The push in the Muslim world is that pastors of house churches would also (or I should say especially) be professionals or tradesmen. The thinking is that since it is illegal to have a church, a pastor if his income came from the church would have a hard time explaining where his money comes from to friends and the government.

Isn’t that backwards logic, though? If we started with the Bible, what would we say the goal is? That all peoples would hear and that a growing local church would be established.

Seeing that to be the goal how has that been accomplished?

In the Bible: by preachers (prophets). Peter, James, and John left their professions to be full-time, poor, despised preachers. They preached without shame! Paul built some but mostly was a preacher. He was not primarily known as a businessman by anyone. He was a preacher/prophet. In the Old Testament God used God-called men like Samuel, Nathan, Isaiah, and the others. They were prophets!

In history: God used John Bunyan and C.H. Spurgeon in England. They were prophets. God used Jonathan Edwards, Francis Asbury, George Whitfield, and others in a mighty way in America. They were prophets.

Yes, you can write a list of businessmen that God has used and I am happy for that. I would not say that God cannot use anyone, even or especially a businessman. But since God told us he has chosen preaching it seems obvious in history that he has chosen the preacher.

So here is my prayer and vision: “God give us young men who are preachers and pastors in the Muslim world. Young men willing to be fools and poor. Young men willing to accept the shame and be despised. Young men who love the lost and disciple the new believer. Young men willing to go to jail for their faith. Young men willing to tell their families and friends that they are training to be preachers of the Word of God!”

That would be radical in a Muslim country. Well, maybe, but isn’t that what we need? Some radical Christianity?

So next time you travel to a Muslim country why don’t you try telling the man who asks you on the train that you’re a preacher and that you studied theology in college and you are called by God to tell him about Jesus and salvation?

I have been offline as I lost my power cord in Paris four days ago. However, now that I am back online let me invite you to start recieving our online email prayer letter. In only 24 hours I ‘ll be sending out our 2009 Year-End report of what God has done in North Africa full of praises, pictures, and prayer requests. If you’re already on our prayer letter list then you’ll be recieving this. If not, write me and request to be added: sadiq@injeelmp3.com

Merry Christmas to all as Tiny Tim so aptly put it: “God bless us every one.”

Islam has five “pillars” holding up their faith and allowing them acceptance with God. The last of the five is the Hajj (pilgrimage) to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. Our neighbor just returned from a month long visit to Saudi after finishing his first Hajj with his wife. Last night for over 3 hours we listened to chants from “holy men” that he had paid to come to his house.

I talked to his wife today for a little bit about what they did for a month there. There are apparently six stages of the Hajj. Each one representing some ritual that will provide the pilgrim with more opportunity for foregiveness with God by expressing his extreme dedication.

Mainly she complained about the black people and Bangledeshi for how they push around the Kabaa. A few people died this year in the rush to complete the seven turns. Read HERE about the seven stages. It is simply amazing that so many millions of people are living in such darkness to hope that God will forgive their sins for these pagan rituals.

We are planning a Christmas party this week for about 10 new believers here in the country. Most of them will be celebrating Christmas for the first time. So we’ve rented a place and now we are starting the difficult task of introducing Christmas to a people who have never enjoyed it’s American commercialized form. So here are our questions as we think about how to program and decorate for this party:

What do red and green really have to do with Christ’s birth?

What do pretty lights have to do with Christ’s birth? (or this light-covered truck?)

What do green trees have to do with Christ’s birth?

Why would we give gifts to each other when it was Jesus who recieved the gifts?

Is there really any such thing as “Christmas music”? (for instance, was Silent Night written by the shepherds? or did the little drummer boy (who never existed) really have a bunch of sisters who used hand bells?)

Should we really even be celebrating this holiday now since there is NO evidence that suggests that Jesus was born in December?

So you can call me a humbug and a scrooge but we are trying to make this thing as pure and CHRISTIAN as possible.

Every week we get emails from guys like Asli. Asli is a believe who accepted Christ years ago in the Sahara dessert in my country in a town called Ouragla. Asli accepted Christ a few years ago after he heard the gospel on Satellite TV and Internet. We sent him a letter with a DVD and a new testament in it last week after he contacted our ministry. He wrote me an email once he got the package thanking us. He told us that the closest house church to his village is three hours away. He’s the only believer within three hours of his home!

I wonder if you aren’t passing 10 Bible preaching churches in your 15 minute drive to your church? I wonder if you’d be willing to ditch your boring, comfortable, gospel-saturated lifestyle? Come learn Arabic or French, start  business, and a few churches while your at it. Maybe then your 15 minute drive to church would be a little more meaningful and adventurous?

Maybe that’s impossible for you. I understand that. It’s not for EVERYBODY. Maybe you were wondering how to give that extra $50 a month some meaning and adventure? We are trying to raise $700/month support for a Latin pastor friend of mine to come here and do what you can’t. Maybe you could help with that?

Project North Africa Fund (At MWBM)

PO Box 519

Braselton, GA 30517

In a recent Al Jazeera interview there was this interesting point made about the path Muslims ought to take in their efforts to Islamize Africa:

Maher Abdallah (Interviewer):
“Let me ask you in this regard. I appreciate that the organizations of the civil societies in our part of the world are rather recent, and perhaps they haven?t matured to the point of becoming streamlined, but what about the Arab nations? Some Arab nations boast about the amount of money they spend in the cause of spreading Islam, especially in Africa. Is there a unified official Arab effort? Official meaning on a governmental level?”

Ahmad Al Katani (Muslim Sheikh):
“There is, but my dear sir, the issue of Christianization is too large and massive for all Arab societies combined to overcome, let alone a single Arab nation. And even if this Arab spent money for the effort, what will it spend? Add to this the lack of sound planning. So for example, money from donations and religious contributions are gathered and taken to Africa, which does happen, to build a mosque. 

My honored sir, you have to build the worshipper before you build the mosque. What should happen is that schools should be built first, which are the primary source of spreading Islam and to protect the Muslim using education not a mosque building. The mosque will come as a secondary stage. This is one of the mistakes that we commit; we are proud of building a mosque for example in Dar Al Salam, but believe me my dear sir, had we used that money to build a school it would have been a lot more beneficial. Build the worshipper before you build the mosque and the prophet ? Allah?s prayers and peace be upon him ? spent ten years of his ministry without building a mosque, but instead he was preparing men. After the prophet entered the second stage of his ministry he built a mosque. 

I will give you an example and proof that would make the Muslim missionary dangle his head with shame. Kenya?s population, for example, is thirty million people, a quarter of whom are Muslim. In all of Kenya, there are 900 mosques compared to 25 thousand churches. Do you see this great difference? Also, half of these mosques, and I am only calling them mosques out of pity, are unusable. They have roofs made out of reeds and the like, whereas you look at the churches and you find great amounts of money spent on them. In these churches they raise orphans while we Muslims are not complaining about the care of orphans because the topic we are discussing is taking advantage of the humanitarian needs to take Muslims out of their religion and into Christianity.”

If you are training men, congratulations! You are on the right track!

I’ve heard often from church planters trying to raise support that America is the third largest “mission field” because it contains more “unchurched” people than all but two countries in the world: China and India.

Does that make America a mission field?

First, it is important that churches and Christians recognize the fact of how many people in America are still very far from God and need the Gospel repeated to them, explained to them, and preached to them. There are still in fact a percentage, though small, who have never heard the Gospel of Christ. The point will be argued that though the have heard it they have not understood it. I understand that. But they have heard indeed.

Second, America is NOT however, the third largest mission field in the world.

Why? Because we judge the size of a mission field based on how many have never HEARD and NOT how many have not yet BELIEVED.

There is a difference between frontier missions and domestic evangelism. The lack of understanding of the difference is the reason our independent Baptist churches are still sending missionaries by the scores to places that are no longer mission fields!

The Biblical Definition of a mission field: Romans 15:21

“But as it is written, to whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand.”

Paul dedicated his life to preaching Christ WHERE HE WAS NOT NAMED (Rom 15:20). After he was named in a place and churches were started, leaders were trained, and evangelism was in full swing among those people and in that city, he would continue preaching not where someone else had already preached. He was a frontier missionary. He took the gospel to cities and peoples who had no churches and no gospel.

There ARE still thousands of cities and villages like that. I live in the middle of them! All throughout the Muslim world travel with me and witness for yourself cities that don’t have A SINGLE CHRISTIAN! That is a mission field.

The Biblical Definition of domestic evangelism: Ephesus in II Tim 4:2

“Preach the Word. Be instant in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort.”

Paul trained Timothy and left him in Ephesus to continue preaching! We must continue preaching where we have already preached. We must leave trained men. We must be passionate about reaching America! They need the gospel. There are still millions of people who have not understood the gospel … but … it is a small, small percentage of our population that does not have a church down the road from them preaching the gospel in their language and doing outreach.

This is domestic evangelism.  Do we need to stop sending missionaries altogether to places like the Philipines and Latin America? I don’t believe so. Some who are there are needed and helpful to continue fulfilling the Great Commission. But we must start sending the new ones to places like the Muslim, Hindu, Tribal, and Budhist world who have cities and villages with no church!