Frequently I ask my Muslim friends what they did on
the weekend. Then they ask me what I did. “On Sunday I went to my church,” I
share. It proves to be an excellent way to start a conversation about what
happened in church on any given Sunday.
“Our pastor will be speaking about the prophet Ibrahim
for a few Sundays in church,” I explained to Farid and Amal who come from Iraq.
“This past Sunday he spoke about the Tower(burj) of Babel,” I added. “Have you ever
been to the place in Iraq where the Tower of Babel was built?” I asked them. It
piqued their interest so they got their laptop to show me pictures of Babel
which is close to Baghdad. We had a very interesting conversation about the
whole story. Afterwards Farid remarked,
“Nimrood is the cause of all our problems!” We talked a long time about
different prophets. They were surprised that we knew their Arabic names.
We had just gone to a two day city-wide missions
conference and the topic of human trafficking and justice issues were fresh in
our minds. We asked Habib and Jamila if they thought a prostitute was a
criminal or a victim? It led into a most
interesting discussion about how the Church is responding to the complex issue.
We also talked about the issue of abortion because there were pro-life advocacy
exhibits at the conference.
Sometimes there are baptisms on Sundays when we have
heard a transforming testimony of a person who was involved in drug addiction
but the power of Jesus set him free. Or perhaps it was a Muslim who decided to
follow Jesus as Savior. Since our Muslim friends have not witnessed a baptism
and don’t have any desire to go to church we share with them what a
baptism is all about.
Occasionally we
attend a multi-cultural prayer meeting on Saturday mornings. I tell them,
“Well, on Saturday I went to a prayer time at a church.” There is no end to the
things I can bring up which were prayed about: persecution of Christians in Islamic lands,
praying for sick people, or about someone being healed, etc.
All of this is done intentionally and comes about
naturally. Messages can naturally be talked about, testimonies shared, teaching
explained about baptism or communion, fellowship meals enjoyed, justice issues
brought up, meeting someone from their country, etc. Sometimes there has been a funeral at church
and I describe that person’s life and how God used him or her or how they suffered
courageously. Death, heaven, and hell can be addressed naturally. There are weddings which take place on
weekends and opportunities to describe Christian marriage are taken advantage
of.
If you haven’t talked about what happened in your
church on Sunday you might want to try it. These are not preaching times but exposure
times. At the same time you can ask them what exactly happened this week in
their home or university Qur’an study group or at Friday prayers at the mosque. Let them see the differences. Give them an inside look.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for the testimony of
Church. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 
