Monthly Archives: October 2023

Have you been on Twitter lately? (Sorry, X.) I enjoy the way it causes me to think about things in a new way, but am distressed by the vehemence and nastiness with which Christians sometimes fight each other. And then sometimes you stumble onto a gem like this: 

Greg Stier, who I don’t know in real life, but assume is an alright guy, posted what he calls “The Triple A” approach to connecting with Mormons. As you probably know, there are some parallels between the two M faiths. You also know I’m a sucker for simple, practical, accessible ways to describe how to connect with Muslims. If they aliterate, I’m over the moon! 

You can read Greg’s fuller article here, but I want to quickly share the Triple A approach as it applies to Muslims. I hope it helps you and maybe gives you talking points to encourage others to push through the cultural barriers to befriend Muslims. 

1. Ask questions about Islam and Muslim life. Greg lists several in his article, but you can also run with your curiosity. In many Muslim cultures, it’s fine to openly discuss religion. In fact, I think Muslims have an easier time talking about Jesus than we do! 
2. Admire what you can about them and what they believe. This gets a little dicey for some of us. We’ve been taught or had modeled that others are totally wrong! If you affirm something in their worldview, you’re probably cheating on Jesus! But you’ve met Muslims, right? They all resemble Jesus in some way and some of them are just so cool. 
3. Admit you need Jesus more than anybody. This stings a bit, but Paul said imitate me and he also said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.” There is something powerfully disarming about confessing need. 

May God open doors for each of us to give the Triple A approach a go this week with Muslims or Mormons or any Muggle you meet. 

With the carnival of carnage continuing unabated in the Middle East, so much is unknown. What is pretty certain is this: More refugees. When homes, hospitals, groceries and gas stations are reduced to rubble, Gazans will be looking for new places to live. 

Maybe you side with presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis who says they should be taken in by Middle Eastern countries, not the U.S. Maybe you think we should throw open the doors as we did recently for Ukrainians. 

Either way, I’m wondering how you feel about the idea of sanctuary. Not what you call the room where you hold worship services, but allowing migrants to stay in your church building even though they lack legal right to remain in the U.S.

If someone was being deported and you understood their life was legitimately in danger in their homeland, would you try to help them by letting them stay in your church? Whether “yes” or “no,” I’m curious how you come to the decision. 

If you think, “I’m not sure a church building is really much protection,” you’re right. While no law prevents ICE from serving warrants at churches, some reports indicate they’re reluctant to. If you think, “My church is tiny. No one wants to stay there,” you might be right. Although my guess is that the tiniest of churches beats the specter of torture and death back home. 

Maybe your mind goes quickly to Paul’s admonition in Romans 13.1, to “be subject to the governing authorities.” But we’ve always realized there’re moral limits to that verse, haven’t we?

I admire churches in the U.S. who are taking risks to care for migrants this way, but I realize it’s easy to be for something that’s likely not going to happen where I live, to “pre-decide” a decision I likely won’t be called upon to make. That admitted, the world does seem to be on a Tilt-a-Whirl right now. Who knows what decisions we might actually face? 

How are you processing what’s going down in Israel and Gaza? I’m gutted. This morning I made the mistake of reading past the headlines a bit so I could write a couple coherent words about it. Bad idea. Now I’m hoping to finish this email and get it out before I’m totally depressed.

And you know what? I can hear the voice in my head saying how ridiculous I am for sharing my pain when pain beyond my comprehension multiplies by the hour nine hours east of me. 

If I didn’t think you might let your kids read this, I’d probably swear. 

How do people like us, presumably Jesus-first people, oddballs who advocate for loving Muslims and telling them good news, people who aren’t totally stupid, think about and deal with a situation like this?

1. We keep our mouths shut. We don’t engage in fruitless fights. We don’t share spurious or incendiary information online. 
2. We speak up. With love and humility, in our circles we don’t let all Palestinians be painted as “human animals.” With wisdom and balance, we speak of hope for Christ’s kingdom. With humility, we consider the possible complicity of our country. 
3. We talk to God. We pray for the families of Israelis who lost their lives, for those held hostage, for those injured or now paralyzed by fear. Believing our theology, we pray for members of Hamas, though their deeds are evil and reprehensible. We pray for the 2.1 million people of Gaza who are rapidly running out of water and food, electricity and fuel. 

I’d love to hear how you’re praying and what you’re thinking today. You may enjoy praying along with this video prayer for Gaza and the West Bank by an Arab brother and our friends at PrayerCast.

Gratitude is good for the soul! If your soul could use a little goodness today, here’s something to be thankful for: The U.S. is moving in the right direction regarding refugees. 

Although there’s a laundry list of things wrong with our country and the favorite topic of conversation at church might be recounting those wrongs, we are doing something right. Or at least righter than in recent years. 

Following the one-two punch of Covid and a refugee-adverse oval office combining to drop refugee admittance to its lowest levels in the history of the program, the numbers are now moving up. 

This means a widow and her two kids, displaced from their country, having weathered an intense investigation by international experts and found to have legitimate cause to fear for their lives, now has a better chance at finding new life in America. 

The current upper limit for acceptance has been set by the president at 125,000. My best understanding is that we had taken in around 50,000 this year by the end of August. We won’t make 125k for sure, but this is more than the last three years combined and growing. 

Although I’ve cast shade on Texans recently for the way they drive in Colorado, big time kudos is due for their leading the way in resettling refugees. You outpaced California, even though they have (for the time being) a higher population! Atta boy to Kentucky as well, although only 1/6th the population of Texas, you’ve taken in half as many refugees as them in this current U.S. fiscal year.

Let’s keep in mind: 
• Refugees are not the same as immigrants. 
•This good news is not a comment on the situation at our southern border. 
•Some refugees are so in part as a result of US action and policy (Afghans, Iraqis), others not so much (Congolese, Rohingya).

Jesus was pretty clear that his followers care for widows, orphans and the oppressed. I’m happy that we’re doing more of that this year than last.