Planting Churches in Muslim Cities

A Team Approach

Gregory Livingstone

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 1993
• Print ISBN:
  9780801056826
• eBook ISBN:
  9781441231543
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

A biblically and culturally appropriate blueprint for church planting in Muslim cities anywhere in the world. The experiences of one hundred missionaries provide a guide to evangelizing and discipling.

1

One Billion Muslims: What Does God Have in Mind?

Is God active in a process of bringing tens of thousands of Muslims under the lordship of Christ? We assume that God is effectively carrying out his role. The would-be missionary must be aware of what the Bible teaches about the divine factors involved in apostolic church planting.

Clearly, we cannot come to Christ unless God draws us to himself (John 6:44). Unless the Spirit of God is at work bringing conviction of sin—where true righteousness comes from, and awareness of the judgment to come—and if one does not attain the righteousness that only Christ can provide, then regeneration cannot be effected by human change agents.

Building on the theological base described by Alan Tippett in Church Growth and the Word of God (1970), in the area of church planting methodology, this study assumes these premises.

Premise One

Church planters among Muslims can count on God’s presence alongside them. “Surely, I am with you always” (Matt. 28:20).

Premise Two

The human factor will be the variable between effective and ineffective church planting efforts.

Premise Three

God has at his disposal followers who are appropriately gifted to carry out the methodology effectively.

Premise Four

Sufficient motivation and commitment exist among aspiring change agents.

Premise Five

Efforts to establish congregations of former Muslims, as opposed to efforts to bring Muslims into existing churches of dominantly non-Muslim believers, is not counter to the biblical principle of the unity and equality of all believers in Christ.

Premise Six

Expatriate change agents will most easily gain residence in the over 100,000 cities of the Muslim world where they can obtain work permits. The exception will be those allowed to do relief and development projects in rural areas.

Premise Seven

Power evangelism is not necessarily normative. Earlier, the increasingly popular notion that “nothing is going to happen in the Muslim world without signs and wonders” was introduced. The intention of proponents of this view is to motivate Christians to go beyond merely presenting the propositions of Christ’s message by demonstrating the reality of God’s presence and power in everyday life.

Even Dudley Woodbury, a Presbyterian Islamicist at Fuller Seminary, is relating that, where conversions from Islam are reported, so are supernatural manifestations (1989). Clearly, relying on God to authenticate the name of Christ and the authority of his ambassador is basic. However, we see no scriptural evidence to support some proponents of “signs and wonders” who insist that what God did through Elijah to the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18) is necessarily normative, or even always helpful.

Understandably, since Muslims have historically been unresponsive to Christianity, those missionaries (especially from the Pentecostal/charismatic traditions) who are only now considering the challenge of Islam, tend to assume that Muslim reticence can only be overcome by “signs following”—a supernatural confirmation that the messenger has indeed been sent by Allah to the Muslim.

Who can disagree that a revival, a heightened level of obedience and godly lifestyle among God’s people, or a supernatural manifestation of God’s power would be pertinent to effective church planting? But is there evidence in church history that either revival among believers, or miraculous signs and wonders performed at a sustained level, have been preconditions to Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or Tribals turning to Christ in significant numbers? Those who assume that what John Wimber (1985) calls “power evangelism” is normative, tend also to assume that until God enables the change agents to powerfully heal the sick, raise the dead, eat poisonous things, speak a “word of knowledge,” or supernaturally walk out of prison, there is no hope for effective church planting among Muslims. Interestingly, because the Pentecostal-charismatic oriented denominations have by and large avoided Muslim work in restricted access countries until recently, neither they nor an opposing view have much with which to illustrate their presuppositions.

This study, then, would seek to avoid two extreme positions: that God does not intend to ever again accompany his servants with supernatural manifestations, and that the change agent’s work is futile if not accompanied by signs and wonders.

Hiebert (1982) is most known for his premise that, until recently, most western Christians tended to live without an awareness of what he calls the “excluded middle.” Hiebert would maintain that the “middle” world of supernatural beings and activity, which lies between the transcendent supreme God and the natural world, is a part of everyday life in most nonwestern cultures. Thus, if change agents are not willing to deal with the unseen, they will not, according to Hiebert, be dealing with felt needs, or entering into the worldview and experience of the target people.

Premise Eight

Suffering is normative for the Christian life. It is not something to be avoided at all costs. An avoidance mentality is antithetical to following him who said, “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:38) and “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master” (Matt. 10:24). Is not the New Testament an agreement between God and his disciples to follow the Lord Jesus, assuming that it will include suffering for his Kingdom’s sake (Mark 10:30)?

What is the difference between necessary and unnecessary suffering? That which comes as a result of obedience, despite every effort to practice the fruits of the Spirit in the midst of our incarnational witness, is what the Lord would have us accept with “exceeding gladness” (Matt. 5:12, KJV). Until the change agents seeking to do pioneer church planting in Muslim countries thoroughly understand that fear, persecution, and suffering are normative, they will not be able to sufficiently demonstrate to the Muslim convert how God enables us to stand for Christ in the midst of a fearful, difficult situation.

In fact, the suffering that is likely to come to most expatriate change agents in a Muslim city, is usually little more than rebuff, social ostracism, and possibly expulsion. And since the subject here is establishing viable congregations of Muslim converts, the more relevant issue is: How can new Muslim believers be encouraged to gather and serve the Lord Jesus as a church in the face of hostile reaction from their fellow citizens?

Premise Nine

Church growth is inevitable. In prophetic passages such as Isaiah 19 there is indication that the nations of the Middle East will eventually encounter the one true God. Indeed, both Revelation 5:9 and 7:9 indicate that there will, in the end, be Christ-devoted worshippers from every tribe, tongue, kindred, and people group worshipping the Lamb. Obviously that must include all Muslim groups. Thus, we conclude that Abe Wiebe of Arab World Ministries is correct when he says, “Church planting among Muslims is not an exercise in futility” (1978:2).

There is no indication in Scripture of any geographical areas or peoples being exceptions among whom we should not expect fruit. The majority may always be unresponsive or resistant, but would it not be reasonable to look at any given Muslim city through the window of Acts 18? Paul was opposed by abusive Jewish religious leaders in Corinth (Acts 18:6). We next learn that Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord. “And many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized” (Acts 18:8). It would seem, however, that Paul still was not able to shake his fear of being harmed or rejected. God was apparently concerned that Paul see the city as he did. Thus God privileged Paul with a visit, telling him in a vision, “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10).

Can we deduce that if Corinth was approximately 100,000 people, and God was planning to draw “many people” to himself from that population, that the same is likely to be true today in any given Muslim city? If so, church planters can labor in the confidence that God has many “elect” in their adopted Muslim city. The task is to find them.

Premise Ten

Historically, there is little precedent for attempting to establish churches of mainly Muslim converts. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, mission to Muslims has been theoretically on the Church’s agenda. There have been heroic efforts attempted by Henry Martyn (India and Iran), and Carl Gottlieb Pfander (Turkey and India), but for most of what church growth historian Latourette calls “the Great Century” (1790–1900) missionaries sailed past the Arab world, Turkey, and Persia. Before and after the Reformation, the Church has also mostly avoided the Muslim populations of India, China, Russia, and Southeast Asia. From 1890 to 1940 a number of valiant penetrations into Muslim territory were attempted by the American Congregationalists (Turkey), American Presbyterians (Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran), some British (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), and the Dutch Reformed (Java, Indonesia). Yet at no time in history have we seen anywhere near the quantity of missionaries focusing on Muslims as have gone to non-Muslim peoples in sub-Sahara Africa, China, India, Japan, the Philippines, and Latin America.

Indonesia, for example, has more Muslims than any other country. Many denominations of Europe and North America eventually sent missionaries to Indonesia. However, the estimated 3,000 missionaries resident in Indonesia since World War II almost totally by-passed the majority Muslim peoples until the abortive Communist coup in 1965 (Cooley 1968). Roger Dixon (1984) claims, for example, that the vast majority of missionary work in West Java was either with the Chinese, or to service animistic tribal people who had become Christians and moved to West Java for employment. Those who did approach Muslim peoples usually took an approach through a medical or educational institution, with little attempt to persuade Muslims to follow Christ. Dixon insists that never at any one time were more than 14 missionaries attempting to make disciples of the 30 million Sundanese Muslims in West Java. Apparently, missionaries in Java followed the same pattern as those who originally went to Egypt, Turkey, and Malaysia to work among Muslims; they turned from the Muslim population to more receptive non-Muslim peoples. Therefore, outside of the heroic efforts of a few individuals, there were almost no early sustained efforts to plant Muslim convert churches on which research can be done.

Premise Eleven

Muslims have not historically heard “good news,” even when in contact with Christians. Until recently, professors of missions have been reticent to utilize the social sciences, partly because ideas of the secular universities were considered “worldly thinking,” and partly because most social scientists overtly devalued the aim and practice of missionaries. Yet many missionaries have confessed that they wished they had been trained in sociology and anthropology. Many who hurried to a Muslim country to bring the good news soon became aware that the gospel presentation was not being heard as good news, but rather as bad news. They would preach of the marvels of Christ’s redemption and find people angry. Listeners filtered the message down, thinking it advocated the breaking of the fifth commandment, “honor your father and mother.”

Alan Tippett warns us that even a sound biblical theology has to be communicated effectively across cultural barriers. There is the problem of meaning. When Muslims “accept the gospel,” what do they take it to mean? Does it mean the same thing to the foreign advocate as to the indigenous acceptor? How does one express biblical concepts using Muslim terminology? By inventing a new vocabulary?

If the hope is to establish a church, how will it fit with the existing social structures? What are the patterns of relationship in the family? Who marries whom and why? Does a Muslim polygamist divorce his wives before being baptized? These and hundreds of other questions are what anthropology is about, and they are also the burden of the missionary (1987).

Premise Twelve

Donald McGavran is the most relevant missiologist to address our task. He starts (1955) with God’s purpose in history, concluding that Christ’s command to “make disciples of all nations” must lead to a mentality that aims to establish a community of disciples loyal to Christ among every ethnoi. If people normally become Christians only when they receive truth from a trusted significant other, someone must cross over a cultural boundary to establish that prior question of trust (cf. Mayers 1974).

McGavran (1980) teaches that Christian workers must concentrate not merely on outreach or “the work” of doing evangelism, but on forming churches—a task that is definable and measurable. He also advocates a theology of harvest as opposed to a search theology. He sees biblical mission as not merely proclaiming the good news, but also effectively persuading people to become Christ’s disciples, assembling as a local gathering of his church. He sees philosophical relativism as the greatest enemy of a theology of harvest. People will not be persuaded to wholly follow Christ if the change agents are not persuaded that Jesus is the only bridge to God.

McGavran maintains that since God has created mankind as peoples, kindred, and tribes, missionaries need a people group mentality. Throughout the Bible, God makes covenants with families and people groups, villages, and even cities. The task then is to establish new communities of disciples among every people. India may have as many as 3,000 separate people groups who see all others as “them”—in other words, as outsiders. McGavran (1979) could identify Protestants or Catholics within only 71 of those people groups. One hundred million Muslims in India make up some of those groups that are still without their first church.

McGavran (1980) believes that it is biblically valid for a group or household to come to Christ together through what he calls “multi-individual,” mutually interdependent decision and consensus. His appeal to history would claim that most of Europe was converted through people movements, not individual decisions. Western Christians have easily missed Acts 9:35, “All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.” How did the churc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part 1 The Challenge of Planting Churches in Muslim Cities
• Part 2 The Prerequisites for Planting Churches in Muslim Cities
• Part 3 The Task of Planting Churches in Muslim Cities
• Appendix A: Interview Questions Put to Church Planters in Muslim Cities
• Appendix B: Steps to Conversion
• Bibliography
• Index