Monthly Archives: April 2023

If I asked you to name something beautiful about where you live, what would you say? I’m in southern Colorado so sun and mountains come to mind for me. Also my wife keeps the house all jungly with plants everywhere and occasionally a sleeping child will drool in the most adorable way. 

Although I don’t always live out this conviction, I’m convinced that beauty, it’s creation, pursuit and appreciation, has great consequence for our lives as Christians. 

Brian Zahnd asserts, “If the church in America is to recover any relevance, it won’t be through a public emphasis on the true (though there is a place for Christian apologetics), and it won’t be through a public emphasis on the good (though there is a place for Christian ethics), but through a public emphasis on the long-neglected third prime virtue — the beautiful.

I love that. This applies for us in how we think and talk about Muslims. Without diminishing the reality that we must question and consider the truth and goodness of Islam, it might do us well to amplify our understanding and enjoyment of the beauty found in Muslims and Muslim culture. 

I drool like a sleeping child remembering desserts hospitably offered to me by the hand of Muslims from Turkey to Jordan to Malaysia. You may have similar experiences.

I am also hugely blessed by the these two videos on Instagram (Part 1, Part 2) in which Muslims share the origins of their Eid clothes. To see people from various cultures in their best clothes on their happiest days. . .beautiful. (And worth quickly signing up for an Instagram account you may never use again!) 

Too many of us (I’m looking at me!) too often think of Muslims as a problem. Join me in leaning toward thinking of them as beautiful people, designed to help embody and bring about the beautiful kingdom of God. 

If you’ve ever worked hard in ministry, vocationally, on a mission trip or even leading a small group with too many EGR’s*, this week’s YouTube video is for you. (If you get some value from it, please subscribe to my fledgeling channel. Thank you.) *Extra grace required!

“Please, please. I beg of you more time. I didn’t account for the laughter!” That was George Verwer speaking at an Urbana missions conference over thirty years ago, imploring the leaders to extend his time as he gave a talk that made me roar with laughter and rethink my life choices!

I saw George speak several times over the years and always enjoyed his candor, humility and passion. His book Revolution of Love and Balance left a dent on my psyche. I got to meet George in person a few years ago and briefly thank him for the way he’d blessed me. 

Determined that Jesus was worth it, he challenged people to do crazy, world-changing things. I would love to grow up and mobilize like George Verwer. 

It was while doing one of those crazy things that I met Viju Abraham. Although we’d landed in his city of Mumbai unannounced, Viju helped our team find places to stay, showed us where Muslims lived and shared his heart and ministry for the city. 

A consummate networker, Viju introduced us young, bumbling Americans to key ministry leaders. Even more so, he endorsed us. I think it was his passionate commitment to Jesus and Mumbai that pushed him to take such risks. 

When I grow up, I want to love and serve a great city like Mumbai the way Viju did. 

As I write, it’s my birthday. I’m grateful for another year of life, for satisfying work, for a family that’s bigger and better than I deserve and for the cloud of witnesses, recently joined by George and Viju, that surround us. 

Ramadan ended on April 20th, so Eid al Fitr is today! If you’re reading this Muslim Connect when it drops, here’s something fun you might do: Visit my friend Jeannie’s website, grab an image and put it in your social media status. I just did! 

I saw a striking quote during a recent tour of Tulsa’s Greenfield neighborhood, site of the burned down Black Wall Street. (How did I get so old and know so little?) James Baldwin’s words about the massacre are emblazoned on a wall, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Indeed.

I was in Tulsa with a small band of friends who want to deliberately face the existence of people groups on the planet who have no one in their midst inviting them to consider the claims of Christ. We believe God wants that to be different and humbly think he may want to use us to that end. These groups are referred to as unengaged unreached people groups. 

Here are five facts I want you to know about them: 

1. The best current research says there are 1572 Unengaged Unreached People Groups (UUPG’s). 393 of them are Muslim. The others are divided among Hindu, Buddhist, Ethnic religions and others. 
2. A UUPG is defined as one in which no one is living and working in a local language, engaging in ministry focused on sparking a movement of disciples to Christ. 
3. UUPG’s matter, in our minds, because the kingdom of God does not fully come until a people group is discipled and a people group is not discipled until someone from somewhere starts something.
4. We expect the 1572 number to drop by as much as 30% based on developing research. We’re asking God to drop the remaining number to zero by the end of 2025. 
5. Our conviction and hope is that most of the UUPG’s will be engaged by culturally nearby believers. By God’s grace we’re connecting some dots.

Thanks for facing the Muslim world with me, those who are down the street and those on the other side of the planet. For more info on UUPG’s, please check out our “currently in beta” website. The “Explorer Tool” will help you see what UUPG’s live where.

Ramadan’s Night of Power is Monday, April 17th. Please check out my latest Muslim Connect video (shot in Tulsa!) for background and ways to pray.

Are you ever glad you’re a Christian? I hope so, and for better reasons than this: It’s Passover right now (April 5th to April 13th), so Jews aren’t eating anything yeasty. No Cheerios, bread or beer! It’s also Ramadan (March 22nd to April 20th), so Muslims aren’t eating anything during the day. They can have Cheerios and bread after dark, but still no beer.

Passover celebrates the Exodus, the seminal event in the history of Israel. Ramadan commemorates the giving of the Quran. Both events serve to build and bind together their respective communities. 

Christians celebrate our big event (April 9th) by eating chocolate rabbits. 

To be fair, some of you faithfully fasted through Lent. That’s commendable and I hope you find yourself closer to Jesus as a result. But sometimes I wish we had a more corporate life and identity. Perhaps it’s my particular brand of Protestantism that so emphasizes individual faith. That has its positives, but I still wish we had more feasts! 

This current confluence of the “best days of the year” for the three Abrahamic faiths only happens three times a century. It makes me dream of, and long for, the fullness of God’s kingdom on the earth.

Sadly, there’s violence in the holy city Jerusalem as Israeli forces raided Al Asqa Mosque for two nights in a row. Palestinians responded by sending two dozen rockets into Israel from Lebanon and Gaza. As I write, Israel is responding to those rockets. Ad nauseam. 

As we celebrate Jesus’s victory over death this weekend, let’s don’t give into arrogance because we don’t do what the Jews and Muslims do (Our history, both old and new, is littered with things we should not have done.), but rather let’s ask afresh for resurrection power to fall heavily on Jew, Christian, and Muslim alike. May the life of the living God be known all over. 

If you haven’t yet, please check out some of the recent videos at my new Muslim Connect YouTube channel. I’d be honored if you subscribed. Thank you.