Called by the need

There was this one statistic that caught our attention the most: how many inhabitants there are per Christian worker. Normally, there were five to 10 thousand people per Christian worker, until we came to the Arab world, and the ratio was 1 million to one. So that was our decision.

There were very few Muslims Background Believers around, so we all tried our best to share the Good News. Frustration was rare, very, very, very rare.

We tried to share our lives as radically as we could with those we wanted to reach. Which meant that we would live as simply as possible to be on the same living standard. Through that, we were able to build very deep trusting relationships. But still, by and large, openness towards the Gospel was far, far lower than today.

Arabs are very polite; they may think a lot of things, but don’t tell you right away.

Learning to evangelize

For poor people, where things hinge on whether you make it through the next day or not, there is zero patience with young believers for theories.

It was challenging, but challenging in a very good way.

One thing that unnerved me as we tried to share the Gospel in the beginning was to see that there were people who were very willing and open to listen to me, and they couldn’t understand what I was trying to say, even though my Arabic wasn’t that bad. They couldn’t understand the concepts I was trying to get across.

As you try to share the Gospel with people who are radically different from you in culture and lifestyle, step by step, you get stripped of the cultural additions that you carry with you from your church background until you only have the Gospel left over.

About 80% of what I thought I needed to be communicated had to go.

We had a rule on our team; we were forbidden to read books about Islam and instead had to go out and ask Muslims questions. We had dozens and dozens of questions that we would go around and ask Muslims.

What does it help me if I am a specialist in the Quran and official Islam, if my neighbors have maybe 10% of my knowledge about the Quran and actually follow totally different principles and rules, and are more concerned about the evil eye and the latest blessing or cures put upon them?

Language and evangelism

When you come into a new culture, you should just assume that what is going on is neutral and not evil. You can judge later, but not in the beginning.

We do very well listening and observing carefully and sharing the Good News in a way that speaks to the heart of the people in their way of thinking and in their culture.

In the West, if you want to be respectable and convincing, you need to be intellectual and calm; this is the exact opposite for Arab Muslims.

There was quite a percentage of people who never made it to a level where they could touch Arabs on a deep heart level, language wise. Which limits you very greatly. Today, I sense that the focus on language is actually dropping big time.

Sometimes the most unlikely people have a big, big impact.

How to gauge success

First, I have to admit that the lack of fruit was, on several levels, emotionally a major challenge.

We often would say our biggest emotional enemy is discouragement. It was not easy, I have to admit.

I would take every little  step that someone took towards Christ or every little baby step in discipleship as success, no matter how small it was.

Generally speaking, I think about fruit in three deletions The width is the number of those who come to faith. The depth is the depth of changed lives; the fruit of the Holy Spirit. I don’t count biblical knowledge, but I count changed lives. The length would be how long the whole thing lasts. I don’t know how it is today, but in our days, 80% of believers returned to Islam.

These kinds of stories of changed lives bring me to tears.

How things are changing

Because there are increasing numbers of Arab Muslims coming to the Lord, our role changes and our focus changes. I will never say let’s stop evangelizing, but the role of discipleship and healthy discipleship becomes really important.

Sometimes I feel like we have a little bit of a lack of respect for the Arabs around us. But now, with an increasing number of MBBs, I think we cannot just continue to work in the way we used to. The focus has to be to encourage, to empower, and to support Muslim Background Believers to go forward and share the Good News and start churches.

MBBs have to deal with massive issues in discipleship, spiritually speaking, but so do we, by the way.

There is the deep-seated mentality of, “Oh, they are not there yet, let’s keep them low. Let’s not encourage them to do anything or to take responsibility, essentially not leadership.”

I consider myself far beyond average when it comes to language and culture understanding, and Islam, and I still think that a well-equipped MBB will be 100% more fruitful than I will ever be.

He said to me, “Do you know what, I am a believer since the end of the 80s and I’ve met dozens and hundreds of foreign missionaries, you are the first one who actually trusts and respects me.”

I have been terribly disappointed, but that can never stop us from giving trust and respect to MBBs.

Distrust is almost like an atmosphere, like a blanket over the region, and there are reasons for it, but it kills discipleship.

Trust is contagious. If I trust and show trust, it changes the person in front of me already. We want to openly talk about it openly with MBBs, how destructive distrust is. And you can’t make someone else trustworthy, but you can yourself be trustworthy.

It’s important not to gossip, but I it’s also important to never listen to gossip.

The Nine Studies

I got a hold of a book called “From Creation to Christ.” It explained that instead of trying to give your Gospel presentation like you’re used to doing, why don’t you do it the way the Bible does it; start at the very beginning and go to the end.

There are so many things missing in for the Muslims, that if we don’t build carefully step by step then they will miss out.

I liked the book, but 50 studies were way too many. I thought maybe three or four studies would work, I ended up pushing it to nine studies. I chose stories that are in part already known to Muslims so that we start on common ground.

We can’t really share the Good News about Jesus Christ without laying the foundation of the Old Testament. It was a great tool in our hands to help us share the Gospel in a way that makes sense for Muslims.