Reading through a recent issue of EN, Elaine Taylor learned that Christians were holding nights of prayer for the Arab world during Ramadan. The one held in her home was privileged to have five Christians from the Middle East and North Africa. She later had in-depth conversations with missionaries from the Muslim world.
The phone rang. 'Hello, Mum, it's Nadir. Are you coming to take me home tonight?' Nadia's mother replied that she would let her know later. After ringing off, there was a spirited discussion with her husband and sons. The upshot was that they did not fancy the long drive there and back again.
'I know, we'll phone Nadir and tell her that friends have just dropped in and we cannot leave them. We'll tell her to make her own way home', declared her father.
The phone call was duly made. Not so long after, they all began to feel bad about their decision. They decided to phone Nadir once more. 'Hello, Nadir, good news! The friends have left. We're leaving to fetch you right now!'
This incident effectively reveals the two great factors influencing the mindset of the people of the Middle East. First, lying is part and parcel of their way of life. In fact, there is an Arabic proverb 'lying is the salt of life'. Secondly, family ties and family honour are supremely important. These two are ingrained into your thinking whether you are a Muslim or a Christian.
New fellowships
Those planting new fellowships in countries with significant numbers of nominal Christians find that family loyalties and differences in Christian traditions make for a minefield of potential conflict.
People from the same small country area may move into the suburb of a city and continue their traditional social structures. As a fellowship begins to form among them, a flat is made available for meetings. However, because it belongs to a relative of some who attend, it is not neutral ground and therefore others feel at a disadvantage. It would be much better to rent a flat exclusively for the purpose, but is it right to make the baby-church dependent on outside funding? Furthermore, because those attending the fellowship come from a variety of nominal Christian backgrounds, their perceptions of what they were taught about Christianity when young, biases their thinking and serves to dull the impact of the gospel. How much simpler it would be to take the gospel to those who have never heard it before! However, by working among nominal Christians in the Middle East, experience can be gained by the missionaries that is hard to come by in any other way.
Long-term discipleship
'Not many Christian workers in the Arab world have much experience in long-term discipling of Arab Christians', commented one of the missionaries I spoke to. He further commented that Arab Christians have remarked on how difficult it is to understand the preaching of Western Christians speaking in Arabic. It takes many years to develop sufficiently good Arabic to become an effective preacher in Arabic.
Discipling Arab Christians from nominally Christian backgrounds is demanding. A professing Christian, for example, may be elected by the family to be the one to murder a sister because she has married a Muslim. The law is relatively lenient to those who are called to restore the family honour in this way. If he refuses, it will be thought of as a disgrace to the whole family. A baby Christian may need to be given enormous support through a family trial of this intensity.
Family support
During our half-night of prayer for the Arab world, a converted Muslim from North Africa told us of a recent happening. A Muslim living in an Arab country became a Christian and went on well with the Lord for some time. Then he and others were imprisoned for their faith. Although he resisted longer than most, he eventually recanted his Christian faith and is no long associated with Christians. Why should that be? Apparently, in that terrible moment of crisis, the support this professing believer received from his own Muslim family was far greater than that he received from the church.
Our narrator gave his own testimony that well-meaning but inexperienced Christians had got him into trouble with the police, but his family had come to his rescue and pulled strings to get him released, even though he had disgraced them by professing Christianity. 'Overcoming love' is powerful even when practised by unbelievers!
One issue shines through all this. Human beings need support, and not just the weak and vulnerable ones. It is partly because of a failure to provide people with support through families and other social groupings that our British society is so weakened.
By contrast, the family support structure in the Arab world is still relatively strong. When we call on either Arabs (or Brits) to leave father and mother to follow Christ, we must be sure that the church provides at least a comparable support structure to that which they experienced within their family. This is a part of what the Lord was referring to when he gave as a parting message: 'Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another' (John 13.34-35).
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