Monthly Archives: October 2022

Check out the opportunity to win a $300 Amazon card below!

You know that feeling when something just keeps coming up? Like when the Holy Spirit is trying to get through to you. Maybe: “Stop gambling! I don’t care if the Powerball is $800 million!” Or in my case, “You don’t need a donut and pancakes, you carb-freak!” Or within a few days, from two totally different directions, the BEMA Podcast was recommend to my wife and I. (Turns out it is amazing!) 

Similarly, I can’t get away from Chad. As we close out this month of October praying through the 10/40 Window I want to bring us back to that country that keeps coming back to me, mentioning one thing that makes kingdom progress so difficult, one that gives me hope and ask you one potentially terrifying question. 

Challenging Isolation
One of the key reasons Chad has 80 unreached peoples, of which a staggering 46 are unengaged is that its 17 million people are so spread out and speak over 100 languages. Living in the pleasantly highway-ed U.S., it’s hard to imagine how difficult it is to get place to place in Chad. And then when you get there, needing to speak a different language.

Powerful Church
According to Operation World, between 10 and 30% of Chadians follow Jesus. A small, but growing cadre of them are training and reaching out to Muslims both near and far. This is helping to offset the decline of foreign missionaries. Grace and love and power to them.

Wide Open Doors
I would love to go to Chad. . .for a visit. Living there feels pretty scary to me. How about you? Missionary and development visas are available, making official residency more possible than many places. Want to do something risky? Look at this list of opportunities one agency has open. What if you fit one of them!?!? (I give that challenge trusting your maturity and boundaries.)

I’m scheming with an insightful friend to catalyze a Chadian student conference focused on unengaged peoples next summer. Reach out if you’d like to be in on that.

Last week was the 300th edition of Muslim Connect! To celebrate this milestone, I’m giving away a $300 Amazon gift card. To enter, simply share the following on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: 

“Check out this cheeky article, “Seven (Maybe Surprising) Things We’d All Do Well To Keep in Mind About Muslims” and consider signing up for the author’s helpful, weekly email. I get it!” (You can add that you enjoy it, you know, if you do!)

Once you’ve shared it, click here to let me know you have. I’ll randomly choose one cool respondent for the gift card. 

How about a hat trick of happiness today? 

This is the 300th edition of Muslim Connect! Makes me shake my head in happy wonder. Thank you for reading and as God gives you grace, putting this stuff into action. A subscriber in Salt Lake City recently shared about her interaction with a new Pakistani friend, inspired in part by Muslim Connect. Thank you, Jesus. 

To celebrate this milestone, I’d like to give you a chance to win a $300 Amazon gift card. To enter, simply share the following on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter: 

“Check out this cheeky article, “Seven (Maybe Surprising) Things We’d All Do Well To Keep in Mind About Muslims” and consider signing up for the author’s helpful, weekly email. I get it!”
(You can add that you enjoy it, you know, if you do!)

Once you’ve shared it, click here to let me know you have. I’ll randomly choose one cool respondent for the gift card. 

That’s two good news-es. Here’s the third: The 2022 World Cup opens one month from today! Not a froth-at-the-mouth soccer fan? No shame in that. But this is a big deal for a lot of Muslims, not only for the games, but the fact that it’s hosted for the first time ever in a Muslim country. 

In honor of that, the host, Qatar is our 10/40 Window country of the week. Please join me and a ton of believers world-wide in praying for the people of Qatar. May God use this event to bring about unprecedented growth of his kingdom there. 

If you enjoy soccer, please share your pick for the four teams who will reach the finals. Follow along and allow that attention to remind you to pray for the countries of the winning and losing teams! I’ll choose one correct prediction and help you host a finals watch party with food and decorations to invite your Muslim friends to.

Do you ever ask yourself, “What, ultimately, is God trying to do?”

The fundamentals for my answer to that question come from the front and the back of the Book: Genesis 12.3 where God says he’ll bless Abraham so Abraham can be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. And Rev. 7.9 where John sees the result of that pledge. 

Someone from somewhere must take the beautiful blessing into the people groups who’ve yet to have it. Until that happens, John’s vision of some from all peoples worshiping God is not realized. 

Therefore, as recipients of the blessing of God, it is our collective (and maybe personal) responsibility to do our part to get that blessing where it isn’t yet. 

That conviction has led me and a band of colleagues to pledge ourselves to doing what it takes to see the blessing of God get to the 1600 people groups who have yet to have a start. We call them “unengaged.” They are unreached for sure, but form a subset of unreached peoples who do not have anyone trying to reach them yet. 

Our focus 10/40 Window countries this week are Chad and Sudan. Together they have about 100 unengaged Muslim people groups. One hundred units of humanity who have no one in their midst living out and giving out the life of Jesus. 

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that Chad and Sudan are not at the top of your vacation list. (Although Sudan has some world class scuba diving. Wanna go with me?!?) They are challenging places to live if you’re born there and quite rigorous if you move in. In fact, Chad has the planet’s lowest life expectancy. Poverty, disease and corruption battle against the blessing of God. Tribes cross the border, but given the vast geography and low population density, it’s tough to even get to people to hang out. 

But the church in Chad will not give up. They’re growing and going to some the most challenging assignments on the planet. Let’s get behind them in prayer and perhaps in presence. 

Be sure to catch next week’s Muslim Connect for a celebration, a contest and a chance to join a growing, global prayer movement. 

Don’t you love a holiday? Today is my amazing, sadly departed Dad’s birthday. He would have been 82 and I miss him a ton. It’s also World Smile Day. Share one in honor of my dad. If that’s not your jam, you might be looking forward to National Grouch Day, Oct. 15th. Looking wider, October is National Pasta Month, Clergy Appreciation Month, and germane to Muslim Connect, it’s the annual Praying Through The Window campaign, calling for sustained prayer for the peoples of the 10/40 Window through October. 

For the next few weeks, I’ll highlight a country or two in the 10/40 Window for us to pray for, sharing briefly about its significance. I’d also like to lay this challenge on you: Do the leg work to facilitate your church praying for the 10/40 Window on one Sunday in October. This might include up front time on Sunday morning, a mention in the newsletter, a shout out in the pastor’s blog. You know your church better than I do. I’m going to do this when I preach on Luke 10 (The Sending of the 70) on Oct. 23rd. 

This week’s country of emphasis is Iran. Surely you’ve heard the news: Following the death in custody of Masha Amini, some of the most significant post-revolution protests continue to grow around the country. Since living in Holland in 2000 and hanging out with Persians there, I’ve prayed for a regime change in Iran. For sure, the number of believers has grown stunningly during the reign of the clerics, but I wonder if God might be ready to really turn them loose.

The path through these protests to lasting peace is fraught with peril. Many will die, more will lose dear friends and family. Please join me in praying for Iran. Our countries may be enemies, but the Persian people are not ours. 

Prayer guide here. Beautiful video here. Curated information here (scroll to “South + Central Asia).