Show love to Muslims, then Bible verses, says evangelist

LONG BEACH, California - An evangelist from northern Ghana has told Christians to reach out to the Muslim world by first getting to know Muslims near to them, instead of "sniping people with Bible verses".

It's easy to "know Muslims as immigrants from other countries", noted Dr John Azumah, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and speaker at the Inside-Out Conference in Long Beach, California, last weekend.

"In my country, they're at worst a neighbour," continued the former Muslim who says he still has friends who follow Islam. Muslims are "not a nameless, faceless creature somewhere".

"A Muslim has a name, has a face," he said. But many Christians "don't know them".

"They're strangers to us," he confessed.

During a plenary session on Saturday, Azumah shared four steps that Christians can take to reach out to followers of the religion followed by 24 per cent of the world's population.

The first step, he said, was to know Muslims as people, as individuals, and as neighbours.

"Show interest in knowing their beliefs, fears, and joys," he said.

Second, Christians need to engage with Muslims as "light" and "salt of the world", not as "flashlights" or "fires".

"Light and salt are only meaningful when they come in contact with food or darkness," he said.

But Azumah discouraged believers from being "flashlights", which he said some Christians tend to be, because pointing light directly into people's eyes will more likely make them cover their eyes or turn away.

"Do not go sniping people with Bible verses," he exhorted. "Engage them and show that you love them before you show verses.

"Stop the flashlight approach and become lanterns," he said, noting how lanterns provide light in a non-imposing way.

The third step for Christians to take is to be "Barnabases", according to Azumah, who said that personal testimonies are more powerful when people know the one involved.

He used the story of the Samaritan woman recorded in John 4 as a case in point, noting that the Bible records how "many of the Samaritans from the town believed in him (Jesus) because of the woman's testimony" (John 4:39).

Samaritans, Azumah said, were to Jews as Muslims are to Christians.

But Azumah noted that even as a believer gets to know a Muslim, testifies to them and demonstrates the love of God to them with their life, ultimately the change takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit.

"Wait upon the Lord!" Azumah urged, citing from Ephesians 6.

"You might have the resources; you might have enthusiasm and all the knowledge, but wait for the Holy Spirit to come to you," he exhorted. "It's a spiritual business."

Before concluding his address, Azumah urged Christians to offer four prayers to God for the advancement of the Gospel in the Muslim world.

"First, pray for ourselves for a heart for Muslims. Second, pray for Christian minorities in the Islamic world. Third, pray that God may open up the Muslim world for the Gospel. Finally, pray for individual ordinary Muslims wherever they may be," he said, adding that he had prayed for his uncle for 15 years before laying hands on him and baptising him three years ago.

"Many Muslims come to Jesus Christ through visions and dreams," Azumah pointed out. "God is doing it."

Though Muslim countries can deny missionaries visas, "the Holy Spirit does not need a visa", he said, drawing the applause of the crowd.

"He goes where he wants to go," he added. "If we pray with Muslims as our prayer topic, the Holy Spirit will go."

In closing, Azumah urged Christians to step up in response to the challenge of Muslim evangelism; step out of their comfort zones, even their churches and denominations; and step into Muslim neighbourhoods, Muslim countries, and the Muslim world.

Azumah said that more than 80 per cent of Muslims have never heard the Gospel and less than one per cent of the Christian missionary force works among Muslims.

Last week's Inside-Out Conference, hosted by the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, was the third annual conference held in response to the decline of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the controversies that have kept the denomination embroiled in internal battles over the year.

It was the hope of a group of leaders to begin to change the culture of the Church by being "inwardly strong and outwardly focused".