Monthly Archives: August 2025

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?

Have you ever taken a beating for the gospel? People have fallen asleep while I’ve preached and a javelina once ran out of the woods, down the side of an outdoor amphitheater and derailed my best effort at a high school church camp altar call! But that’s about it for me. 

Recently in the United Kingdom, as 33 year old Karandeep Mamman preached on a street corner in Walsall, he found himself surrounded by a group of angry Muslims. Not appreciating his assertion that the Quranic version of Jesus was false, they hemmed him in, yelled at him and trashed his sign. 

Days after police showed up to check on him and disperse the crowds, Mamman was surprised to find himself facing prosecution for the event! His case was subsequently tossed when the judge found there to be no evidence of him “causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm and distress” or violating hate crime statutes. 

This makes me wonder three things: 

1. Is there more to the story? Of course there is. There’s always more to the story. One account mentioned that his sign condemned homosexuality and two of his attackers were a homosexual couple. It’s not always Muslims. (To be fair, perhaps they were both homosexual and Muslim.)
2. How effective is street preaching? I’ve had some success in Sicily with telling Jesus stories to a couple Muslims at a time, but I’ve done no legit street preaching. I believe for some people it is obedient service to Christ. For most of us, I suspect we’d do better to connect in a more low key, less antagonistic way.
3. Then there’s this, If you or I faced physical threats for sharing our faith, what would we do? One option, of course, is “don’t do it!” In that event may Jeremiah’s “fire in my bones” toast our own marrow! Another option is to keep at it, endeavoring to be “Shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.”

All the while, may the Holy Spirit remind us to pray for women and men like Mamman around the planet who “consider [their] lives worth nothing. . . beyond the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

Like a dummy, I told my church last Sunday that I’d preach on “End Times” in two weeks! (If you have a ready-made sermon that leans a little post-mill and don’t share it with me, I’m not sure we can still be friends!) With that talk hanging over my head, of course I dove headfirst down an Islamic eschatology rabbit hole! 

Here are three things I’ve found fascinating and one reason why this may matter:

Muslims believe Jesus is coming back. 
While this idea is only ever so vaguely in the Quran, the Hadith supports it. When he descends by a white minaret on the east side of Damascus, his presence will be a sign of the impending end, the Hour, as the Quran calls it. 

When he returns, he’ll kill the Antichrist.
Islamic tradition says that Jesus (Isa al Masih) will confront the Antichrist, or al-Dajjāl, near the “Gate of Lod,” outside of what’s now Tel Aviv, Israel. Isa’s presence will cause al-Dajjāl to begin to dissolve like salt. Jesus will then kill him with a spear! 

He’ll get married, have kids, die and be buried next to Muhammad. 
After killing the al-Dajjāl, it is believed that Jesus will do several things: break crosses, disavow being the Son of God and kill all the pigs! He’ll also bring a time of peace among all nations. After marrying and having children, it is believed he’ll die a natural death. 

I imagine that conversations about “End Times,” particularly Jesus’s role in them, might spark meaningful dialogue with Muslim friends, especially in days like these. Is it possible that believing Jesus is returning someday might be a good reason to consider his teachings now? I sure think so.