Reaching our Muslim neighbours

So great are the problems involved in reaching Muslims for Christ, that it is easy to think that the attempt must wait for a more opportune moment.

Perhaps we imagine that moment to be when we have a specialist Muslim worker in our church or when we are trained in Islamics, or just when the church has grown stronger or is given a deep burden. But can such a venture be delayed without incurring the displeasure of our missionary God? That is a searching question.

Yet, sadly, it has to be admitted that outreach to Muslims by evangelical Christians in Dewsbury and Batley was largely put on hold in the mid-1970s until a more opportune moment. At that time, new - but small - churches had recently been formed in Batley and Dewsbury out of the wreckage of liberal Methodism, and the long-standing Strict Baptist work at Thornhill had been greatly strengthened through the passionate evangelistic preaching of Arthur Stone. The churches were at least somewhat aware of the challenge of Islam, and the need to spread the gospel effectively among the multitudes of Muslim immigrants from the Indian subcontinent that live in our towns. Indeed it is impossible to visit these old centres of the heavy woollen industry and not be aware of the profound, life-dominating influence of Islam upon the large ethnic Asian community. But very little was being done to make Christ known among them.

Change

How the Lord caused that situation to change is instructive and humbling. In the early 1980s, the Lord gave Andy Stovell, a teenage Christian lad living on the edge of Savile Town, Dewsbury's Asian ghetto, a burden for these people. This young man's zeal led him to push Christian tracts through Muslim doors before daylight and got him a gentle police warning for his pains! Later, he saw a piece in a Christian magazine which said that the American fundamentalism mission, Gospel Missionary Union, was planning to send workers to Bradford. As a result, he sent a letter to John Barcus, GMU's representative in England (then living in Kent), suggesting that they should consider focusing on Dewsbury instead of Bradford which already had at least some outreach to Muslims.

Working alongside

As a result of that initial letter, over the last 12 years quite a number of American missionaries (and the young man who first got the vision for the work and has since become a full-time evangelist) have worked alongside churches in the Dewsbury area seeking to make contacts and win Asians to Christ. They have also sought to exhort, encourage and train local believers to make the most of their natural contacts with Muslim neighbours, work colleagues, shop owners, taxi drivers, take-away proprietors and the like.

These evangelists have generally done heroic work. Some have now returned to the States or Canada to continue to work for Christ (including Mark Penner, Kenn and Lesa Stark and Lowell and Karlene Tauzsik). John Barcus has retired to Kansas after a long and fragrant missionary career. Only Keith and Celeste Small (from the USA) and local lad Andy Stovell and his wife Judith remain with us at present. But the example of these men and women remains with us, challenging local Christians to 'expect great things from God and attempt great things for him'.

Early days

In the early days of the work, almost all the focus was on the vital task of contacting individuals and challenging them with the gospel of Christ. Generally, finding Asians to talk to about the things of God is not difficult in our area. Many Muslims are happy to talk about their life-dominating faith - a far cry from the average white Englishman. However, bringing Muslims to faith in Christ is a different matter. Their minds are steeped in ritualism and false doctrine. Islam is the mortar of their society and the bedrock of their lives. Mosque men exert considerable power over the minds and hearts of almost all in the community. They are taught that apostasy is the greatest sin and warned against the seductive efforts of Christian missionaries. Nothing but the almighty power of the true and living God can bring a Muslim to rejoice in Christ the only Saviour and hope of mankind. Sadly, much hard work, thoughtful endeavour, passion and prayer has so far yielded very little result in terms of conversions.

Strategy needed

During the early 1990s, it became apparent that we needed a community-wide strategy for mass evangelism if we were to present the gospel to more than a small proportion of the Asian community. Personal work, though vital, is necessarily slow and immensely time-consuming. Three or four missionaries, even if aided by quite a few local Christians, could not begin to speak to the many thousands of Asians in our towns, however tirelessly they worked. But having a vision for the community was one thing, finding a method which would put the gospel within reach of thousands was another.

As a result of much prayer and discussion, we decided to try direct mailings to the thousands of Muslim homes in the area. Men and women have culled lists of Asian households from the electoral roll and once or twice a year we have posted (or hand-delivered) challenging literature touching on some aspect of the gospel to each of them. The material has been specially written by local men with experience of talking to Muslims. It is, of course, impossible to know what proportion of these materials has been read, but we have received many requests for further literature (including Scriptures).

Response

Some have responded to that literature with fulsome letters of thanks, like Aisha who wrote blessing God for what she had read and asking for yet more literature, and Wajid who was 'so impressed with the leaflets' that 'he wanted to know more'.

Others have responded to the mailings by asking to meet Christians, and on occasions that has brought ongoing opportunities for witness. One such request led to four three-hour discussion sessions between Christian leaders and up to two dozen local Muslims, many of them mosque leaders. That gave tremendous openings to explain such vital Christian truths as the Trinity, the atonement and the uniqueness of Christ.

Encouragement

While we are not yet aware of any Muslims coming to Christ through our programme of direct mailings, we have seen enough encouragements to hope that with perseverance this ministry will prove very fruitful. Our greatest need is to give the Lord no rest until he exalts his Son through the conversion of many of these dear people.

One of the key reasons for writing this account is that we now have a number of booklets suitable for posting out to Muslim homes that churches in other immigrant areas might be interested in using. We would be more than happy to send samples to other churches or interested parties, which could easily be reproduced for mailing out. Some quite small churches have already used various of our booklets, often distributing just a few per week to reduce both expense and the likelihood of the local mosque warning their adherents about them. The booklets would also be ideal for Christians to give to their Muslim friends and contacts. If you would like a sample pack of booklets, or a CD-ROM containing the masters of the materials we have sent out, please send £3.00 to Bible Truth for Muslims, Gospel Missionary Union, PO Box 78, Dewsbury, West Yorks. WF13 2XE, and we will gladly forward them to you. If you have any questions about our ministry or experience, we would be happy to try to answer them for you.