Monthly Archives: November 2023

How does the “family factor” play into your holiday fun? Does it produce joy or angst? Pleasure or pain? How about as you expand out to your broader community? Does that bring you some good Christmas vibes?

In many Muslim cultures, family and community matter in a way people from a more Western culture (like me) can’t really grasp. My conviction is that this is largely good. But like most good things, there can be excess or a dark side. 

As an advocate for God’s blessing to Muslims, have you felt any dissonance this week as you watch or read Muslim reactions to the war between Israel and Hamas? Does the solidarity among Muslims in support of Palestinians that we sometimes see give you pause? 

I lack the experience and expertise to declare such solidarity an abuse of community connections, but I wonder if it’s an example of the ummah (the whole community of Muslims bound together by ties of religion) gone overboard. 

With caution for that possibility in mind, I think we can actually learn from some of the more corporate aspects of many Muslim cultures. The culture Jesus and the apostles inhabited looked more like theirs than mine in this regard. 

In our current hyper-individualistic,bowling alone, society, where do we find such community? In MAGA-land? In our denomination? For most of us, it’s probably not in ethnicity or geography. Can it be in broader Christianity, when it’s taking so many forms that trouble us? 

I’m grateful for my bio-family, my adopted family, my church family and you all (though I wish you’d come over for coffee more often!). But I feel some sadness today for those of you who face the holidays alone. If you’re fine with that, great. If you’re not, I’m sorry. I really do wish you could come over. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you! I hope your day is filled with good food and grateful hearts.Thanks for taking a moment to read this brief note. 

Today I’m thankful for you. It means a great deal to me that you open and read the emails I send. I’m encouraged to think you make Muslim Connect, and actually connecting with Muslims, a part of your life. Grazie mille!

Secondly, I’m thankful for my family; for hugs and hope, for giggles and growth. 

Finally, I’m grateful to God for redeeming me, forgiving me and inviting me (and you!) to partner with Him to bring the love and blessing of a good God to bear on all the families of the earth.

That’s it. I’m done. Thank you. Thank you, God.
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But if you’ve got a little more time, there’s this:

Gratitude rocks. It’s like a drug with no side effects. It gives you all the benefits of exercise without the stress, strain and pain! It’s the cheapest, quickest way to amp up your happiness. 

A habit of gratitude facilitates obedience to the Bible. (Which makes us Christians happy!)

Legit research studies show it provides measurable benefits in all areas of life. 

If you’re a visual learner, here’s the simple schematic. 

Wanna practice? 

• Tell God thanks that you’re alive and when you are no longer, you’ll have leveled up. 
• Send me a note with the top five things you’re thankful for. 
• Give a legit thank you to someone today who’s just a little hard to thank. (That person who just came to mind? Yep, that’s the one!) 

I’m a sucker for a story. Are you? Novels, Twitter threads, old dudes saying, “When I was a kid. . . .” And movies. I love movies. A lot. 

Most stories have a good guy and a bad guy. The more the good guy looks like me and the bad guy looks different from me, the happier I am. I must not be alone in that because a lot of movie bad guys look like non-human creatures, Nazis, fleshy-faced Russians and, of course, Muslims. 

This being Muslim Connect, let’s think about that for a sec. Can you, off the top of your head, name a movie with a Muslim good guy? If you can, please tell me about it. My first thought is The Visitor, which I heartily recommend. If you can’t, there’s a reason for that: Most Muslims in movies are bad guys. 

In fact a couple film buffs in Britain developed a way to measure this reality called The Riz Test. Based on the originally tongue-in-cheek Bechdel Test that evaluates the representation of women in movies, The Riz Test asks five questions of films in which at least one character is identifiably Muslim. If any are answered yes, the movie fails the test.

Is the character:
1. Talking about, the victim of, or the perpetrator of terrorism?
2. Presented as irrationally angry?
3. Presented as superstitious, culturally backwards or anti-modern?
4. Presented as a threat to a Western way of life?
5. If the character is male, is he presented as misogynistic? Or if female, is she presented as oppressed by her male counterparts?

Maybe we could be a little more mindful. Representation does matter. 

If you see a movie that passes the test, talk it up! Let’s amplify the laudable in culture. And if you have a movie I should watch this weekend I’d love to hear about it. 

Are you familiar with Samuel Zwemer? If you hang with people who hang with Muslims, you’ve probably heard the name. He’s a hero in a number of ways; there’s even a study center named after him. I don’t know him as well as I should. He did die in 1952, but, no excuses, there are books! 

Even a cursory look at Zwemer’s life offers lessons and modeling for people like us who want to see Muslims live in the love of Jesus for them. 

1. He pushed beyond what was considered doable in his day. “Muslims?! Surely you jest!” I’m scheming and dreaming these days with some friends about the day when there will be no more unengaged peoples, Muslim or otherwise. It can feel paralyzingly undoable. (Click here to see what uupg’s may live in your favorite country.)
2. He found a good wife! Since he poached Amy from another agency, he was required to reimburse them for the travel expenses they’d incurred to get her to the Middle East! Turned out to be a good investment: She founded both a school and a hospital that are each still in operation. 
3. He sacrificed in large and small ways. He and Amy buried two of their five children in Bahrain. He criss-crossed the globe in a day before they put wheels on suitcases. He famously only saw five Muslims turn to Jesus at his invitation.
4. He wrote like crazy. As Muslim Connect nears its five year anniversary, I’m awed by the number of books Zwemer wrote: Fifty books in fifty years!
5. He mobilized workers, pray-ers and senders. This is near my heart: He used his experience and influence to inspire and encourage many to consider lives of similar sacrifice and investment.

Want to flex some mobilization muscles? Consider inviting your church to connect to Healing Nations. We’ll help you build a relationship with a vetted missions partner to initiate a multi-year collaboration to bring good news where it’s desperately needed. 

How’s your Friday? I sure hope it’s good. I’m thinking about the Good Friday today as I prep to speak on Jesus’s death and burial this Sunday to my church. (No, you’ve not time traveled to Palm Sunday. Our long trek through Luke is nearing its end!) 

Today’s Friday has plenty of bad on grand and small scales: Destruction and despair continue in the Middle East and Ukraine. Somewhere scary diagnoses are being delivered and relationships are reaching their end. 

It’s also a good day: The White House recently added to last spring’s Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism a National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia. I don’t know what you think about how minorities are currently treated in the US or about a broader “victim mentality.” But if the government’s going to spend money, and you know they are, I’m down with some of it going to figure out how not to hate and harm people because of what they believe and look like.

This is a small step in a good direction. Let’s pray it’s part of a growing movement from all over to bring God’s blessing to Muslims. Because that is part of God’s purpose, isn’t it? 

I love that Luke, as he tells the Good Friday story, is careful to show that the events happen according to God’s plan. It brings to mind the way my mentor, Steve Hawthorne, in the Perspectives curriculum, sums up the over-arching purposes of God: “against evil—kingdom victory; for the nations—redemption and blessing; and for God—global glory in worship.”

I want that so badly. Whether your Friday today is good or bad or somewhere in between, please join me in saying, “Yes, Father. These are good purposes. Bring them about now and for all.”

PS: If you’re drawn to people groups who’ve yet to experience the in-breaking of God’s purposes check out this explorer tool.