Shane Bennett

I’m writing this morning on the seventh anniversary of rock star Eugene Peterson’s death. I love the fresh way he rendered the first chapter of John: 

The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.

These words resonate in my mind as we wrap up our Guatemala trip. Thank you to those who prayed. God heard and answered. 

As you probably know, whenever you venture outside your home culture, certain things, both good and bad, catch your eye. For me, coming from the beige, high desert of Colorado where you pretty much have to beg the ground to grow anything, I’m struck by the verdant splendor of this country. 

It seems grass will grow on any surface not washed weekly, the mountains are lush with life and, though Guatemalans are the second shortest people on earth, their corn is the tallest I’ve ever seen! (Which is something, coming from an Indiana boy!)

 And here’s the life that I love: Guatemalans are receiving and sharing the light that “darkness couldn’t put out.” In response to last week’s Muslim Connect, I learned of a Guatemalan student in the US taking steps to serve Muslims and of an international organization setting up a recruiting and sending office here to help Guatemalans move into Muslim neighborhoods around the world. Such good news. 

Remember back in the good old days, when all the cool missionaries came from England and the U.S.? We are now clearly in the “better now” days when workers go from all over to all over and God is continuing his good work of calling laborers into Muslim harvest fields. 

If you have moved into a Muslim neighborhood, if you’re sending others, if you’re praying Luke 10.2 prayers for laborers, good for you! We’re partnering in God’s “yes” to Jesus’s prayer request that God’s “kingdom come, [his] will be done on Earth as in Heaven.”

I’m writing this afternoon from the colossal IAH airport in Houston! Our family, some church friends and I are en route to a week of medical outreach, earthquake rebuilding and elderly care. We’ve been resourced on our way by the kind and generous gifts of many Muslim Connect readers. For this I’m very grateful. 

The dozen of us are joined in the gate area by at least two other mission teams (judging by the folks with matching Christian t-shirts!) and a couple of LDS missionaries (judging by the name tags that say “Elder Braden” and “Elder Jayden”) 

I’m confident we’re all doing God-ordained, helpful work (Well, maybe not Braden and Jayden!). But get this: If there are 20 of us on this flight, that puts the missionary to Guatemala resident ratio at roughly one to a million! If you’ve been around the mobilization world for a while, you’ll remember that was for a time the ratio of any workers among all Muslims globally. Of course there are additional scads of full time workers in Guatemala, as well as a vibrant healthy church. 

I believe with all my heart that God calls who he wants where he wants to do what he wants done. 

That said, we need more laborers to the Muslim world where the ratios are not so hopeful. Tons more! Maybe some Guatemalans! In fact, I’ll miss two of the favorite medicos from the place we’re going because they’re off in the Middle East scouting long term opportunities! May God connect them and use them as a vanguard of growing numbers of workers from Central America. And may some from somewhere find God leading them to the remaining 1500 unengaged peoples who still wait for the first ambassadors to arrive. 

As God brings us to mind, I’d value your prayers for God’s success for our group, for good health and good attitudes. 

Have you ever wracked your brain for the next thing to say, the next question to ask? You know, you’re trying to impress a young lady or guy. Or maybe, “If I asked the right insightful question right now, I will kill this interview!”

If you love Muslims, want them to find life in Jesus and have been nurturing some good friendships, you might find yourself thinking, “There’s a helpful, spiritual conversation waiting to happen with this friend, if I could just figure out how to turn the corner.”

For starters: That’s a good thing to keep wondering about. It’s possible to plateau in friendship and fail to ever get to an invitation to meet Jesus. 

For seconds: I’ve never been good at this. While you’re looking for experts to learn from, I’ll share some ideas and things I’ve tried.

1. Ask your friend, “How can I pray for you?” Then do so.
   If you stick around long enough in someone’s life, there will be days when they’re sad, hurt, broken or confused. Jesus seemed happy to minister to people like that, so we’re on good ground asking a friend if we can ask Jesus to help them. When Jesus comes through (and I know he doesn’t always do so just as we’d like), your friend will likely be more open.
2. Question the Quran
   You can use the Quran to deepen the conversation. One, emphasize and discuss the overlap between it and the Bible. Or, if your tastes tend toward the polemic, you can kick around some of the challenges found in the Quran. For instance, “The Quran affirms the inspiration, authority, and preservation of the New Testament Gospels; yet the Quran also contradicts the Gospels on major theological and historical points. Therefore, the Quran cannot be reliable.”
3. Ask if you can tell a story Jesus told.
   Many Muslims are from cultures with a blend of values that incline them to like stories and make them loathe to tell a friend no! Plus, after one or two, you’ll remember and they’ll discover the guy told some amazing stories. Here are a couple dozen to get you started. 

I’m writing this week from a very happy place. While God has been exceedingly kind allowing me to live in a very beautiful setting with an amazing family, our community is way low on the diversity scale.

This week, however, I’m participating in a gathering of the Global Alliance for Church Multiplication (GACX). It is so cool! The crowd is made up of “Implementers,” those who are actually involved in church planting efforts in the U.S. and around the world. The other category is “Accelerators,” those who are resourcing and cheering on the implementers. 

If I hadn’t already told you I was present here, I’d say this looks a little bit like Heaven must. 

For example: 
I had lunch yesterday with a Bengali grandpa who’s recently moved from Bangladesh to NYC. He drives for Uber and fills his days sharing Jesus with the 200,000 Bengalis there. 

A younger Bengali man shared his vision for 10% of his homeland following Jesus by 2042. (To save you a trip to Chatgpt: 20% of the population of Bangladesh is nearly 18 million people!) 

A guy from northeast Africa drives for 11 hours across Ethiopia to train pastors who travel six hours to the venue. . . by horse! 

An Indian researcher shared with me (in the only language that I know) that he speaks seven languages! A decent estimate says he could chat with 30% of the planet’s population! 

A guy from northwest Africa got booted from his country’s special forces when his conversion became known. Threats and persecution compelled him to the U.S. where he now leads a ministry for Muslim background believers. 

And so many Americans are here who’ve lived abroad for years, who raise money from family and friends to simply put bread on their tables. 

I have been surrounded by saints. I’ve heard so many encouraging stories of God’s good work around the globe. Take courage: We live in hopeful days. God’s promises are coming to pass. 

For the penultimate email in our series on asking questions, I thought it might be fun to talk about how to mess it up real good! I’ve found if you communicate sufficient interest, empathy and value, you can ask most Muslims pretty much any question you want. Even so, you’ll want to avoid the following common missteps. 

To be clear: I know these are problems because I’ve done them. All. Multiple times. 

Avoid these mistakes:

“Tell me your favorite. . . .” Anytime you ask for a superlative opinion, you’ll tend to paralyze your friend. You can do this with a toddler (“What’s your favorite color?”), because they’re only choosing among two or three tops! Most grownups have a hard time with “best,” “favorite,” and “worst.” Try adding in “some of” to those questions. 

“Wouldn’t you say. . . .” Add a head nod to a question that starts that way and nine out of ten times you’ll receive a positive response. If you’re recruiting someone for Amway, great. If you’re trying to understand another culture, not so much. Known as “leading questions,” these are a nemesis for us Americans. I think it’s based on our overgrown sense that what we think must be right! 

“Why do you do that?” I’m really big on understanding why people do what they do, think what they think and have the opinions they do. Sadly, it’s hard to start a question with “why” and not give off a judgy vibe. It’s the same when asking a dog, a kid, a Muslim or any other adult. Try replacing “why” with something like “what is the purpose.”

As you’d guess, and have possibly experienced, you can mess up in a dozen other ways. But correcting these three is a good start. Keep practicing. And let’s thank God for whatever opportunities he gives us to learn about Muslim friends and love them like Jesus does. 

My mom’s claim to fame, in addition to raising four kids, living with my dad for 40 years and following Jesus with her whole heart and helping others do the same, is this: She caught one of the biggest dolphins (fish, not bottle nose!) in South Carolina in 1972! For an Indiana girl, that’s big stuff! 

When she hooked the fish on a boat off the coast of Charleston, it leapt out of the ocean and shook, causing her to cry out to her boat mates and the staff, “Help me! Somebody help me.” They did, she landed the beast, got her picture taken and we all had dolphin filets through the long, cold Hoosier winter.

I tell you that story because it’s been too long since Mom’s got a decent shout out in Muslim Connect; also because I want you to remember this: Needing help is one of the best ways to initiate conversation and friendship with another person, particularly a Muslim. 

This goes against the American value expressed both by William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” line, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” and the average American guy’s resistance to asking for directions.

Ask a Muslim for help and you’ll likely get it, and may get a friend in the bargain. Here are some possibilities.

• Visit a Halal grocery store and ask for help finding something. They’re often small and you could find it on your own, but ask for help first!
• In our soccer scenario from last week, ask about football rules, strategy, even the score!
• “Our church is hosting a food drive. Do you know anyone who needs food? Would you like to donate some?”
• “Could I borrow a [ladder, screw driver, cup of sugar]? This one is double good because you get to take it back! (Or a portion of whatever yummy thing you made with the sugar!)
• “Can you help me with this work project.” Or, “Hey, will you be on our team for this school presentation?”

May God bring some Muslims across our paths this week who can help us in an area of need. He knows we have many. 

What’s the most compelling evidence I will not make minimum height at a pole vaulting contest this weekend? The fact that I’ve never pole vaulted! 

If you’ve not spoken to a Muslim in a long time or ever, odds are good the first time you try there will be some awkwardness. Few of us relish awkward situations. Ergo, you’re probably not going to talk to a Muslim. 

The trouble with that is that we need to talk to Muslims! By we, I mean everyone who follows Jesus would benefit from a good conversation with a normal Muslim. We just would. 

So how do you get that going? Check last week’s Muslim Connect for three foundational ideas. This week we’re going to look at one idea and two scenarios.

Use Context to Start a Conversation: Start talking based on what’s going on around you. It’s that simple. There’s a reason we always talk about the weather! 

Scenario One: You’re at your kid’s soccer game and you think the person next to you is Muslim. Ask, “Which one is your kid? Mine is [say their name.]” If they say their kid’s name is Brianna, maybe you’re mistaken about their Islamic identity! Otherwise, follow that up with a compliment, “They’re giving it a good effort.” “They just had a good pass.” Or if needed, “Wow, their uniform is really clean!” 

Follow these questions with ones about the rest of their family, where they live and where they’re from. Some people disagree about “where are you from” questions, but my experience is that most people like to talk about this. Go into it gingerly and you might find it does open some beautiful doors. 

Scenario Two: As I’m writing, devastating news of Charlie Kirk’s murder and the shooting of three students at a Colorado high school fill the news. For a limited time, that’s context more than sufficient to engage in conversation with a Muslim, especially if you live in America. I imagine this, “Wow, crazy times here, eh?” Affirmative response. “Are you a Muslim?” Affirmative response. “How does Islam guide your response to these things?”

To engage in either of these scenarios will involve the bending of standard American social rules. We tend to keep to ourselves. Many Muslim cultures are characterized by a higher degree of interpersonal interaction. Let’s give it a try.

In an earlier stage of my life I was part of a pleasantly audacious band of believers who tested this supposition: If you send a dozen young Americans to an unreached city, task them with asking a bunch of intentional questions for three months, you can actually end up with solid cultural insights.

Turns out it was also great fun and left a permanent mark on my psyche. I enjoy asking people questions. In fact, I prefer to be the questioner. (I understand that part of the reason for that is the asker is both less vulnerable and more powerful. We all have shadows, don’t we?)

I strongly believe Christians would do well to ask a million questions to a bunch of Muslims. It’s possible we understand less than we assume we do. And Jesus is our model here. Seems like he was always asking questions. 

I expect this question theme to carry Muslim Connect forward for a few weeks. Here are the starting fundamentals. 

Cultivate Curiosity 
We serve a God who is great, wise and beautiful beyond our comprehension. We live on a planet filled with wonders whose depth we’ll never plumb. We share the planet with people who interact in ways both fascinating and infuriating. Let’s give ourselves to wonder, not complaint. 

Question Everyone
Each of us has something to learn from each of us. The very image of God is stamped on every human. I believe I can grow by interacting with any of the others. 

Share Yourself
Reflect the vulnerability of the person you’re talking to and maybe even take it a bit deeper. This will help you avoid the “interrogator” effect that sometimes plagued me and my pals when we were learning about Muslims in cities around the globe. 

As we explore this theme, I’ll be praying God opens doors for us all to practice what I’m preaching. Got a favorite question to ask new Muslim friends? Share it with me for upcoming emails in this series. Thank you.

The fog shrouding my house as I write this morning serves as an apt metaphor for my tendency to notice what’s right in front of me while missing what lies just beyond the edge of my thinking. 

Here: I have a daughter getting married in 22 days. This is wonderful. 

Just out there: Marriage as a social institution has fallen off a cliff.

Blaine Eldredge writes, “In 1949, 78.8% of U.S. households were married couples. By 2024, that number had fallen to 47.1%. Of women born in 1940, 90% were married by age 30. In contrast, of women born in 1990, only 27% were married by age 30.”

Something’s going on and it doesn’t look good. 

As a pastor, I wonder how my church (and our churches) are addressing this shift. If you’re a single person reading this and you’d rather not be single, I wonder if we’re caring for you in a way that lands. Is the Church walking with you or are we dishing out pressure, shame or trite platitudes? 

As a mobilizer, I wonder if this trend is present in the Muslim communities around us. 

Apparently it is. Muslim writers are exploring singleness and wondering about solutions. Pew Research shows similar rates of marriage among Muslims in the U.S. and the rest of the population, highlighting that foreign-born Muslims in America are more likely to be married. 

What does following Jesus look like as we respond to this issue? I don’t know. The fog only began to clear on this reality for me about four days ago! Feel free to respond and help me out.

I do see this in Jesus:

Engagement: He came from Heaven to hang out with the likes of us.

Empathy: He didn’t shy away from messiness.

Encouragement: His kingdom vision didn’t minimize hard lives, but infused them with hope. 

May God give us grace to follow him closely.

A July 28th mass shooting in New York City took the life of NYPD Officer Didarul Islam. An immigrant from Bangladesh, Islam was also a dad and husband. His widow gave birth to their third son two days ago. This is poignant in so many ways. I don’t know your experience with New Yorkers or policemen, but I’ve enjoyed interacting with almost all of the Bengalis I’ve met. They’ve been kind, hospitable, funny and beautiful. May God pour out grace and favor on this suffering family and the Bengali community in New York, the largest in the nation.
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Pew Research says it’s official: Islam was the fastest growing world religion from 2010 to 2020. In that time span, “Christians [grew] by 122 million, reaching 2.3 billion. Yet, as a share of the world’s population, Christians fell 1.8 percentage points, to 28.8%.” Muslims “increased by 347 million. The share of the world’s population that is Muslim rose by 1.8 points, to 25.6%.” Christianity declined in percentage largely due to disaffiliation, while Muslims grew largely due to fertility rates. At present rates, there will be more Muslims than Christians by 2070. What are we to make of this?
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Finally, I have a budding friendship with a Muslim man who’s been part of the Muslim Connect tribe for a long time and spends some of his days helping Christians understand Muslims. We’re getting together for coffee for the first time tomorrow. I’m already building a list of questions I’d like to ask him, but would love to hear your thoughts. What would you like me to ask this new friend?