Making headway

Last week’s GHPL looked at how Christians who work in the harvest fields of Islam, as well as anyone living where Islam is active, can unknowingly be influenced by Islamic doctrine, because the goal of Islam is to bring about submission. For example, one worker realized that trauma had caused her to fear, which made her reluctant to share the gospel. But God enables us to overcome this stratagem: revelation, confession and repentance lead to times of refreshing in His presence!

God is exposing other stratagems against proclaiming the gospel among Muslims. A dear pastor who has poured himself into cultivating relationships with and helping local Muslim imams and influencers (and who encourages many to love Muslims), has permitted me to share the following excerpt from a recent email:

“[W]hile I enjoy helping meet the felt needs of the Muslim community and individuals in particular, I am finding it frustrating to be seemingly making little headway in seeing any of them come to faith in Jesus! While I have no intention to give up, I am disappointed that my efforts to date have resulted in little obvious eternal fruit! I suspect many of you can in various ways likewise agree of your experience of ministry with this group of people.

“I was so frustrated last night…that I looked up an article I saw a while back and decided I need to become more proactive in actively sharing the gospel with my friends as meeting felt needs alone is not what I am here to do.”

He then provided a link to Any-3: Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime—Lead Muslims to Christ Now! Any-3 is “a simple, effective, respectful, enjoyable and reproducible model of witnessing to Muslims” developed by a team of experienced missionaries frustrated by lack of fruit. It is a model that asserts “the Holy Spirit has used Islam to prepare many Muslims, within minutes or hours of hearing the gospel, to accept Christ as the atoning sacrifice for their sins, without the investment of months or years to build relationships.” The model has five easily learned steps: Get Connected, Get to God, Get to Lostness, Get to the Gospel and Get to a Decision. 

The model refutes false perceptions that hinder evangelism: that you have to be really careful, really smart, a friend-maker, a quiet example, really generous, really incarnational, and really busy. It asserts Christ has already earned a hearing for the gospel and given us authority to proclaim it (Mk 16:15). http://themissionnetwork.org/overcoming-hindrances/

Let’s pray with great joy – God is at work!

• Thank God for this pastor’s transparency and willingness to be vulnerable. Ask the Spirit to guide him now into great fruitfulness.
• Thank Jesus for earning a hearing for the gospel and the Spirit for using Islam to prepare Muslims to receive it! Ask Him to connect truth-speaking Christians with truth-seeking Muslims.
• Thank God for exposing false perceptions that hinder evangelism. Ask Him to reveal how we’ve been wasting opportunities and to light the way for harvesting effectively in the fields of Islam.
• Ask that the good news would be accompanied by good deeds done in purity to glorify God (1 Co 2:2, Mt 5:14-16, Heb 10:23-24, 1 Pe 2:12).