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Most of my interactions with Muslims have been with those who are poor, facing life with limited choices, resources and status. Of course that doesn’t describe all Muslims. Some of the richest people in the world follow Islam and some majority-Muslim countries are quite pecuniarily proficient! 

This made me curious about who’d top the richest and poorest lists. 

Determining “richest” and “poorest” countries can be tricky. Experts disagree on how to quantify those designations, and I’m far from a demographic expert. Most will use gross domestic product per capita, with some adjustments to allow for relative purchasing power. 

That said, here are the lists as I see them:

Richest Muslim-majority countries
Qatar, Kuwait, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, Libya, Malaysia

Poorest Muslim-majority countries 
Somalia, Niger, Chad, Afghanistan, Sudan, Mali, Yemen, Guinea, Tajikistan, Pakistan

As fun and gratifying as it may be to judge the rich countries (“It’s easy to be rich when everyone wants your oil. . .and you rule as, or like, a king!), that probably does no good. Further, since God loves them, their populations should not be overlooked in gospel outreach efforts. 

As for the poor, I’m sure I can’t imagine many of the challenges so many face. I want to avoid “white savior complexes,” but at the same time move in the flow of God’s heart for people who are marginalized and suffering. Further, while it’s certainly easier to wonder why the rich Muslim countries don’t make life easier for the poor ones, I want us to ask God what he would have us do. And I want to pray for his kingdom to come, for the justice, prosperity and shalom he desires for all. 

If you like your global Christian demographics served up factually with a side of solid research, you’d be crazy not to sign up for Justin Long’s Weekly Roundup. It will bless your soul while stretching your brain.

You know that classic dream where you’re trying to run, but it’s like you’re in mud? Or in real life you’re trying to get out the door to church and the teenager is still in the bathroom and the 7 year old shows up at the car with a jar’s worth of Nutella on his face and hands? 

Life is full of friction, my friend. Both yours and mine. 

When you make a mental move toward connecting with a Muslim, it seems like a multitude of barriers manifest themselves. Here are a few I’ve faced. Maybe you can relate to some of them. 

1. Fear: This has stopped more good activity in its tracks than the rest of the list combined. Fear of rejection, failure. Fear that people who dislike Muslims might be right! 
2. Time: There are real commitments and duties but, honestly, don’t some of us worship an idol of busyness that allows no margin for outreach? 
3. No Muslims: What if none live near me? Wait a little bit. Or try this or this.
4. Think we know too little: “What if they ask a question I can’t answer?!?”
5. Think we know too much: “I know those Muslims. They’re up to no good! Don’t validate them!”
6. Other ministry: None of us can do everything! You can’t die on every hill.
7. Hopelessness: Can anything I can do really make a difference? 
8. We prefer dominion to communion: Is it possible our national value on military spending and deployment seeps into our Christianity and we don’t befriend Muslims because we’d rather conquer them? 

If any of these make you want to raise your hand and say, “Yep. That’s me,” let me know and we can pray for each other.

Today is the last day of school! Summer’s here. The days are long and maybe you don’t want to spend so much time on email. Here are seven quick thoughts to keep Muslims on our minds this week. 

1. Jesus was closer culturally to many Muslims than to most of us. The way Jesus thought, taught and lived followed the cultural paths many Muslims still walk today. 

2. While the minority must find a way to thrive in a majority culture, the challenge of the Christian is to reach out to, care for and when necessary sacrifice for the minority, including Muslims. 

3. Muslims have insights into God and attitudes toward God that many of us (at least me!) could learn from, including a healthy sense of God’s transcendence and holiness. 

4. Muslims, like Jews and Christians, are monotheists. The question of whether we’re referring to the same entity when Muslims say “Allah” and Christians say “God” is still a live debate.

5. In my experience almost 100% of the Muslims I’ve asked to pray for have been cool with it. Of course, you don’t know about those you don’t ask. In my case, that’s been most of them, sadly. 

6. The set of humans who call themselves Muslims are as diverse as fish. They have variety among themselves in regards to looks and language, beliefs and practices. And like fish (and Christians!), they’ve been known to attack each other! 

7. Of this I’m as sure as anything in my life: God made the ~2 billion Muslims on the planet for the same general reasons he made you and me: To glorify him, to enjoy life with him and to partner with him to bring his kingdom to bear on the Earth.

He also made some for specific purposes like discovering coffee and baklava, scouting asteroids near Jupiter and helping people like me learn how to be hospitable.

Next week I’ll list some hurdles that keep us from connecting with Muslims. Shoot me a couple of yours? 

Between you and me I’m a little nervous today. As I write five days remain until the live-at-home kids are out of school for the summer, until I’m their adult all day, every day! Thanks to the foresight of Apple Computer and a bad Christmas decision a couple years ago, they have screens that will entertain them. Just doesn’t seem optimal! 

You may face overwhelming situations of a more real nature. Me, too:

Following a pertinacious leader, a handful of intrepid friends and I are wrestling with a list of around 1600 people groups among whom no one is living, speaking a local language and working toward reproducing disciples to Jesus. We want to see all 1600 unengaged groups engaged by the end of 2025. 

Yep, it’s a little overwhelming! 

Sarah Bessey, in her winsome book,Out of Sorts, shares how it helps her sometimes to think not of the big thing, but one small expression of it. For instance, rather than Church, my local body of believers. Not Marriage, but my own spouse and our partnership. 

In that spirit, I want to introduce you to the Rath people. They number around 400,000 and herd sheep in the western reaches of Rajasthan, India. They come from Hindu stock way back, but got converted along the way and now follow Islam with a blend of folk practices. 

The best, current research says no one is living among the Rath, saying in their language, “God has come to you in Jesus to give you life.” Friends, that should not be. 

What can we do?

• Pray.
• Invite others to pray.
• Ask ourselves, “Who do I know who may know someone who’s near to (culturally or geographically) the Rath and might move into their neighborhood?” 
• Move to Rajasthan and learn the Rath’s language? (There are worse places to live!)

Until something changes, the Rath are one of 1600 groups in which tomorrow no one will talk to a friend who will share the hope of Jesus. Not one.

Check out the new World Christian Role video that asks whether senders are just goers that didn’t make it or maybe they’re something much more!

Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? For me: Veterinarian, pastor, rock star. The ship has sailed on two of those and had I known as a kid what the middle one entailed, I may have dreamed in a different direction! 

Some kids, of course, want to be astronauts. It seems a more likely aspiration today than 50 years ago, certainly than 150 years ago! 

But almost unbelievably on May 21, Rayyanah Barnawi, a Saudi Arabian woman will launch with Axiom Space to the International Space Station. She’s a biomedical researcher who will focus “her attention on stem cell and breast cancer research” during her eight day stint aboard the ISS. 

In addition to two Americans, Barnawi will be joined by fellow Saudi, Ali Alqarni as part of the Kingdom’s fledgeling space program. Barnawi says, “I am so proud to take with me the dreams of Saudi and Arab women to space. . . .”

I love this for a few reasons:

1. It’s fun to see women boldly go where only men used to be allowed. 
2. Perhaps Barnawi’s experience will give hope to Muslim girls and women who struggle to dream beyond their circumstances. 
3. It’s refreshing to see Muslims in the news for doing good things, cool things. 
4. I’d like to think this may be a step toward civility, shining light on areas in which the Arab Kingdom struggles. 

Perhaps you’ve seen another Saudi women who’s in the news recently. Salma al-Shehab recently began a hunger strike in her prison cell. She’s serving a 34 year sentence for what she said and retweeted on Twitter. 

May al-Shehab find freedom. May Barnawi find success. And may they and women throughout the KSA and the Muslim world find their place in God’s good kingdom as it grows in Saudi and beyond.

Check out the new Muslim Connect video on the role of intercessor. It was shot in the Denver Airport! I’d be grateful for you to subscribe and help get this fledgling channel going. Thank you.

I was at a church conference recently where the main speaker, a brilliant, lettered, experienced man, shared the standard fare regarding contemporary gender wars. In a brief aside toward the end of his time, his words sliced through my malaise. Himself single, he challenged the room full of pastors, spouses and leaders, “You’ve got to do better caring for and reaching out to singles.” I thought of my church and agreed, “Dang, he’s right. We, more accurately I, have failed in this regard.”

Our culture, at least my particular bubble, treats singleness as a waypoint en route to normal married life. As a result, singleness that stretches beyond the reasonable timeframe can feel, both from the inside and out, different, abnormal, like some sort of failure. My church language and programing too often reinforces that idea. 

How much more so for single Muslims.

While this varies wildly depending on where and with whom one lives, singleness is even more “out of the norm” in many Muslim cultures. In fact, Islamic teaching says that since Muhammad married, so should Muslims, and there will be no singles in Paradise! Interesting as Jesus seems to indicate in Matthew 20 that there will be no marriage in Heaven!

While single women and men continue to carry much of the weight of world missions (see last week’s email), it’s almost always hard to counter one’s culture. I want to radically empathize with singles, particularly globally minded ones who feel the hundred stings of being “different” and work to find balance and direction amid the various callings of God, culture and their hearts. 

Toward that end if you’re single, I apologize for the things I’ve said or written that communicated that “normal life” doesn’t include you. May God give life to your deepest hopes and dreams.

Have you ever heard about something and thought, “I really want to share this with people!” only to then think, “Wait! What if everyone else has already heard of this and I’m just late to the party?!?” That’s me when it comes to Lilias Trotter, but she was so amazing I’m taking the risk. 

Born into a posh British family in 1853, Lilias developed a two-fold passion as a young woman: art and outreach. She’s remembered for cruising late night London inviting prostitutes to spend a night in a hostel and stay around to learn a different trade. 

Lilias also excelled at painting. So much so, the biggest art bigwig in Britain, John Ruskin, took her under his wing and believed, “she would be the greatest living painter and do things that would be Immortal.” Immortal, that is, if she would give herself up to art. 

Lilias had seen her faith come alive at a series of conferences and now faced a harrowing choice: Invest all she had in developing the artistic skill God had given her or honor the desire to be a missionary insistently developing in her soul.

North Africa won the day. When the agency she applied to turned her down for medical reasons, she and a couple friends set off for Algeria; self-funded, with neither Arabic nor local contacts! 

But Lilias stuck it out. . . for forty years! Painting and writing (eventually in Arabic) as she went, she established mission posts throughout Algeria and south into the Sahara. Ahead of her time in many ways of thinking and reaching out, she led her mission band, sometimes even from her sick bed to her death in 1928.

I’m grateful to Lilias for her example of making tough choices and working hard and to God for giving gifts and using all kinds of people. 

Learn more about Lilias from my friend, Marti Wade, this helpful website or this film.

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.