Garrison has served as a missionary pioneer through the Southern Baptist International Mission Board. Garrison is the author of numerous articles and books on missions including Church Planting Movements. Many of his articles can be found on his website www.ChurchPlantingMovements.com. He is currently completing a two- year survey of Muslim movements to Christ that will be published later this year under the title A Wind in the House of Islam. Dr. Garrison currently lives in Colorado where he serves as the International Mission Board’s Global Strategist for Evangelical Advance. Go to www.WindintheHouse.org or you may call (719) 322-1737 for more information.

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Feature

Welcoming Muslim Neighbors into God’s Kingdom in East Africa

by Ben Naja

In certain Eastern African contexts, significant numbers of Muslims entered the kingdom of God over the last decade or so despite very little initial contact with the Bible or Christians. Together, with various local partners, it has been our privilege to offer discipleship training and leadership development to two such movements.

Toward the end of 2011 we interviewed 390 Muslim-background believers from these two movements. We wanted to know why these Muslims decided to follow Jesus as their Savior and how they share the gospel with other members of their Muslim communities.

Our research shows significant correlations between the factors which brought them to Christ and the ways in which they now share the gospel. It is encouraging that a remarkably high number (more than 90%) of those surveyed do share Christ with others.

Methodology

I first did a pilot survey with a limited number of interviewees using the two, open-ended questions below. Based on their responses I transformed the questions from open ended to multiple-choice with the option “Other”. Some of those surveyed were literate, others illiterate. Some were interviewed by myself, others by other interviewers under my supervision.

Question 1: Why did you decide to follow Jesus the Messiah? — because of…

By clustering some of the above mentioned factors, we identified four-main areas that led to their conversion: Jesus verses found in the Qur’an (64%); the witness and love of other followers of Isa al-Masih (57%); supernatural experiences such as dreams, visions, healings or deliverances (41%); and the Bible (30%).

Our research also indicates that most disciples decided to follow Jesus as a result of multiple factors (an average 1.9 factors). It would therefore be inaccurate to say, for example, that “one third of all believers from a Muslim background came to saving faith in Christ through a dream or vision.” It would be more accurate to say that “as a part of their spiritual journey towards salvation in Christ, one third of those surveyed experienced a dream or a vision.”

Question 2: I have told other Muslims about Jesus the Messiah through…(figure 2)

The correlations between these two questions show that these believers also used the same four factors in leading others to Christ that were influential in their own decision to follow Him: Jesus verses in the Qur’an, prayer for God’s supernatural intervention, the Bible, and demonstrated love and verbal witness. And just as a combination of several factors were used by God to bring them to Christ, so they also used similar multiple approaches when sharing the gospel.

The data in figure 3 suggests five ways that Christian neighbors of Muslims can work with God to welcome an ever increasing number of Muslims into the Kingdom.

Conclusion

God is drawing Muslims to Himself. You can participate by learning and sharing what the Qur’an and Bible say about Jesus, praying for and with your Muslim neighbors, showing them love in your daily life, and sharing the Good News whenever and wherever you find an open door; trusting that God will do his part!

About The Author

Ben Naja (pen name) has served among unreached Muslim people groups in different countries in northern, western and eastern Africa for the last 20 years. In partnership with local ministries, he has trained, facilitated and coached numerous church planting tentmakers for cross-cultural pioneer ministry in several African and Asian countries. He is currently also involved in training disciples and developing leaders in two emerging movements from a Muslim background. Together with his spouse and children, he currently lives and ministers in eastern Africa. He is not a native English speaker.

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Feature

Why Are Muslims Coming to Jesus Like Never Before?

by Robby Butler

Prepared for the Gospel

Devout Muslims pray Sura One^1 every day, reminding themselves of God’s sovereignty, the day of judgment, and the importance of finding their Straight Path.2 Most of the prophets they embrace are covered in more detail in the Bible than the Qur‘an, and the Qur‘an encourages them to seek additional insight from the “former books.” As Christians reach out to Muslims with the love of God, praying for and with them, and utilizing stepping stones from the Qur‘an, the Holy Spirit is working among them like never before.

Unprecedented Breakthroughs

Elsewhere in this issue of Mission Frontiers (MF) David Garrison details the global scope of Muslims embracing Jesus, and Ben Naja reports on two specific movements.

I personally saw God working last summer as our family joined Greater Europe Mission (GEM). We helped catalyze a T4T (Training For Trainers)3 movement among Muslim refugees in one of Europe’s gateway cities. Ten months later those continuing the work report that four spiritual generations of Muslims have entered God’s Kingdom, learned to effectively share the Gospel, and won and trained others to do so as well.

As this MF goes to press our family is heading to another European country to introduce Any-3^4 in a similar effort. Through such cross-pollination, Disciple-Making Movements are multiplying and being refined to bear much fruit.

Toward discovering the various factors involved, I have informally surveyed a wide variety of friends whose lives are devoted to ministry among Muslims. The following compilation invites your interaction on the MF website.

Convergence of Influences

In God’s providence, a variety of factors are leading Muslims to Jesus at an
accelerating pace:

- Intercession: Christians are increasingly uniting to pray for Muslims.5

- Qur‘anic verses about Jesus & the Bible: According to Ben Naja’s article in this issue of MF, “Jesus” references are the primary factor in the movements he researched.

- Exposure to Scripture: Muslims are taking increasing advantage of their growing access to God’s word.

- Loving Initiative from Christians: Friendship with Muslim neighbors is proving an important bridge for the Gospel.

- Kingdom Focus: Many Muslims are more open to meeting the King and entering God’s kingdom than to identifying with the depravity of Western culture by becoming “Christians.”

- Miracles, Dreams, and Visions: God is intervening sovereignly and powerfully in the lives of Muslims, especially as Christians pray with Muslims for their needs in the name of Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah).6

- Laborers: God is raising up laborers from China, the Philippines, Brazil and Africa—as well as from North America.7 China’s “Back to Jerusalem” movement alone is attempting to field 100,000 laborers, with many heading to the Muslim world.8

- Muslim-Background Believers (MBBs): Thousands who have received the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus now carry a burden for their own people.

- Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs): Christians are learning to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in catalyzing DMMs rather than just winning a few individuals.

- Discovery Models of Ministry: Christians are also learning to enjoy fruitful interaction with Muslims through such effective, non-confrontational approaches as Bible Storytelling,9 Discovery Bible Study,10 Any-3, Sowing God’s Kingdom, and Path of the Prophets.11

- Boldness: Fear of Islam is giving way to love and understanding through a variety of excellent training options.12

Terrorism

When bin Laden orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, he had no idea how this would open the hearts and minds of Muslims who would be stirred to wonder: “Is violence at the heart of Islam?”

Many Muslims want to answer, “No,” and are troubled by Qur‘anic passages advocating violence and by their terrorist cousins’ continuing attacks on innocent bystanders.

The zealots of Jesus’ day sought to advance God’s kingdom through violence, providing a stark contrast for Jesus’ teachings: “Love your enemy,” “Turn the other cheek,” “Forgive us … as we forgive …,” “My kingdom is not of this world [or] my followers would fight,” etc.

Many Muslims—even “fundamentalist” Muslims—now welcome discussion of Jesus, and a growing number are becoming fervent followers of the Prince of Peace.

Globalization

The Muslim world is torn between modernization and traditionalism.

Some Muslims seek refuge from the moral decay of the West in the religious clarity of Sharia law. But many Islamic countries have weak economies, totalitarian leaders, and a rigid social hierarchy incompatible with the aspirations of the educated, growing, Muslim middle class.

These tensions are moving unprecedented numbers of Muslims into historically Christian communities. God is orchestrating this migration: “so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:27). When isolated peoples relocate, Christians have a fresh opportunity to show hospitality, befriend them and lead them into God’s kingdom.13

God’s Timing

Paul observed in Rom 11:25 that Israel had “experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” As we follow God’s spirit to start discipling movements among all the Gentiles, perhaps God is lifting a hardening from the spiritual descendants of Ishmael in preparation for a great turning among the Jews as well. May it be so!

About The Author

Robby Butler

Robby Butler served at the U.S. Center for World Mission from 1980 to 2004. He now serves as a consultant to church and mission leaders, and an occasional writer for Mission Frontiers.

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Feature

Start a Disciple-Making Movement Among Your Muslim Neighbors

by Paul Bartlett, Robby Butler

Both the Qur‘an and Islamic tradition erect barriers which inhibit Muslims from considering who Jesus is and what He has done for them. Muslims are often taught …

- to think about Mohammed rather than Jesus,

- to fear the corrupting influence of “Christian” culture,

- a misrepresentation of Christian doctrine,

- not to have Christian friends, and

- to believe that the Bible has been corrupted.

Yet when Muslims are lovingly invited past these barriers to study or encounter Isa al-Masih (Jesus the Christ), they are often drawn strongly to Him.

What follows is a compilation of “first step” suggestions toward starting Disciple-Making Movements among your Muslim neighbors,1 distilled from a variety of field practitioners. This provides context for applying the separate articles in this issue of MF on Any-3, and From the Qur‘an to the Bible.

Common Basics

Rely on the Holy Spirit

Ask the Holy Spirit to give you His love for your Muslim neighbors and to reveal His love for them through you. Love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18).

Bathe your efforts in prayer

Recruit others to pray regularly with and for you. Expect God to

- lead you to “persons of peace” (Lk 10:6),

- confirm His word with miracles (Mt 10:8, Lk 10:9), and

- give you the words to speak as you go in obedience (Mt 10:18–20).

Seek “Persons of Peace” (POPs)2

Central to disciple-making movements is focusing your time on fruitful soil.

Use Sowing God’s Kingdom in From the Qur‘an to the Bible (p. 24) or Any-3 (p. 18), or adapt this:

A friend and I are looking for Muslims who love God and would be interested in studying^3 the prophets we share through the Holy Scriptures. Do you know someone like that?

Don’t settle just for a few Muslim friends; keep praying and seeking until you are investing primarily “Persons of Peace.”

Variations of Approach

Jesus discipled with bits of truth and let people seek more. After Pentecost the believers often encountered people who believed immediately after hearing the gospel and were discipled more rapidly. Both models are still working today.

Present the gospel first

In Any-3 the gospel presentation “First and Last Sacrifice” (p. 20) is often used as a simple gospel presentation to quickly reveal where the Holy Spirit is working. In this model, discipleship and responding to objections come later. (Any-3 can also be used to identify likely participants for further study together.)

Study the prophets together (p. 25)

Another common approach is to present the gospel only through studying the Bible together.

With Muslims whose community respects the Qur‘an, open the Qur‘an for their reference as you study the Bible together so that they can discover the Bible’s superiority for themselves in a way they can freely reproduce within their community.4

With Muslims who are indifferent or fed up with their religion and looking for something else, just use
the Bible.

And with Muslims who are personally uncomfortable handling religious books, try electronic media or printed excerpts in your discussions.

Finding Muslims

Unless you live among Muslims you may need to go find them. Here are some practical approaches.

Go with others

As God gives you opportunity, tag along with others who have Muslim friends as a way to meet and get comfortable with Muslims.

Once you are comfortable, draw others along to help them get started. Visit halal restaurants, and other places where relaxed conversation can occur. (Use zabihah.com to identify Muslim gathering places in your area.)

Pray and then visit a mosque together (if you sense God’s leading) and try to engage in a personal conversation.

Look for opportunities to befriend or be hospitable to Muslims, and especially to enjoy meals together as a way to deepen relationships.

And when you make a Muslim friend, rejoice at having overcome 1,300 years of conflict!

Cultivate sensitivity to Muslim culture

Start with these:

- Greet Muslims with “As-salam alaykum” (peace be upon you).5

- Expect fruitful conversations to run past midnight.

- Respect religious books by never putting them on the floor or in other “unclean” places.

- Ask Muslim friends to help you be sensitive to their customs.

Relate Spiritually

Clarify your spiritual identity

When asked if you are a Christian, ask what they mean by that word before answering. Here is one response you can adapt when answering the question:

I was born into a nation where many call themselves “Christian.” What I have learned is that God wants me to love and submit to Him by obeying all the commands of Jesus. This is how I seek to live. What would you call me?

Pray with Muslims for their needs

Muslims seek God’s blessing, and many are open to receive it through Isa al-Masih. You can help them experience God by offering to pray with them. They may be happy for you to pray with them for God’s blessing, healing, guidance, deliverance and protection.6

Clarify concepts

Confusion often arises from different meanings for shared terms. Ask what your Muslim friend means by such words as “Muslim” and “Christian,” and explain where you mean something different.

Employ discovery

Follow Jesus’ example; lead others to discover and obey truth through stories^7 and questions. Consider employing Discovery Bible Study or Bible Storytelling.8

Train Muslims to receive God’s guidance

When Muslims ask your opinion on spiritual matters, teach them to rely on God’s Word and the Holy Spirit rather than you. Ask the Spirit’s guidance to lead them to a relevant Bible story and have them read or listen to the full book for context and to raise additional questions. Then pray together for direct insight from God, asking God to reveal what He wants them to know. Ask them “What did God say?” and “What will you do?” Help them learn to test the spirits and recognize God’s voice through confirmation from His Word for what they receive.

Aim for Multiplication

Seek to bless whole families

As you meet individuals, pray for God to bless their whole family and community. Befriend their whole family with your whole family.

Stay focused

When a Muslim wants to argue their common objections (Son of God, Trinity, etc.), suggest looking together for answers in the Bible. Ask questions and avoid arguing.

If they insist on arguing, listen actively to their heart and the Holy Spirit, validating their feelings: “It sounds like you feel angry about that,” etc. Then suggest meeting again at a later time to study the facts together. The Holy Spirit may work in their heart in the meantime.

Consciously limit your time with those whose only desire is to argue.

Prioritize inclusiveness

Invite your first Muslim friend to bring a friend. Meet in public if they are so inclined. Suggest that they discuss what they are learning with their friends, family and leaders. If they fail to do these things, seek out others who will. Your goal is a discipling movement, not scattered individuals.

Honor parents and authorities

In obedience to the Scripture, affirm parents and others in authority rather than sowing disrespect. This may open opportunities for sharing directly with those in authority.

Multiply groups

When Muslims want to bring others to an established study after the second meeting, decline to disrupt this group and offer instead to help them start a new study with their friend, family, or even religious leaders.

Keep Improving

Continue learning from other laborers

Meet regularly with other local Christians to

- learn from each others’ successes,

- identify hindrances to fruitfulness, and

- pray for your Muslim friends.

Take advantage of the excellent resources and training which are increasingly available.9

Trust the Holy Spirit

Don’t dictate:

- what believers should call themselves,

- what religious observances they should embrace or reject, and

- what gatherings they should or shouldn’t attend.

Instead, train new believers to seek and receive the Holy Spirit’s guidance by studying His Word with other followers of Isa al-Masih.

Conclusion

God is at work in unprecedented ways to fulfill His promise to Abraham: “I will surely bless [Ishmael]” (Gen. 17:20).

Yet 1.6 billion Muslims live with a mixture of truth and error, awaiting the movement of God’s Spirit to lead them on a “Straight Path” into His kingdom.

God has brought Muslims to your doorstep.

Will you seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance and empowering to participate in opening the door for Disciple-Making Movements among them?

For additional introductory materials, visit http://www.thekingdomconversation.com

Golden Retriever Missiology

By Carl Medearis

Zoe is our 8 year old female Golden Retriever. She’s amazing. Smart. Obedient. Personal. And … everyone loves her.

I’ll come back to my dog in a moment.

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon among some missionaries to Muslims in my 30 years in that vineyard; a self-fulfilling prophecy. With variations, it goes like this: Muslim soil is hard. It takes years of building relationships before we can effectively share the good news. They are sometimes antagonistic to the gospel, and many Muslim majority countries do not like us and what we do. Church planting is difficult, dangerous and down-right daunting (the Three D’s of Muslim missions).

I went to Yemen as a 20-year old with YWAM in 1983. I met a wonderful man—the head of a large mission who ran a hospital there. He and his wife were having their retirement party—returning to the USA after 22 years of faithful service. I was so excited to meet a real, live missionary to Arab Muslims. I burst out with the obvious (or so it seemed) question. With great anticipation and enthusiasm I asked, “So how many Muslims have come to Christ?”

They were so sweet. No guile. No pretense. While looking intently at his wife to be sure she agreed, the man answered, “Well, son. I think maybe two. Actually depends how you count … two or three.” And, as wives sometimes do with us over-exaggerating husbands, she gently chided him saying “Honey, I’d say one for sure and maybe two.” And they looked like they were okay with that.

I tried to smile, but couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say, or even what to think.

I had been told many times over—that Arab Muslims were “difficult” and not to expect too much fruit. And this seemed to confirm that: After 22 years, 1, 2 or maybe 3 Arab Muslims following Jesus. There you have it.

I know the verses. The way is narrow. A camel going through the eye of a needle. The parable of the soil—only one in four seeds seem to make it. The odds are not in our favor. Few will be chosen. And it seems like Muslims are the fewest of the few.

We have theology to back up our experience: this task is difficult.

Or …

My Golden Retriever. Which comes first—people all like my dog because she is inherently friendly; or, my dog is so friendly because everyone likes her.

Do you see the difference? Zoe doesn’t believe in “strangers.” Everyone is her best friend. She never stops to think, “Hmmm, I wonder if that guy over there is a dog person?” She thinks everyone’s a “dog person.” She gets confused when someone doesn’t lean over and pet her while making silly human noises.

And so … everyone does like her. They say things like “You have the nicest dog,” or “Are all Golden Retrievers this friendly?”

Zoe loves people, and people love her. Which came first? I think it’s my dog’s assumption that every person in the world will love her—and then they do. This is also a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And that’s my experience with Arab Muslims and Jesus. I’ve met tens of thousands over 30 years, in nearly every Arabic speaking nation. From Al Azhar in Cairo, the Imams of Saudi Arabia, to the Hezbollah of southern Lebanon to the Hamas of Palestine—Arabs respond positively to me—and to our message of Jesus the Messiah. In every instance. 100% of the time. Okay, once a guy got angry at me, so 99.9% of the time.

Why is that? Because I assume they will like me, and more importantly, I assume they will want to hear the message of Jesus. And then … they do.

For every verse that sounds like Jesus is hard to get to, I can show you five that are the opposite. They’re inviting. Open. Easy. Remember James’ end-point in Acts 15? “Let’s make it easy on the Gentiles to come in.” Maybe WE are the ones making it hard on Muslims to see and believe in and follow Jesus.

The crowds loved Jesus. They followed him en masse. They wanted to make him king. Children came to him—and kids know who’s right on and who’s messed up. Kids only like adults who like them.

When I assume someone wants to know me, and wants to hear what I have to say—they do. This is not positive thinking. It’s not a method. It’s “faith.” Jesus loves Muslims. I love what and who Jesus loves. So I love Muslims. And when I love them—they love me back. We form a bond of trust—they give me access to their heart, and I share with them the best news they’ll ever hear.

It really is that simple!

About The Author

Paul Bartlett (pen name) has worked in missions for 15 years and traveled to more than 40 countries. While living in a Muslim community he struggled to see Muslims come to faith. Since seeing a breakthrough in his own ministry and among those he trained, Paul now teaches others these same simple techniques for opening doors and hearts. You may contact him at http://www.thekingdomconversation@gmail.com

Robby Butler is a student and advocate of fruitful mission models, and an occasional contributing editor for Mission Frontiers. You can contact him at Robby.Butler@theMissionNetwork.org

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Feature

Any-3

Lead Muslims to Christ Now!

by Mike Shipman

Introduction

Any-3 is a five-step process which starts with getting acquainted and leads to discovering whether the Holy Spirit is at work in that person’s life to convict them of sin and prepare them for salvation.

Mike Shipman and his team experienced years of fruitless ministry in a “resistant” Muslim field. In desperation they decided to simply present the Gospel to everyone as a way to discover who the Spirit was already drawing to follow Jesus. Those who were responsive would then receive discipleship toward faith in Jesus.

“The First and Last Sacrifice Story” is the simple gospel presentation they developed.

To their amazement, Mike’s team found that the Holy Spirit has prepared some Muslims to accept Christ within minutes or hours of hearing the gospel, even without an investment of months or years to build relationships.

They suddenly found the people among whom they were working to be highly receptive. And from this experience they identified various false perceptions which had been crippling their ministry, which they dubbed Be-e Stings.

Seven years after their first new believer, Shipman and his team report the following fruit:

More than 5,000 Muslims … have professed faith in Jesus Christ through Any-3 style evangelism. … Of the more than 450 groups that have formed among our people group, one-third of them are fourth generation and beyond. …

We are doing today what very few people dreamed possible among Muslims—sharing the gospel and often hearing them say, “Thank you.”

Distinctives

- Simple: A person can learn Any-3 in an hour, practice it with a friend that afternoon, and have fruitful interaction with Muslims that evening!

- Natural: “It feels spontaneous and free, helping Christians live an evangelizing lifestyle.” Yet Any-3 provides a simple and natural path for moving from casual conversation to a gospel presentation and inviting a positive response.

- Adaptable: “Because its principles derive from the evangelism pattern modeled by Jesus in John 4, Any-3 can be adapted to virtually any culture or worldview.”

God is using Any-3 to awaken and empower His people to eagerly share the gospel once again. Those who do are experiencing for themselves the gospel’s power and joy.

Five-Step Process

As he walked through a secluded area of a conservative Muslim suburb, Derek prayed for the Lord to connect him with someone with whom he could share the gospel.

Hasan was sitting at a small food stall drinking juice as Derek passed by. Hasan was waiting for his wife, who was in a salon. Seeing Hasan, Derek purchased a drink as well, and sat down near him.

The two began making small talk as they passed the time. Quite naturally Derek asked Hasan about his religion. The conversation maintained a relaxed tone, but Derek knew where he wanted it to go. With a few casual questions, Derek suggested that mankind shared a common sin problem. Hasan agreed, “Yes, we’re all sinners.”

Derek asked Hasan what he was doing to get his sins forgiven. Hasan mentioned three of the five activities his religion requires to please God. Then Hasan admitted, “My sins aren’t forgiven yet. I don’t know when they’ll be forgiven. On the judgment day, I can only hope my sins will be forgiven.” Derek was expecting this answer, knowing that Muslims rarely have any assurance of their own salvation.

Derek then politely, yet confidently, told Hasan that he knew his own sins were forgiven. He then explained how he knew, by telling Hasan a story identifying Christ as God’s sacrificial Lamb, who died for our sins and was raised from the dead. Derek concluded by telling Hasan that anyone who surrenders himself to Jesus, with repentance of sin and belief in the gospel, will have his sins forgiven.

Hasan responded by agreeing. It made sense to him that his good works could never cancel out all of his sins, but that God had made a way for forgiveness through Jesus. When Derek asked Hasan if he believed the gospel, Hasan replied with words of sincere conviction and openness. He was convinced that what Derek had shared was true, even though this was the first time he had heard the good news about Jesus’ sacrifice for him.

Derek then quoted Romans 10:9, explaining the need for repentance and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord. That night, Hasan believed that God was calling him to salvation, and prayed to surrender himself to Jesus. And Derek’s evangelist zeal was renewed.

Step One: Get Connected

You can accomplish this with anyone by using two kinds of connecting questions:

“How are you?”

“Who are you?”

Take time to get acquainted with them
and their family. Be friendly and open.

Transition #1: “Are you Hindu, Muslim,
Buddhist, or Christian?”

Step Two: Get to God

Step Two is accomplished with a question and an observation. The step two question is: “Most religions
are alike, aren’t they?” Then make the observation: “We are all trying to please God, so we can go to heaven some day, and we are all trying to pay off our sin debt. We all sin, don’t we? Even good people sin. Sinning is easy, but paying off our sin debt to God is much more difficult, isn’t it?”

Transition #2: “In your religion, what are you doing to get your sins forgiven?”

Step Three: Get to Lostness

After asking the person what are some of the things they are doing in their religion to please God and get their sins forgiven, let them tell you two or three things they are doing. Listen attentively and don’t be afraid to ask questions along the way.

Wrap up by asking them three questions:

“Are your sins paid off yet?”

“When do you think your sins will be paid off?”

“On Judgment Day, do you know that your sin debt will be paid?”

Transition #3: “What I believe is different; I know that my sins are forgiven. It is not because I am a good person, although I do try. I know my sins are forgiven, because God himself has made a way for our sins to be forgiven.”

Step Four: Get to the Gospel

Tell The First and Last Sacrifice Story. Finish by saying, “And that is why I know my sins are forgiven.”

Transition #4: “According to the Bible, if we surrender our life to Jesus as Lord and believe that He has paid for our sins through His sacrifice and that God has raised Him from the dead, our sins will be forgiven.”

Step Five: Get to a Decision

To bring your conversation to a decision, ask two questions:

“This makes sense, doesn’t it? Although we cannot pay off our own sin debt, God has made a way for our sins to be forgiven through Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection.”

“Do you believe what I have told you: that Jesus died for our sins and was raised again?”

The First And Last Sacrifice

Part One: Jesus

Jesus, the Word of God,1 was in Heaven with God from the beginning. He was born into this world through the Virgin Mary. Both the Bible and the Qur‘an teach this. Jesus never sinned, even though He was tempted in every way imaginable. Jesus overcame the desires of His flesh. He never married; never killed anyone; never gathered riches for Himself.2 Jesus once fasted 40 days and 40 nights while being tempted by the devil, yet he never sinned.

Jesus performed great miracles. He cast out demons; healed the sick and blind; Jesus even raised the dead.

It is interesting that, though Jesus was not yet old, He began prophesying about His death. To his followers He said, “I must die, but I will rise again.” Do you know why Jesus said, “I must die?”3

Part Two: Why did Jesus have to die?

The Adam and Eve Story

The answer is found in the Taurat (what Muslims call the five books of Moses). The Taurat tells us about the first persons God created, Adam and Eve. God put them in a perfect paradise, called the Garden of Eden. They were given great freedom to eat fruit from any tree in the garden except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God warned them that if they ate of that fruit they would die.

A Covering for Sin

One day, Satan visited Eve in the form of a serpent and tempted her to eat the fruit that God had forbidden. She ate the fruit, and gave it to Adam, who also ate it. Immediately, they were afraid, so they hid from God. But because God knows everything, he found them and punished Adam and Eve for their disobedience.

As punishment for their disobedience, God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden paradise, and eventually they did die. God’s desire had been for them to live forever, but because of their sins, they lost paradise and died.

It is interesting that the Taurat says Adam and Eve committed just one sin and it resulted in their judgment and death. Adam and Eve seemed like good people, probably better than us. Perhaps they had already done hundreds of good works. They hadn’t killed anyone, committed adultery, or stolen anything. But they disobeyed just once and it resulted in death. Some think that if our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds our sins will be forgiven, but that is not what the Bible says.

Promised Savior and New Clothes

Yet God still loved Adam and Eve. So He did something very interesting. God made a way for their sins to be forgiven. He changed Adam and Eve’s clothes. God replaced the clothes made of leaves that Adam and Eve had made with new clothes made from animal skins. Of course, to make these clothes, an animal had to die. The death of an innocent animal was the price that God paid to cover the sins of Adam and Eve. Because He loved Adam and Eve, God himself offered the first sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. The Bible teaches us that apart from the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. (Hebrews 9:22) Since that first sacrifice, all of our forefathers have offered sacrifices to have their sins forgiven: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and others.

After pronouncing His judgment on Adam and Eve, God also judged the serpent (Satan) who had deceived them. God promised that from among the woman’s descendents a Savior would come who would crush Satan’s head, although Satan would also injure Him. Over the centuries that followed, many prophets of God foretold the coming of a Savior who would take away the sins of the world.

Part Three: “That is why Jesus
had to die!”

And then Jesus came, born of a virgin, the descendent of the woman. Jesus lived a sinless life and performed great miracles. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, a prophet named John looked to Jesus and said, “Look, the Lamb
of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

That is interesting, isn’t it? Jesus was called “the Lamb of God.” Why? Because a lamb is an animal used for sacrifice. Do you remember my question: “Do you know why Jesus said, ‘I must die?’” That is why Jesus said, “I must die.”

Jesus came to be God’s sacrifice to pay for our sins. This is why He surrendered Himself to the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers to be crucified. He was God’s sacrifice for your sins and mine.

As He was dying, Jesus cried out, “It is finished,” meaning that our sin debt had now been paid.
Then Jesus bowed His head and died. But on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, just as He had promised.

For the next 40 days, Jesus appeared to more than 500
of His followers, and then was taken up into heaven.
We know that one day, Jesus will return to earth as judge over all mankind.

Conclusion: “That is why I know my sins
are forgiven.”

The Bible tells us that if we surrender our life to Jesus as Lord and believe that He has paid for our sins through
his sacrifice and that God has raised Him from the dead, our sins will be forgiven. And that is why I know my sins are forgiven.

ANY-3 STORY FEATURES

That is Interesting

Notice that in “The First and Last Sacrifice Story” we periodically use the phrase “That is interesting.” In Any-3, this phrase calls the hearer’s attention to important points we don’t want him to miss:4

- Jesus prophesied his own death.

- Adam and Eve were given the death penalty even though they only committed one sin.

- God changed their clothes (introducing the theme of sacrifice in Scripture).

- Jesus was called “The Lamb of God.”

Decision Questions

Two questions help us get to a decision:

- That makes sense, doesn’t it? Although we cannot pay off our own sin debt, God has made a way for our sins to be forgiven through Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection.

- Do you believe what I have told you: that Jesus died for our sins and was raised again?

Be-e Stings That Poison Evangelistic Effectiveness

“Lift up your eyes, look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.” (Jn 4:35) This has never been more true, but Satan uses a number of be-es to reduce the harvest.

Be-e Really Careful!

Some missionaries entering countries hostile to the gospel are told: “Your goal is to be there a long time. Don’t be too aggressive in sharing the gospel or you may be deported. Worse yet, you might get us all kicked out!”

The turning point for us came when we decided to share the gospel with anyone, anywhere, anytime. We put the results and consequences in God’s hands and obeyed. As a result, the new believers caught this same attitude, and shared the gospel unbound by chains of fear.

Be-e Sting: Bad things may happen, so I must be really careful about witnessing.

Antidote: Realistically evaluate security concerns, count the cost, then share the gospel more freely. God is sovereign over all things.

Be-e Really Smart!

Some Christian workers are taught to master the culture and religion before they share the gospel.

We find being a bit “dumb” better than being too smart, as expertise in the local culture can provoke defensiveness. Asking questions lays a foundation of respect.

Ask locals what they believe and share the gospel with them. As you listen and learn, you will become more effective in sharing the gospel.

Ali, a gifted evangelist, says, “I used to use the Qur’an as a bridge, but with Any-3 I no longer have to guess who is going to be open to the gospel.” Ali regularly leads conservative Muslims to faith, and streams from Ali’s work are now multigenerational.

Be-e Sting: I must understand the culture and religion before sharing the gospel.

Antidote: The gospel is relevant in every context. Learn all you can about your community while you share the gospel.

Be-e a Friend Maker!

My friend Bill said: “I have known my Muslim friend for six months now. When should I share the gospel with him?”

A lost person shouldn’t have to become my personal friend to hear about Jesus from me. Everyone deserves to hear the gospel even if I never see them again.

If we share the gospel immediately, we can be certain that those who become our friends will know the gospel and know our commitment to it. Otherwise, we might spend years developing a friendship before sharing the gospel, only to discover that our friend is not interested.

When we share the gospel immediately with lost persons, they more often come to faith than when we delay or only share with them step by step over a period of time.

Be-e Sting: Delay sharing the gospel until a solid friendship has been developed.

Antidote: Share the gospel early in every relationship.

Be-e A Quiet Example!

Another stinger confuses good Christian behavior with sharing the gospel. But waiting for others to ask the reason for our behavior places the responsibility on the lost rather than on us.

Others should see Christ-like character in us, but they will see our glaring flaws as well.

People get saved by hearing the gospel (Romans 10:14-17). Your good life is no substitute for a gospel presentation.

Be-e Sting: Living a godly life is as good as sharing
the gospel.

Antidote: Live a godly life while joyfully sharing the gospel with anyone, anywhere, and anytime.

Be-e Really Generous!

When we link sharing the gospel with meeting physical needs we risk confusing the two. Physical needs are here today, and gone tomorrow; eternal salvation is forever. We should not delay sharing the gospel until physical needs are met.

Luke had mastered the language and used community development as a platform to share the gospel. Yet he saw very little obvious evangelistic fruit. After adopting Any-3, Luke began proclaiming the gospel more quickly. Within six months, dozens had professed faith and seven new groups were formed.

The best disciples are those who respond to the gospel out of hunger for righteousness. They submit to Christ as Lord.

Using Any-3, we are finding hundreds who are “selling all” to follow Christ without any hope of payment from us. God becomes their treasure, and they minister to one another’s personal needs as the body of Christ.

Be-e Sting: Give employment or benefits and meet physical needs so others will be open to a gospel witness.

Antidote: Share the gospel without condition while lovingly yet discretely helping those in need.

Be-e Really Incarnational!

Often missionaries seek to become part of the community by adopting the local culture and language. This is well and good, but can also become an endless pursuit of acceptance as a prerequisite to gospel witness.

Jesus lived incarnationally, but He accomplished His mission relationally and exponentially. Jesus went beyond his community to reach disciples and accomplish His mission. He trained first-generation believers to reach their oikos (household). The first generation must do second-generation evangelism and so forth until multiplying generations are reached.

Be-e Sting: The incarnational life becomes the goal; sharing the gospel becomes secondary.

Antidote: Witness broadly inside and outside your community to find persons of peace, then train them to reach their own oikos and communities with the gospel.

Be-e Really Busy!

Lazy people aren’t likely to lead many to faith. But neither are extremely busy people unless they set aside time to share the gospel.

General busyness can take time and energy away from doing the best things. Because witnessing doesn’t come naturally for most of us, we must prioritize and schedule times to be where people are and share the gospel.

For many, busyness is “a way out” of evangelism. We make time for things we enjoy and procrastinate on those we dread. We fill our time in our strengths and perceived giftedness, while neglecting what is perhaps Christ’s most urgent command for all believers, “You shall be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8b).

Be-e Sting: Doing good things crowds out doing the “main thing” (evangelism).

Antidote: Replace less important activity with practicing and training others in Any-3.

BURN DOWN THE BE-E HIVE

In nature, once a bee stings a person, the bee dies. In missions, these be-e stings can go on for years. The solution is to burn down the hive! The following tips
will help you get over your bee stings and move on.

The Hearing Has Been Earned

Each of the be-e stings assumes Christians must earn a hearing for the gospel. Christ has already earned that right, and has given us authority to “proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mk 16:15).

The gospel saves, not because of perfect messengers, but because of the worthy Lord who accomplished it.

Why They’re Professing Faith

We surveyed Muslim-background believers, asking them, “What did God use to bring you to faith in Christ?”

We expected to hear a variety of reasons. But the most common answer was that, for the first time, someone had told them the gospel message that Jesus died as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of their sins. These Muslims gave their lives to Christ because they heard the gospel and were invited to surrender themselves to Him.

People come to faith because they hear the gospel and are invited to respond to it. There is no substitute for direct mouth-to-ear evangelism.

The Gospel Is the Filter

The only way to know who is open to the gospel is to share it and see who responds. Then you will know within minutes, rather than days or months, who is open and responsive.

After we share the gospel using “The First and Last Sacrifice Story,” we ask two questions: “Does this make sense?” and “Do you believe it?” You will never really know if someone believes the gospel until you ask them.

Do Evangelism, Not Pre-Evangelism

We try to share the gospel with a Muslim in our first meeting with them. We have found them much more likely to say yes to Jesus than when we used to wait to share later in the relationship.

Before coming to faith in Christ, Jamaal was a jihadi militant. A recently baptized believer set aside his fears to approach Jamaal with the gospel, and Jamaal surrendered himself to Christ. These two men plus another friend formed a team that led 200 people to faith and started 12 new house churches in six months.

Jesus and His apostles routinely did evangelism in their first meeting with someone, and so can we. The first three steps of Any-3 set the stage for the gospel, but within 10-15 minutes after saying “Hello,” you can be sharing the gospel.

About The Author

Mike Shipman is a Church Planting Movement training specialist who lives with his wife and children in Asia. Having experienced firsthand a multiplying movement of new believers and churches among his Muslim unreached people group, Mike trains others to implement productive, field-proven methods. Mike’s greatest joy is seeing those he trains experience increased fruitfulness as they abide in Christ and do His works (John 14:12).

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Feature

Guide Muslims to the Bible

by AJ Hague

“Persons of Peace” is a Biblical concept describing those God has prepared to introduce their family and/or community to the gospel.1 Key to all disciple-making movement strategies is discovering and equipping such “Persons of Peace” to communicate the gospel to their family and community.

Sowing God’s Kingdom^2 is useful for discovering such “Persons of Peace.”  (Sowing God’s Kingdom is not a gospel presentation, just a tool for discovering “Persons of Peace.”) Path of the Prophets is a readily reproducible discipleship model which leads Muslims from the Qur‘an to the Bible and ultimately to the biblical Jesus.

Sowing God’s Kingdom

Discovering “Persons of Peace”

This true story is adapted for clarity in presenting this model:

In one Muslim country we began talking about God with “Ahmed,” a young
working man.

“Do you know what Jesus’ primary teaching was?”

“I’m not sure. Christianity?”

“No, Jesus never mentioned Christianity. He taught and modeled the kingdom of God—the rule and reign of God.”3 I drew a large circle, and wrote inside “The Kingdom of God — His rule and reign.”

“What do you think would be in God’s kingdom?”

“There would be a King.” I wrote “King.”

“There would be people.” I wrote “People.”

“There would be laws.” I wrote “Laws.”

We agreed that God’s kingdom is eternal and powerful, with peace, honor and blessing for those inside. I wrote these in the circle. Outside God’s kingdom I put fear, shame and curses.

I drew two smaller circles and labelled them “Christianity” and “Islam.”

“Everyone starts outside of God’s rule and is separated from God.4 I was born in a supposedly ‘Christian’ nation, and you were born a Muslim, but Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah) said, ‘No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’”5

“Both the Qur‘an and the Bible teach us to seek God’s ‘Straight Path.’ 6 If I, born a Christian, try to behave like a Muslim to enter God’s kingdom, is that a straight path?”

“No.”

“And if you try to behave like a Christian to enter God’s kingdom, is that a straight path?”

“No.”

“Then let’s agree not to try to convert each other, but instead seek to walk together into God’s kingdom.”

Since Muslim cultures are generally based on honor and shame, I ascribe two common Muslim obstacles to Christians. This makes it easier for Muslims to think and talk about them.

“Two things commonly keep Christians from entering God’s kingdom:

- Some trust in being religious and following religious practices such as baptism, communion and attending church to get into God’s kingdom. But this is not what God’s scriptures teach.

- Others remain outside the Kingdom because they fear what their friends will think. They may want to know God better but are afraid that they will lose their friends or be ridiculed.

What keeps Muslims out of God’s kingdom?”

Ahmed exclaimed, “It is just the same for Muslims!”

“Would you like to study together what the Holy Scriptures teach about Isa al Masih and entering God’s kingdom?”

“That would be great.”

“One thing the Holy scriptures teach is the importance of honoring our parents. Before we study what the prophets teach, would you ask your parents for permission, and invite them to join us if they like.”7

At this point Ahmed had to react. “I know where you are coming from. You believe God had a son. A Holy God would never have a son. You believe the Bible, we know the Bible is corrupted. You believe in three gods, God the Father, Mary the mother and Jesus their son, we know this is false. There is only One True God. You believe Jesus died on the cross. He didn’t die.”

These words hurt. But this is what every Muslim is taught, so I expect this response.8

“I am sorry you feel this way. I am just a man who hungers to know God, and to study with others what our prophets say about Isa al Masih.”

As we parted ways, I thought “That didn’t go so well.” But soon Ahmed sought me out and we began studying together the Path of the Prophets.

Path of the Prophets

Introducing Muslims to the Biblical Jesus

“To Him all the prophets bear witness. . .” Acts 10:43

Muslims are taught that the Qur‘an is inspired and the Bible has been corrupted. We can sometimes argue individuals past this obstacle, but this rarely leads to a movement.

For starting movements in Muslim communities, we find it far more effective to demonstrate the Bible’s inspiration than to argue it. And we don’t have to consider the Qur‘an inspired to find great relational and discipling value in reading the Qur‘an with our Muslim friends as context for studying the Bible together.

Thus before studying together the Biblical accounts of prophets which Muslims also embrace, we seek the Spirit’s guidance regarding whether it would be helpful to read with our Muslim friends the Qur‘anic accounts of these same prophets. Our goal is introducing them to the wonder of Jesus and the Bible in a way they can readily share with their family, friends and community. We also want them to:

- discover the inspiration of Scripture for themselves,

- understand their own need for a sacrifice and a savior,

- see the fullness of Jesus and discover Him as Savior and Lord, and

- learn how to study God’s Word with others.

Muslims also start off trusting their subjective experience more than the Bible, and they are often eager to hear from God. When we ask a Muslim if we can invite God to speak to them in the name of Isa al Masih (Jesus Christ) as described below, He often does. We can then relate this to the Bible as God leads us. As Muslims come to faith, we then teach them that Scripture is the only reliable standard for testing what we hear God saying.

In our discussion with Muslims, instead of “teaching” the point of each story, we use a “Discovery” model^9 to listen and ask questions to lead Muslims to discover, obey and share the central truths we have listed below. This makes the lesson more memorable and powerful, leaves room for the Holy Spirit to speak to them about other things as well, and encourages them to obey and share what they are learning.

After we discussed God’s kingdom, Ahmed wanted to meet again. We boldly asked, “May we ask God, in the name of Isa al-Masih, to speak to your heart right now? Close your eyes and we’ll lay our hands on you. When God has spoken to you, open your eyes and tell us what God has said.” Soon Ahmed opened his eyes and said, “God just told me that the next time we meet will be the best day of my life.” We intimated the authority of the Bible by affirming Ahmed’s statement with Scripture, “Yes, the Bible tells us that we draw our very life from the Word of God.” 10

Two teammates and I met Ahmed for breakfast a few days later to discuss the Prophets of God as found in the Quran and the Bible, starting with Adam. We would talk and discuss for about 30 minutes, then Ahmed would light a cigarette and say, “Let’s have a cup of tea.”

Adam and Eve: God makes provision to cover our sin and shame. We led Ahmed to recognize that a lifetime of good works doesn’t outweigh one sin, that without God’s forgiveness and mercy Adam and Eve would be lost forever, and that God instituted sacrifice to cover Adam’s disobedience and shame.

Noah: We must accept God’s provision. We led Ahmed to see that only God’s provision can save. After discussing the story, I asked Ahmed, “When this first rain started falling, if a man pledged to always pray five times a day but didn’t enter the ark, what would happen to that man?” Ahmed answered, “He would drown.” The point we are making is that man, by his own good intentions and effort, cannot save himself.

Abraham: God provides the sacrifice. We led Ahmed to recognize that Abraham’s son was rescued by God providing the male lamb for sacrifice.

The Spirit of God then led us to begin reading the Gospel of Mark with Ahmed so that we could look at the life of Jesus. We read Mark 1–4, continuing with tea breaks every thirty minutes during which Ahmed would smoke.

When we had to stop, Ahmed said, “God was right when he spoke to me earlier. Today has been the best day of my life!” Ahmed then allowed us again to ask God, in the name of Isa al Masih, to speak to him. After we did he said, “God just told me that what you are showing me is the truth, and I must walk in it.” We affirmed, “Yes, the Bible teaches us to walk in the truth.” 11 We agreed to meet again a few days later and encouraged Ahmed to share with others what he was learning.

The next time we met, we reviewed what we had learned from Adam, Noah, and Abraham, then continued.

Moses: We must apply the blood of the sacrificial lamb.  We led Ahmed to see in the Passover story that an innocent lamb had to be sacrificed and the blood applied to the doorframe of the house or else the eldest son would die.

David: His descendent would become a suffering sacrifice. We led Ahmed to see that one of David’s descendants would have an eternal kingdom and a unique relationship with God. He would also be a suffering sacrifice and die on a tree.

Jonah: In the depths for three days, then back to life.We led Ahmed to the sign of Jonah as the prophecy to which Jesus pointed to indicate that He must die and be raised to life.

John the Baptist: Jesus is the Lamb of God. We led Ahmed to see that John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Ahmed contemplated these stories in amazement as we repeated our cycle of tea breaks for Ahmed to smoke.

Mohammed: Pointing back to Jesus. We led Ahmed to see that Mohammed was honest about his own shortcomings, and pointed to Jesus as sinless, able to raise the dead, and the sign of the Day of Judgment.

Jesus: God’s chosen sacrifice. Finally we led Ahmed to look at the arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus by reading all of Mt 26–28. We reviewed all the previous stories to see Jesus as the one to whom these major Muslim prophets point as the Straight Path into God’s kingdom.

We again asked Ahmed if we could ask God to speak to him in the name of Isa al Masih. He closed his eyes and we laid our hands on him. Soon he opened them and said, “God told me that what you are saying is the truth, and that I must act upon it.” We affirmed, “Yes, the Bible tells us that ‘now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”12 We prayed with Ahmed that day that God would cover him with the garment of righteousness.13 Ahmed repented of his sins and put his trust in Jesus as the sacrifice for his sins. This was an even greater day for Ahmed, as he entered the kingdom of God.

Ahmed eagerly shared these things with his family and friends until he died of lung cancer a few months later.

Principles for success in studying the Path of the Prophets:

- Love Muslims.

- Search for and invest time in “Persons of Peace.”

- Pray with and for Muslims, in dependence on the Holy Spirit.

- Respect their family, their religion, their prophet and their book.

- Rather than arguing about the Qur‘an, open it alongside the Bible.

- Start with Adam and creation rather than the crucifixion.

- Lead Muslims to fall in love with the person of Jesus.

- Trust God to speak to Muslims as you pray with them and affirm the Bible’s authority.

- Create an environment for discovering and discussing what the Holy Spirit will teach them.

- Encourage them to share with family and friends what they are learning from the Prophets.

About The Author

God has given us a love for Muslims and a desire to see multitudes know our Savior and Lord Jesus and follow Him as disciples. My family and I have been working among Muslims directly for the past twenty years. We opened the work in Central Asia for our organization, led a team, and provided oversight to other teams working throughout Central Asia. God used us and others to see churches planted and disciples developed. More recently God has given us the opportunity to mentor various teams working among Muslims, and to provide training toward birthing Disciple-Making Movements.

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Feature

A Novice’s Guide to Fielding Common Muslim Objections

by Shane Bennett

Oftentimes, in spite of our best efforts, a conversation with a Muslim friend, or friend to be, hops the tracks to one of five key objections Muslims have to Christianity. (Since only 2 out of 10 Muslims actually have a Christian friend, it’s safe to say that if they knew us better, they’d have a much longer list!)

Here are the objections:

1. Your Bible has been corrupted.

2. You serve three gods.

3. You think Jesus is God’s son. (Often accompanied with a face like smelling bad milk.)

4. You are mistaken. Jesus didn’t die.

5. You have to pay for your own sins. Jesus can’t do that for you.

The fundamental response to these won’t surprise you. It is obedience to the two greatest commandments: Love God with all you are and love your neighbor as yourself. If that is our core occupation and our driving motivation, we will do well. We’re loving people Jesus loves, not trying to win a gun fight at the O.K. Corral!

Since these objections can sometimes (intentionally!) kill a conversation, it’s good to have a response or two at hand to move things along. To be sure, these are deep and complex issues, and Muslims haven’t usually thought much about them, themselves. The responses below will rarely change a Muslim’s mind, but they may just keep the conversation going. For a more detailed response, grab Fouad Masri’s book Ambassadors to Muslims.

Objection: Your Bible has been corrupted.

Response: “Wouldn’t you agree that God is powerful enough to protect his Word? Who would be strong enough to corrupt His Word, and when would they have done it?” After a pause, then ask “How about studying the holy books with me to see what they actually say?”

Objection: You think Jesus is God’s son.

Response: “Yes, but probably not in the way you’re thinking. Christians believe Jesus’ conception resulted from a miracle of the Holy Spirit. You don’t believe God would defile himself through a physical relationship with a woman, do you?”

Objection: You serve three Gods.

Response: “Are you thinking God, Jesus and Mary? Far from it. We worship one God, revealed in three persons, Father, Son or Word, and Spirit. Let me ask you a question, ‘Which existed first in eternity: God or His Word or His Spirit?’”

Objection: You are mistaken. Jesus didn’t die.

Response: “You might be thinking, how could God let his prophet lose by dying on the cross. Let me ask you a question, ‘Which is greater, for God to save his prophet by keeping him from death or to save him by raising him up and defeating death?’”

Objection: You have to pay for your own sins. Jesus can’t do that for you.

Response: “You’re right, sin is serious. Would you like to look with me at what the Bible
says about Jesus forgiving our sin so that we have hope on Judgment Day?”

Follow any of these with “Could we study together what the New Testament itself says
about Jesus?” Again, in all of this, the love of Jesus is both the fuel and the goal.

About The Author

Shane Bennett loves conversing with Muslims and helping others do so. He and his family live in the mountains of southern Colorado. You may contact the author through Twitter at @shanebennett.

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Feature

Kingdom Kernels

CPM Essentials On a Napkin

by Steve Smith

You’ve decided in your heart that you want to see God birth a Church-Planting Movement (CPM) in your community or people group. The question is: “How do I start?” Suppose that we’re sitting in a coffee shop and I hand you a napkin, saying, “Sketch out the path to a CPM.” Would you know where to start?

You must get onto a path that will possibly lead to a “movement”, rather than one that won’t. You must understand what that path looks like.

The challenge of the CPM path is the word movement. God starts Church-Planting Movements, not His servants. Yet He uses His servants to be the initiating agents in CPMs when they understand His ways and submit their ministry efforts completely to them.

Setting Your Ministry Sails to Catch the Wind of the Spirit^1

Think of it this way. As a sailor, I can work on all of the controllables: making sure my sails are up, the tiller is in the right position, the sails are trimmed correctly. But until the wind blows, my sailboat is dead in the water. The wind is the uncontrollable. Or if the wind is blowing, but I as a sailor fail to raise the sails or trim them to catch the wind, I go nowhere. In this case, the wind is blowing but I don’t know how to move with the wind.

Jesus made this declaration to a traditional Jewish teacher of the law who was having a hard time understanding Jesus’ radical ways:

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8 (ESV)

The Spirit blows in ways we cannot forecast, but blow He does. The question is not whether He is blowing. The question is: “Is my ministry positioned to move the way He blows so that it can become a movement of God?”

If our ministries don’t cooperate with the Spirit’s ways, we are tempted to say: “God no longer moves today as He did in older days!” Surely the testimony of dozens of CPMs around the world and upon every continent is that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Heb. 13:8 ESV)

The Heart and Four Fields: CPM Essentials on a Napkin^2

As we look at these CPMs, what are the essential elements (the controllables) that enable us to position our sails to move with the Spirit of God, should He blow in gale-force ways? Though expressed in many ways by CPM practitioners, what follows is a simple distillation of the essential elements or basic CPM plan.  I often draw this simple diagram on a napkin in a coffee shop for a friend. I use it to explain to him how we can cooperate with God for a movement. If you can’t draw a basic CPM plan on a napkin, it’s probably too complicated to live out personally and too complicated for others to reproduce.  To encourage you, I find that the worse my art, the more confidence my friend has to pass it on!

Heart

Find God’s HEART for your people and seek Him in faith for the fulfillment of His vision.

A VISION exists by you and your team to do whatever it takes under God to see that all people have a chance to respond to the kingdom [represented by a large heart]. You are seeking God’s vision, not your own. Matthew 6:9-10 and 28:18-20 say that His kingdom will come fully to all people and people groups. A vision of this magnitude should result in multitudes of believers and thousands of churches (and/or small groups). Such a vision galvanizes believers to make radical lifestyle choices to bring God’s kingdom to their community.

Since this vision is so large, you must break it down into basic relational SEGMENTS to know how to start. In every society people create relationships by geography (neighbors) and/or socio-economic factors (workmates, classmates, club mates). Your goal is simple: plant reproducing mustard seed groups (Mt. 13:31-33) with the ability to reach that segment and beyond.

You know a movement has taken root in each segment when you can track at least four generations of believers and churches – G4 – in that place (2 Tim. 2:2) [represented by a generational tree]. CPMs are defined by at least 4th generation churches consistently emerging within a relatively short period of time (months and years, not decades). Effective CPM practitioners evaluate their results by generations of believers and groups/churches, not just numbers of believers and groups/churches. They often track the movement with generational trees.

Until we know God’s heart, we can’t expect Him to show up in miraculous ways to fulfill something that is not on His heart, or less than what is on His heart.

Crying out for God’s heart as those abiding in Him.

To fulfill the vision, you have to start at the foundation by ABIDING IN CHRIST (Jn. 15:5, Ps. 78:72, Mt. 11:12, 17:20)  [represented by a person with the right heart]. Those that bear fruit are those that abide. There is no way around it. Anything less gives temporary and stunted fruit. Men and women at the center of CPMs are not necessarily greater spiritual giants than other people, but they all abide in Christ. You do not get a CPM by abiding in Christ, but you don’t get one if you don’t.

- Remember, God uses men, not just methods; people, not just principles.

As we humble ourselves by simply abiding in Christ, we must cry out fervently to God in PRAYER to see His vision fulfilled [represented by a kneeling person] (Mt. 6:9-10, Lk. 10:2, 11:5-13, Acts 1:14). Every Church-Planting Movement begins first as a prayer movement. When God’s people get hungry enough to fervently fast and pray for His heart, amazingly miraculous things begin to happen.

FOUR FIELDS

To fulfill the vision, you do your part in the divine-human partnership — five high value activities — to position yourself to be used by God to develop healthy, sustained movements. Each must be done in a manner that is reproducible by new believers. We describe this simple CPM plan by four agricultural fields. These four fields must all be in place for healthy CPMs to emerge. In many fields around the world, farmers build huts or platforms in which to rest, store their tools and watch for predators. We too need a platform – leaders to watch over the churches and movement.

We separate the four fields so that we know the critical components to which we need to give attention, but don’t expect them to be absolutely sequential. For instance, after you lead someone to Christ, he may already be working in field one to find lost family members to win as you move him to field three (discipleship). And while you are discipling him and his family/friends in field three, you are going to help form them into a church (field four). In addition, you will simultaneously find yourself in different fields with different groups as you walk them down the CPM path.

Field 1: Finding God-prepared people

[Represented by seeds planted in furrows–casting seeds to find good soil] (Lk. 10:6; Mk. 1:17, Jn. 4:35, 16:8)

CPM practitioners believe that the Holy Spirit has gone on before them to prepare people to respond immediately (or very soon) – John 16:8. Through dozens and hundreds of spiritual conversations, they look for the white harvest already prepared and expect these persons of peace to be the keys to winning others (John 4:35). They also search for existing believers in their communities that God is convicting to partner in this CPM vision.

Therefore, you and your team must search diligently to find God-prepared PEOPLE or FIELDS. You live with the simple dichotomy of everyone falling into one of two categories: saved or lost. Fulfilling Mark 1:17, you try to fish for the lost and help the saved follow Jesus with a whole heart.

You hunt for SAVED persons that will work alongside you to reach this city or people group. How do you find them? You bridge into the conversation and relationship by casting vision to them of what God can do in and through them, and then offering to train (or learn together with) them. Virtually every CPM I know of started when national believers caught the vision to work in partnership with the missionary or church planter to fulfill God’s vision. You have to have many conversations to find such people.

You and your team hunt for lost persons of peace (or in your oikos) and start witnessing to them. You must have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of conversations that get to the gospel to find the people God has prepared. The difficulty for most of us is just getting started, so in CPMs, believers have a simple bridge into gospel conversations such as a testimony or a set of questions.

Field 2: Reproducing Evangelism

[Represented by seeds sprouting into plants] (Lk. 10:7-9, Mt. 28:18-20)

As we bridge into spiritual conversations with the lost (or help the saved to do the same), we must EVANGELIZE in a REPRODUCING manner. Lost people must hear the gospel in a way that is complete enough that they can fully follow Jesus alone as Lord and Savior and can then use the same method to evangelize others. In CPMs we don’t just look at the theoretical – what may be reproducible. We judge a method’s reproducibility by whether it is reproducing. If it is not, then either the method is too complicated or in some way I am not equipping the disciple properly.

In every CPM the gospel is being shared by many disciples with hundreds and thousands of people relationally in a reproducible manner. This evangelism follows the pattern given by Jesus in Luke 10:7-9 – the three “P’s”: a loving presence from the believer and God, praying that God will move in power to demonstrate His love, and clearly proclaiming the gospel of Jesus with a call to commitment to Jesus alone as King.

Field 3: Reproducing Discipleship

[Represented by plants bearing fruit] (2 Tim 2:2, Phil 3:17, Heb 10:24-25)

As people believe, they are immediately brought into reproducing DISCIPLESHIP relationships, sometimes one-on-one, but usually in new small groups.  They begin a well-defined process of simple short term discipleship sessions that they immediately pass on to those to whom they are witnessing through a very reproducible process.  Eventually they enter into a pattern of long term discipleship that enables them to feed themselves from the whole counsel of God’s Word. It is essential that we have a process that works in our context for new believers both to grow spiritually and to pass on
to others.

Most reproducing discipleship processes use the elements of a three-thirds format (e.g. Training for Trainers – T4T) in which believers take time to look back through loving accountability, worship, pastoral care and recalling the vision. They then take time to look up to see what God has for them that week in Bible study. Finally they look ahead to determine how to obey God and pass on what they have learned through practicing it and setting goals in prayer.

Field 4: Reproducing Churches

[Represented by bundles of harvested grain] (Acts 2:37-47)

In the discipling process, believers are formed into small groups or reproducing CHURCHES. In many CPMs at about the 4th or 5th session, the small group becomes a church or part of a church. CPMs have a simplified process to help the believers develop the basic covenant and characteristics of church in a biblical and culturally appropriate manner for them. Many use the church circles diagram in this process [See T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution chapter 16 or the recent Mission Frontiers article, “The Bare Essentials of Helping Groups Become Churches”].

Center Platform: Reproducing Leaders

[Represented by farmers or shepherds] (Tit 1:5-9; Act 14:23)

Some of the believers will prove themselves to be reproducing LEADERS that are appropriate for that stage of the work. Some will lead one church, some multiple groups, some whole movements. Each will need mentoring and training appropriate for his/her level of leadership. CPMs are as much leadership multiplying movements as they are Church-Planting Movements.

The Arrows

Many believers will go on to REPEAT various parts of the four fields – some will look for God-prepared people, some evangelize, some disciple/train, some form new groups and some train them to repeat the process. Not every believer goes on to the next stage [represented by smaller arrows into each new field]. In CPMs it is amazing at how far believers go not only in their own discipleship but also in ministering to others.

Death

The spiritual triggering effect of all of this is DEATH (John 12:24) – the willingness for believers to boldly persevere, even die, to see God’s vision fulfilled [represented by a grain falling into the ground].  Until believers are willing to joyfully count the cost, this all remains theoretical.

Though it is difficult to describe a complex movement adequately in an article, the Heart and Four Fields gives the basic essentials. Effective CPM practitioners build momentum by making sure each part of the process naturally leads to the next through the way they disciple and train believers. In this manner they raise the sails for the boat to keep moving. As I draw out the Heart and Four Fields for friends, they are amazed at the depth and richness of a CPM. It is much more than an evangelism or church planting method – it’s a movement of God.3

Can you reproduce this drawing on a napkin with a friend?

About The Author

Steve Smith

Steve Smith planted a church in Los Angeles and then helped initiate a church planting movement (CPM) among an unreached people group in East Asia. The last ten years he has trained believers in CPM and currently oversees the work of the International Mission Board (SBC) in reaching Southeast Asian Peoples.

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How One Man Dared to Shake Up World Missions

The Ralph D. Winter Story

by Chuck Huckaby

Harold Fickett has collaborated with Charles Colson on several books, including the contemporary classics Loving God and How Now Shall We Live? He has written novels, biographies, and works of spirituality.

Harold Fickett’s recent work The Ralph D. Winter Story: How One Man Dared to Shake up World Missions is a fantastic primer into the abiding impact of the founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission (uscwm.org). Its slender 180 pages are quickly and enjoyably read and filled with insights into not only Winter’s life, but also the American evangelical milieu during the same time period. Weaving interesting anecdotes and narrative, it succeeds in outlining Winter’s life and demonstrating his key contributions to the Church. He is today remembered primarily in the area of missionary theory and practice. To a much smaller extent he is remembered in the areas of the Protestant reappraisal and reappropriation of the concept of the “religious order” and the interplay between science, disease eradication, and theodicy.

Though Winter’s name is not as well known as, say, Billy Graham’s, his impact has been enormous. Anyone who has ever been invited to pray for an “unreached people group” has Ralph Winter to thank in large part. Had he not providentially arrived on the scene in time, Western missions might have died out by now, wrongly convinced that the missionary task had, by a faulty colonialist definition, been “accomplished”. Likewise, today’s proliferation of “branch seminaries” dotting every major U.S. city owes its existence, in part, to Winter’s pioneering work in “Theological Education by Extension”. Without Ralph Winter, thousands of Christians would never have attended a “Perspectives” class (perspectives.org) to gain a new appreciation for missions as the overlooked key to Scripture and church history.

A “late bloomer” in some ways, Winter ultimately accumulated a B.S. from Caltech in civil engineering, a PhD from Cornell in linguistics with minors in cultural anthropology and statistics, and, finally, a Bachelor of Divinity (precursor to the modern MDiv) from Princeton Theological Seminary. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA, Winter and his wife, a trained nurse, soon ended up as Presbyterian missionaries to what would now be called an unreached Mayan people group in Guatemala. From that experience his first and major contribution to the worldwide evangelical movement would be made.

At the time Winter and his wife, Roberta, were dispatched to Central America, the mainline denominations were re-evaluating their missionary enterprises. These institutions felt the sting of being called “colonialists” and “imperialists” and were growing more sensitive to the imperative of indigenous churches directing their own affairs. “Missionaries” were called “fraternal workers” to emphasize their roles as partners and servants. A moratorium on all Western missionaries was seriously considered by some, though never adopted completely. It made a certain sense to stop sending missionary evangelists if by “nation” one meant the post-colonial “nation state”. Arguably, all the former colonies had some locals converts who might be considered “indigenous” churches.

As a trained linguist and anthropologist, Winter immediately realized the flaw in such thinking. The people he served were almost totally unreached despite the presence of a so-called “national church”. The “national church” that did exist was largely Latino. Mayans like those Winter served were almost wholly ignored. Those who were reached were completely marginalized in the life of the so-called “national church”. They were not alone. Such unreached people groups numbered in the thousands.

Winter’s observations in this area changed the operating definition of ta ethne (the nations) referred to in Matthew 28’s Great Commission from arbitrarily contrived post-colonial nation states to people groups in the evangelical missionary vocabulary. Suddenly the call to evangelize took on new urgency because, despite 2 millennia of missionary endeavor, most people groups remained totally untouched. At Lausanne in 1974, Winter gained the platform that would allow him to reorient the thinking of evangelicals. The colonial paradigm of mission would soon become as antiquated as the concept of a flat earth.

The situation of the Mayans he served likewise prompted his next then-revolutionary actions. The national church had no Mayan clergy because the education of the tribal peoples was too low to allow their entrance into the Presbyterian seminary. Experience with Latino candidates also showed that after leaving the countryside to attend seminary, graduates were reluctant to return to the squalor of the villages. Few seminary graduates even remained in full time ministry. They parlayed their advanced degrees into more lucrative positions with multinational corporations needing articulate and loyal locals. Winter overcame the problem by developing correspondence training for the indigenous people that allowed them to obtain the equivalent of a  “G.E.D.” without having to return to school or quit working. Finally the barrier to entering seminary was overcome.

Because no Mayan student could relocate to seminary and still provide for his family, the next issue was the problem of delivering training. Thanks to the problems with residential training model outlined above, Winter was able to convince the mission to close the seminary and redeploy the faculty to do training where the students lived through correspondence and regional training centers. With some cajoling the seminary agreed. After a tumultuous two years, the results were a much larger student body. Finally the underserved Mayans would have their own trained leaders and a church not totally alien to their culture.

The Frontier Mission Fellowship (http://www.frontiermissionfellowship.org) remains as a testimony to Winter’s reappraisal of the Catholic religious orders and its application to mission. In evangelical circles, it’s common to act as if “missions” didn’t start until William Carey in 1792. In reality a plethora of religious orders always pursued “missionary” projects long before Carey. Winter, therefore, considered the Roman Catholic religious orders as possible models for modern missionary enterprise that evangelicals had overlooked. He envisioned a covenanted body of disciples devoted to a peculiar missionary calling within the larger life of the Church and lead by a central leader or “abbot”. Till his death, Winter served in that capacity. His thinking on the subject is captured in his paper “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission”.

At the end of his life, Winter’s thoughts turned to the topic of theodicy, science, and, in essence, the next missionary frontier for Christians. This direction was a result of a personal crisis, the death of his first wife Roberta. He grew weary of comforters assuring him that her death from cancer was “God’s will”, i.e. a divine gift and good instead of a symptom of creation’s fallenness. The article “Where Darwin Scores Higher Than Intelligent Design” reflects the direction of his thought in his last years. He came to believe not only in the positive design of God’s creation, but in what might be called “malevolent” design or more bluntly the sabotage of God’s world through the work of the Evil One to corrupt and pervert nature. Winter founded the Roberta Winter Institute (robertawinterinstitute.org) so that Christians would be challenged with the task of eradicating all disease. At the end of his life, Winter considered the existence of disease as much an affront to God’s glory as the existence of unreached people groups.

Winter’s biography is an excellent one to be widely read. Many of those who laud him for his missiological innovations may wince at some of his later directions. However, even his thoughts on theodicy may aid the larger cause of the Church by reminding us that the “Augustinian” view of providence he came to question can devolve into fatalist passivity. It’s all too possible to glibly quote Romans 8:28 to mean that “everything that happens is intrinsically good and therefore God’s immediate design”. Romans 8:28, however, is not comforting because it asserts that God is the author of evil, but because it asserts that God as sovereign wills and works so that evil not have the final say, even in our suffering.

Fickett’s work on Winter is a joy to read. Students of mission, those seeking to understand twentieth century evangelicalism, and those seeking personal inspiration for their callings will all benefit from these pages.

William Carey Library Publishers 2013 (Paperback,180 pages)

About The Author

Rev. Chuck Huckaby is the Minister of Congregational Life at First Protestant Church in New Braunfels, TX. You can find his page on Facebook.com

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Raising Local Resources

What Should We Do With All Our Money?

When Global Generosity Destroys Local Generosity

by Jean Johnson

When sitting down to talk with donors in a North American context, the question I am most often asked is, “What should we do with all our money?”

There is no doubt that the Bible promotes generosity and giving. The apostle Paul quoted Jesus’s very words: “It is more blessed to give than receive.” (Acts 20:35) But what if our generous giving actually conditions people to be habitually on the receiving end? In this case, won’t our generosity actually rob people of the blessing promised in Acts 20:35? This is not simply an academic question. Again and again, I have seen local churches and church members ignoring local generosity to both wait for and seek out global generosity. I don’t think people set out to paralyze local giving and generosity with global giving. Our intentions are good, but some of our logic may be flawed.

For example, we may think: “If we give long enough and generously enough, the recipients will take their turn.” When churches are birthed and grow up depending on money from donors, they very quickly slide into a dependent mentality. This is human nature, and dependency is no respecter of persons. If somebody far removed from the context pays the bills, isn’t it more likely that the recipients will become accustomed to such rather than develop some internal longing to pay their own bills?

Some may be quick to say, “But new believers in Christ are like spiritual babes and need a season of parental help.” The problem is that we are not their parents, and they are not our children. While it is true that people may be new in their spiritual faith in Christ, they have been spiritually mature and responsible in their own contexts and religious practices. One way or another, Buddhist folks give food alms to monks, do their part in building pagodas, and so much more. There is a great danger in inviting adults to go backwards in the spirituality, giving, and responsibility already evident in their own families and previous religious practices. In other words, you may find the mindset of “Let us pay your clergy and build your churches for now” to be very counterproductive. I have not encountered a SE Asian who set aside his practices of Buddhism because he was too poor. Let’s not introduce that mindset into the Christian faith.

Often, with our generosity comes our version of Christianity.

St. Paul’s method is not in harmony with the modern Western spirit. We modern teachers from the West are by nature and by training persons of restless activity and boundless self-confidence. We are accustomed to assuming an attitude of superiority towards Eastern peoples, and to point to our material progress as the justification of our attitude. We are accustomed by tradition to an elaborate system of church organization, and a peculiar code of morality. We cannot imagine any Christianity worthy of the name existing without the elaborate machinery that we invented. We naturally expect our converts to adopt from us not only essentials but
also accidentals.1

I do not see any examples of Jesus, the disciples, or Paul giving out money to pay disciple or pastoral salaries, or to cover the expenses of the churches’ functions and/or structures. The apostles passed on Christ’s essentials while leaving out their accidentals. And yet no one would accuse them of being selfish.

Generosity does not exist in a vacuum. We must ask the hard questions. Is generosity really generosity if it ultimately causes the recipients harm? If we are forcing others into becoming eternal recipients, thus robbing them of the blessing of being generous—with their own resources—among their church community and neighbors, what have we really achieved? If North Americans outgive locals, will locals ever feel they can rise to the occasion? How can North Americans live lifestyles of sacrifice and generosity without destroying the same attitudes and actions in those on the receiving end?

What we should do with all our money is a fair question. But we must be careful not to use that line of questioning as a justification to destroy local generosity with global generosity, thus killing the spirit of giving and sacrifice in others—who have a God-given responsibility in their own context.

About The Author

Jean Johnson served as a missionary with the Assemblies of God in Cambodia for 16 years in the areas of pioneer church planting, on-the-job leadership training, and oral strategies. She is currently a co-director of World Mission Associates and teaches and coaches on church sustainability and multiplication. She can be reached by e-mail at jeanjohnson@wmausa.org

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12 Months Blocs Spotlight for July 2013

South Asian Peoples With Emphasis on India

by

There is an urgent need for harvest laborers to come to India from other countries.  Why?

- One-third of the world’s remaining unreached people groups live in India. India’s unreached are an astonishing array of 2,350 peoples with different cultures, languages, castes and religious traditions.

- Half of the world’s largest unengaged, unreached people groups (with populations numbering 100,000 or more) live in India.

- 95% of India’s population belong to unreached people groups.

- India’s population of 1.3 billion is more than North and South America combined (900 million) and more than Africa and the Middle East combined (1.26 billion).  Outsiders see India as one country, but with one-fifth of the world’s population, it should be considered the eighth continent.

- India has a booming economy, but 40% of the world’s poorest people (and 70% of these are Muslim). A recent report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative indicates that eight Indian states have more impoverished people than 26 of Africa’s poorest countries combined, totaling more than 410 million people.

Many ask, “Shouldn’t India’s Christians reach India?”

1. India has less than 50 million evangelicals (4% of the population), mostly in the far northeastern and southern states. India’s central and northern states, where the bulk of India’s population lives, have very little Christian presence. By comparison, Africa has 360 million evangelicals (35% of the population), and North and South America have 440 million evangelicals (49% of the population).

2. India’s evangelicals speak only a few of the 1,500 languages needed to effectively communicate the gospel in India. We must encourage cross-cultural outreach by the Indian Church, but India needs far more cross-cultural workers than the Indian churches can realistically provide. Prejudice is also a problem, both toward and by Indian Christian communities. Only 10% of the languages of India have any scriptures, but Indian believers, who control the Bible societies, struggle with accepting the validity of translations in neighboring languages.

3. India receives only 6% of the world’s full-time Christian workers, including 8,000 foreign missionaries (7 missionaries per million), most of whom work with the Indian Christian population. By comparison, Latin America (with less than half the population of India) receives over 100,000 foreign missionaries, or 172 missionaries per million people. Africa receives over 90,000 missionaries, or more than 90 missionaries per million people.

(These statistics are from Joshua Project, The Atlas of Global Christianity and Operation World.)

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12 Months Blocs Spotlight for August 2013

Tibetan Peoples

by Gabriel Arinim

In between the brown mud houses, on a street made of soil, walks a petite girl, clothed in a blue-and-white school uniform. She straightens the red scarf that she wears with pride on hair pulled tightly back in a simple, long braid. Her shoes, barely clinging to her feet, are too cheap to stay together. Yet her smile is bright, for she is on her way home from school, where she is regarded as a top student. Her school, one of the few and poor Tibetan schools in the Northern Himalayas, is not regarded as a top school, making her chances of further education bleak unless she were to move to a better school closer to the capital of the province.

The required language of instruction is Chinese, but at her home and with her family she speaks only Tibetan. For a few years now, it has been made compulsory for Tibetan schools to teach all classes in Chinese, except for the scarce hours of Tibetan language class. This also means that Tibetan students are not receiving good English classes and that their English won’t be up to par compared with the Chinese students in the local Chinese schools. Since English is a crucial subject in Chinese schools, this is a further obstacle to progress in the girl’s education; this girl was surprised to belatedly learn that “bye, bye” is an English expression of farewell, for she had previously connected it only to the modern Chinese way of saying goodbye.

This story offers a window into much of what’s happening amongst Tibetans today:

- First, their social status is low and poor.

- Second, Tibetans must be Chinese to succeed in China, both in terms of language and education.

- Third, they have low understanding of what is Chinese and what is “other” and tend to regard everything outside their own society as Chinese.

China’s minority peoples have long suffered neglect and oppression, and since 2009 this has become worse. In November 2012, when new leaders for China were selected, many observers hoped that the change would lead to greater leniency toward minorities, but instead the new leaders are less tolerant toward external and internal disputes. Minority peoples are losing hope for respect, religious freedom and freedom to continue valued traditions.

Today we are hearing more and more news of Tibetans protesting by setting themselves on fire; the number of such reports has surpassed 100, but there is no way of knowing what the real figure is for self-immolations and other protests. Chinese officials blame Tibetan agitation on outside forces such as the exiled Tibetan government, and therefore find it easier to justify severe punishment of any protest, including prison sentences that are commonly more than 10 years.

In language and lifestyle Tibetans are a very diverse group of around six million people, but they share much in common as a minority with limited freedom and their system of Tibetan Buddhism. Respect for the Dalai Lama provides a common center, so his transfer of power to others in the exiled Tibetan government will be a notable development to watch carefully.

Tibetans have so much overlap and common thought patterns that cross-border networking by gospel workers on their behalf is very profitable. One such network, now celebrating 25 years of common vision and shared resources, is producing a common songbook, videos and other tools for training across language groups.

A common challenge is that Tibetan believers tend to abandon their faith after awhile. This pattern first caught my attention when I heard that although in one location more and more were coming to believe in Christ, the numbers in the fellowship barely grew. This pattern persists even in areas with more freedom, and it seems that, at its heart, is a lack of belonging to the community and difficulty in continuing expressions of the faith.

Yet, we see a trend in which Tibetans are being touched by the power of prayer. I hope that this is not a short-term trend, but that it will continue to lead to further expressions of faith and deeper hunger for the truth. Tibetans have a high need for spiritual expression and are quite naturally in touch with the Holy Spirit’s power through dreams, healing and care.

In some parts of the Tibetan world physical life is difficult and situations are harsh; disasters, such as earthquakes, are accelerating Tibetan migration around the world. Now is the time for the global Church to rise to the challenge and offer care and community to Tibetan societies. Let’s work together through our and their networks to share the gospel and touch them with the love of Christ.

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Gabriel (Arinim.Gabriel@gmail.com

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Further Reflections

Further Reflections

Training in Action

by Greg H. Parsons

During a major event in Southeast Asia this week, I met a young global worker. I mean really young…like 20-years young. He is 1.5 years into a 3-year commitment in this Southeast Asian nation, on the opposite side of the world from where he grew up. So he started at 18!

His parents met on the field. From the age of 5, he grew up outside of the U.S. He learned his first, “second” language from friends on the streets and in school there. Now he feels called to this Southeast Asian nation and he is learning the language of the majority people group here.

Just yesterday, he attended an afternoon workshop that was being translated into that language. There was an experienced worker there who was translating for the speaker but who struggled with a word here or there. More than once, my new young friend—who was sitting near the translator—contributed the missing word. After a bit, the older worker handed over the mike!

A good friend of mine was also in the meeting. He has worked in this same language group for 25 years and was astonished and impressed—for several reasons. One reason was that this young man had no hesitation to contributing like a lot of young people. He had been encouraged to take leadership by those who mentored him. But the bigger surprise was his language skills after 1.5 years in what is a fairly difficult, tonal language.

Question: Why are we surprised?

We have known for years that the younger one goes out and gets started the better they can learn the language. Here was a living illustration of the point.

My long-term missionary friend, his field leader and I were talking about this, and I raised the idea afresh of the need to get this young man, other field-based workers and “nationals” any training that might be helpful. And if helpful and desired, a degree—all right in the middle of “the action on the ground.” The field leader said he had proposed this to his mission and to other organizations. No one was opposed, but no one gave leadership to it either.

Actually, Ralph D. Winter had the idea many years ago. Back before there were missions that mobilized a bunch of really young people to go out there early—like OM and YWAM—Winter talked about it with people like Clyde Cook. Cook was the president of Biola at the time, and had served as a missionary and mission agency president. Winter’s pitch was: “Clyde, what if you could double your student body and not build one new building or add a faculty member?” Cook was all ears! How could that happen?

Short answer? Send half the students overseas each year! Let them spend half their college years in a different cultural setting. It turns out that was much cheaper for the students too (helping to lower the increasingly massive debt that many students aquire now).

In a setting of mission agency executives, I heard Winter propose another related idea: encourage mission agencies to create their own ‘accrediting’ body. They would rate universities and colleges, judging them on how well they dealt with missionary kids—both academically and practically. Winter figured that there were so many MKs that schools would listen. But, for lack of leadership to focus on it, neither happened.

Why don’t we combine these ideas, and perhaps others, and do it now?

I’m not talking about most of the existing distance programs, which remain costly, often require some residency and usually exclude the kinds of study a global worker would want today.

Both missions and schools would buy into it. And with more and more online today, it would be so much easier to pull off.

My new 20-year old friend is very interested in learning and growing. He would be thrilled to get a degree in the process, but he doesn’t want to leave the country to which he feels called and deeply burdened.

So help me answer this question: Why should he?

Are you interested in helping make this happen? Perhaps you are an educator or an interested person who might be able to bring some skills or do some research (from home!). Or perhaps you are with a mission agency that would be interested. We need folks to help design, build and run such a thing. There is a lot of work to be done, from getting schools to buy in, to working out field situations that would help guide and coach the young people. Write me and let me know what you can help to do!

You may comment online at http://www.missionfrontiers.org or email me at greg.parsons@uscwm.org.

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Greg H. Parsons

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