Monthly Archives: December 2025

We made it to 2026. Well done! 

Let me briefly share with you four hopes I have for the New Year.

Hope #1
Brewing efforts and new ones yet to be conceived will result in the number of unengaged Muslim people groups dropping from 390 to under 200, on the way to zero! Progress is being made in South Asia, Eastern Africa and Indonesia. May God bless us to see the day when no Muslim people group is left without the first witness for Christ in their midst. 

Hope #2
That Frontier People Groups would rise in the consciousness of the global church. An FPG is an Unreached People Group with 0.1% or fewer Christian Adherents and no confirmed, sustained movements to Jesus. Thirty eight FPG are over 10,000,000 in population. Most of those people live in India and more than half are Muslims.

Hope #3
I sincerely hope the number of large scale evil things done in the name of Islam would plummet in 2026. 

Hope #4
As I write, it’s Commitment Night at the Urbana missions conference in Phoenix. Please join me in expressing this hope in prayer: Father God, smile down on the hundreds of people making decisions to follow you to the ends of the earth. Help them to obey all the way. And God, would you give them opportunity to speak to their families and churches when they return about your love for all peoples. Thank you. Amen. 

You made it through Christmas. Well done! Hopefully your goals were higher than simply “making it through,” but kudos nonetheless. But before you get all smug, there are two more holidays today! 

Boxing Day
With murky origins in the giving of food boxes to British workers, this sweet little holiday is often lost between the behemoths of Christmas and New Year’s. Since living in England for a Christmas, I’ve enjoyed the traditional long walk on Boxing Day. 

But right now I’m thinking of boxing in another of its definitions: Punching the stuffing out of your opponent. There are people whose ministry to Muslims consists of pugilistic apologetics. People like Al Fadi, Beth Peltola and David Wood devote their time and energy to debating Muslims by pointing out Islam’s flaws and highlighting the truth of the Gospel. 

Most of us lack the knowledge, and possibly zeal, to relate this way. It’s also not the best approach for many Muslims, but there are things we can learn from our sisters and brothers who engage in polemics. 

St. Stephen’s Day
The second holiday today is related to the first. December 26th is also St. Stephen’s Day, in which the wise and powerful deacon is commemorated for his life and martyrdom. Your stream of church might not celebrate saint days. Mine doesn’t. But if we can learn from Al Fadi, Beth and David, we can certainly learn from Stephen, his life, his outreach and his last words which make up almost all 60 verses in Acts 7! 

Here’s how these two holidays are connected: Those who engage in feisty, pugilistically inclined debate sometimes find themselves on the painful side of a rock toss. (And every opposition short of that.)

May God use all manner of engagement to help Muslims find life in Jesus. And may God protect and empower those who lay it all on the line today for the sake of truth.

I had a challenging phone call last Friday. A guy I used to go to church with arm wrestled me over my thoughts toward Muslims. I think I cleared up one issue: “No, I’m not trying to get Christians to follow Islam.” On other matters, I didn’t fare so well. He was firm that I didn’t understand how bad Muslims are. I tried without success to respond. 

Then two days later, Bondi Beach happened. He hasn’t called back, but I suspect he’s thinking, “I wonder if he gets it now?”

Do you ever struggle like I do? Though none of us would liken ourselves to Elijah, do you ever feel like a solitary voice? Standing alone, waving a flag that says “Let’s love these people God has made.” Against all common sense and community feeling. Against wisdom and security. Contrary to at least some voices in our government. 

Florida Congressman Randy Fine, “It is time for a Muslim travel ban, radical deportations of all mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants, and citizenship revocations wherever possible. Mainstream Muslims have declared war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of America.”

You know what no one is against? Children’s Ministry. Sunday morning childcare and Bible stories. 

I confess it sometimes seems appealing. 

But you know this, God doesn’t just want the kids in my church to follow Jesus. He wants Muslims from every stripe, sect and sentiment to give him complete allegiance and to find the life that the wee babe was born to purchase. 

The massacre at Bondi Beach was horrific and the pain will last through generations. May God have mercy on those who suffer now as a result. And may God smile on our cousin who demonstrated the heroism we usually only see in movies. 

PS: I’m writing this week’s Muslim Connect en route to Indiana to hang with my Mom as she has surgery tomorrow. I’d be grateful if you’d lift her up to the Father with me. Thank you.

My high school junior daughter is wrapping up her first set of dual credit courses at our local community college, including a history class called The World: Antiquity to 1500. (Yeah, that’s a wide swath of time!) Her final assignment intrigues me: She’s to write a paper talking about how empires have helped both Christianity and Islam survive and grow and how both Christianity and Islam have helped empires grow and consolidate power. 

The past is fairly murky, at least to me, but worth looking at. Maybe the present even more so. History daughter is sad that history prof made her limit her investigation to the timeframe of the class. She was hoping to bring in some super-recent historical thinking to these questions. 

I would love to hear your thoughts on this: How have Christianity and Islam both helped and been helped by the empires they’ve overlapped with over the years?

Seems that Christianity got off to a good start even against the wishes of the empire. Islam got going by using the sword to become the empire!

We got a boost when Constantine declared Christians officially cool in 313 AD. Then a few hundred years later we’re teaming up with the king to go get Jerusalem back for our side. 

Crosses and Crescents collided at Tours in 732 and Vienna in 1683. 

Later on, the discovery of black gold under the sands of the Middle East propelled an austere and demanding form of Wahhabism outward to many parts of the planet. And now my beloved country makes me cry with our new blending of the Church and Empire. 

That wee babe in Bethlehem had no idea what he would stir up. Even so, I’m glad he came. May all his dreams be fulfilled in my heart, in yours and all over the world.

PS: In case you’re wondering, I just found out history daughter got a 96% on her paper! 

“The truth, as usual, is complicated.” (Now, there’s an observation with broad application.) So begins Abdu Murray’s recent reflections on the growth of Islam in the West. 

Murray is a Muslim-background Christian with an extensive apologetics ministry and a law degree! He encourages us to discern the real concerns from the exaggerations when considering the growth of Islam in our midst. 

Islam is growing in the West, certainly. Much of it by immigration and birth rate. Murray points to an additional factor, the appeal of Islam.

He says, “Islam offers what secularism can’t: a clear message and a sense of belonging. It calls them [young men] to discipline, duty, and identity.” He also contends that “Islam’s stridency looks refreshing” in the midst of churches who’ve “grown timid.” (Yeah, I got a little defensive at that, too! Now I’m trying to think it through.)

In response to this appeal and growth, Murray believes, “None of this justifies hostility or paranoia. But neither does it allow for naïveté. Islam’s growth doesn’t prove that the religion is true. It proves its followers take their faith seriously, and that should wake us up.”

When Muslims look at how we personally, and our churches collectively, live out the Gospel, do they see “a faith that is intellectually credible, morally grounded, and compassionately lived?” Are we willing to go beyond the headlines and engage in the messy truth of our interconnected cultures? 

Murray calls us not to panic, but to preach. I love that. May God give us opportunity and courage and may the Holy Spirit go before us to prepare open hearts and thoughtful minds.