Tag: Missions

Divinity, Prophethood, Judgement, Cheesecake

“So what would you say are the main differences between Islam and Christianity?” asked Hamid*, taking a bite of the cheesecake we were sharing. One welcome development over the past decade has been a tremendous increase in the availability and quality of cheesecake in our Central Asian city.

Hamid, Darius*, and I had gathered at a nice local cafe in order to field Hamid’s many questions. A new teacher of history and comparative religion at an elite local high school, Hamid often found himself at a loss when students asked detailed questions about Christianity. His personal studies on the internet yielded some clarity – as well as a lot more questions.

Darius and Hamid were good friends, and Darius had shared the gospel with him several times. Though neither of us were sure to what extent Hamid’s questions were for his students or actually to satisfy his own curiosity. But we didn’t find it necessary to press. In an honor-shame culture, this sort of “I have a friend who” framing of a conversation allows seekers to explore hard questions as they weigh the risk of admitting that they themselves are having potentially explosive doubts. If the questions were for Hamid himself, then that’s great. And if they’re only for his students? Still great. At the very least, the truth shared now might serve to create in Hamid’s mind what locals call a “brain-worm” that could lead to more searching down the road.

“I mean, other than what you have already described about salvation by faith instead of by good deeds,” Hamid went on to clarify. “I think I understand that point.”

I sipped my hot drink and mulled on how to respond. We had already discussed the key difference Hamid had mentioned, Islam and Christianity’s mutually-exclusive answers to how a person can be saved. I decided to proceed in a slightly different way than I normally would.

“Well, let’s frame the differences in light of three central tenets of Islam’s worldview: the oneness of God (tawhid), prophethood, and the last day.”

Darius and Hamid leaned in. The three aspects of Islamic teaching that I mentioned are so central to Muslims’ worldviews that they are what a certain historical American document might call self-evident – so obvious to locals that they feel that no logical and honest person can ever deny them.

“When we speak of tawhid, or the oneness of God, Islam teaches a simple unity. There is only one God and he exists eternally as one person. However, the Bible teaches something that contradicts this understanding of God’s nature. It teaches that God is actually a complex unity. Yes, there is only one God, but he exists eternally as three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three persons, or three distinct consciousnesses, are equally divine, and completely one in their nature, essence, and will – yet they have distinct roles and they have real relationships of love and communication and glory with one another. In this way, the God of the Bible is totally different from the God of the Qur’an. You would agree that a disagreement about the very nature of God is about as big a disagreement as you can have, right?”

Here Hamid and Darius nodded their heads. Hamid and I had previously spoken of the Trinity while on a picnic together, where he had asked a great question, one which I had never heard before, “Do the members of the Trinity ever compete with one another?” “In only one respect that I can think of,” I had responded after a while, “In giving one another glory.”

“OK, so the Trinity is a big difference,” Hamid continued, “But why do you say there’s a difference in prophethood? Aren’t prophets just men sent by God with a book, preaching God’s message to their people?”

Here I decided to be a little more blunt than usual.

“Well, the writer of the Qur’an, for his own purposes, took Mohammad’s story and did a copy-paste over the story of all the other prophets. So, yes, in Islam all the prophets seem to follow the same script. They are spoken of as basically-sinless holy men who are sent by God to their own people with the message of God’s oneness and the coming judgment of the last day. The message is often communicated to the prophet directly via an angel or some kind of verbal revelation. Many of the prophet’s people reject their message and go on to suffer the consequences. The formula is very simple and is repeated over and over, whether the Qur’an is talking about Moses, Lot, or others. God is claimed to have sent countless prophets to their own peoples in this same formula until sending Mohammad as the final ‘seal’ of the prophets, with a message for all humanity and an incorruptable book. This is why Muslims think that the Injil is one book, given to Jesus, later corrupted, and why most are unaware that there are actually four Injils (gospels), none written by Jesus himself, and unaware that they are only one part of the twenty seven books of the New Testament.

“The prophets in the Bible are very different from prophets according to Islam. They are presented as sometimes very sinful men, chosen by God’s grace to display and communicate God’s message to his people. Yes, this message involves coming judgement and turning from idols to follow the one true God. But it centers around God’s covenant faithfulness toward sinners – including the sinful prophets themselves whose failures demonstrate that we need someone who is more than a prophet. Prophets also receive many different kinds of revelation, whether seemingly more ‘spiritual’ like angels, dreams, or visions, or whether seemingly more ‘natural,’ like doing historical research or writing proverbs. Some prophets write multiple books. Other prophets don’t write any books at all. For many of our books of the Bible we don’t even know who the author was!

“The difference in prophethood between Islam and Christianity is a big one. When it comes to Jesus, rather than him being the final prophet in a long line of sinless men, each with their own people and book, Jesus is the Word of God and the Son of God himself, the only sinless one after many flawed and sinful prophets, whose coming is the climax of God’s revelation to men. All the earlier prophets point to him positively through their inspired writings and faithful deeds, as well as negatively through their sin and failure – kind of like shadows or signs that point us to the real thing.”

“OK,” nodded Hamid, “That’s prophethood. So how is the understanding of the last day different?”

“Well this one connects again to how a person is saved. In Islam, a person is judged based on a scale which weighs their good or bad deeds. The heavier side determines their eternal destiny, though no one can ever know for sure since God’s mercy is presented as unpredictable and mysterious. So in Islam, the last day motivates people to obey based out of fear that their scale will condemn them, or that God may condemn them for some other reason, simply because he is God. There is no certainty about that day of judgment, and a lot of fear.”

Here Hamid nodded his head. Whatever internet Islamic scholars may say, this is very much what Central Asian Muslims on the street believe and live by. Fear is necessary because it keeps us from sinning which will (hopefully) keep us from hell. God can be won over by just enough good deeds (hopefully) – unless he plays a divine joker card and sends some of the undeserving to heaven and others to hell, simply because he’s God and he’s beyond our understanding.

“However,” I continued, “the key for the last day, according to the Bible, is that we are known by God and by Jesus. That we have a relationship with him based on faith in his promises. And that all our good deeds on that day stand as evidence that he knows us already and we know him. They’re not the basis for our acceptance, done out of fear, but the evidence of it, done out of love and gratitude. The last day for a true believer is not something with an uncertain outcome, but a time when we are promised acceptance and welcome by God, who never breaks his promises.”

Hamid sat thoughtfully, “Thank you,” he said, turning to me. “These differences are much clearer for me now.”

I sat back, grateful that some of that I had shared had been understood, maybe even accepted. Believe it or not, convincing local friends that Christianity and Islam really do fundamentally disagree with one another is one of the most stubbornly-difficult tasks we face when we seek to do evangelism. It was interesting to use the Islamic worldview of oneness-prophethood-judgment as a familiar framework for illustrating these crucial differences. Like the scale vs. sacrifice approach, it might be a way to present gospel truth in a concrete fashion Muslims are better able to understand.

We had been talking for a while by this point and I though we had probably given Hamid enough food for thought for one evening. The cheesecake was gone. Likely, he would want to switch topics to something a little lighter.

“OK, then!” Hamid said as he rubbed his hands together. “Next question. Explain to me the different branches of Christianity – and how to keep them all straight. Google was no help on this one.”

We were going to need some more cheesecake.

*names changed for security

Photo by mahyar mirghasemi on Unsplash

Eleven Factors For Helpful Short-Term Trips

As one who grew up as a TCK and who has also served as a missions pastor and as a missionary, I have seen my fair share of short-term trips. Most of them were a blessing. A few went off the rails. All of them were costly, both to those who invested their time and money to go, and to the missionary teams that received them. Over time, our own set of best or preferred practices for short-term trips has emerged. The following is a list for your consideration the next time you are involved in this kind of trip.

  1. Actually take a trip to serve your missionaries. Short-term trips are an important way to partner with and care for the missionaries your church has sent out or closely supports. Visits from friends and pastors can mean a lot to those on the field and provide timely encouragement and support, and modern air travel makes this surprisingly accessible. It’s not a bad goal to plan at least one trip per term. This will help the church to pray in a more informed way and deepen the rope-holding relationship, as well as provide insight into what kind of distance pastoral care is needed. If you have a missionary serving somewhere, your church or pastors should be willing to visit them. Some single women or families with small children serve in dangerous places overseas, but the church leadership isn’t sure it’s wise to visit them due to safety concerns. This is disheartening to those on the field. If we send them to dangerous places where they live daily with risk, we must be willing to visit them and share with them in that potential suffering.
  2. Know what kind of trip it is. There are different kinds of short-term trips. A team could be involved in visiting new areas to help missionaries gain access, building relationships with locals that residential workers could later build upon. Or they could be doing projects that strengthen the work identity of the missionaries. These could be things like English camps, medical trainings, or service projects. There are short-term teams that focus primarily on sharing the gospel and those that focus on doing trainings for local believers or leaders. Some short-term teams focus primarily on caring for TCKs or investing pastorally in the missionaries. Others are vision trips, where a potential partner church comes mainly to build the new relationship and better understand how to partner, or where missionary candidates come to see if God is calling them that particular place or team. The key is to know beforehand what kind of a trip it is and therefore what the appropriate goals are – and for this to be agreed upon ahead of time by both the short-term team leadership and the missionaries on the ground.
  3. Send qualified people on the team. Send the kind of people who add value to the team according to what kind of trip it is. Even though it can be hard to recruit for trips, it is far better to have a smaller team than one full of people who shouldn’t be there. I remember one trip in my middle school years that included teenagers from a youth group who were struggling with their faith and with drug use. Maybe the logic was that the trip would be a shot in the arm for them spiritually, but the level of immaturity of the team members caused quite the headache for the missionaries on the ground. While a short-term trip is a great opportunity to disciple those on the trip, aim to primarily send team members who fit with the nature of the trip and will be a blessing to those they are visiting.
  4. Ask about what you can bring over. It can be surprising what is and is not available in the markets of foreign countries. There are almost always baking items that are hard to come by, or just favorite foods that aren’t available locally. We have often had teams bring over good coffee, pre-cooked bacon, our daughter’s diabetic devices, homeschool curriculum, and a good book or two for me also. The key is to offer ahead of time to bring things over in your luggage and to not assume you know what they need. After carrying over antibiotics for friends in China, I took some with me on a visit to friends in Central Asia, only to find out that they were easily accessible in the local pharmacies there. You can also very helpfully carry things back to the home country for your missionaries, such as kids artwork to send to the grandparents.
  5. Learn about your destination’s culture, norms, and security beforehand. Request a summary orientation beforehand so that your team knows the basics of how to dress, how to conduct themselves with locals, and how to talk about the nature of the trip. For trips to our part of Central Asia, it’s important that women and men dress smartly and modestly, and that they know to avoid physical contact with the opposite gender. They should also have a STS (short truthful statement) about the trip if asked by security officials or other locals. We also need to prep teams about which vocabulary they need to avoid, such as the name of our organization, or terms like missionary or evangelism. While you’ll likely receive some kind of orientation on the ground, you’ll want to know some of the most important things before you ever get on the plane.
  6. Bring enough cash or credit to cover everything. This is one simple way to bless those you’re visiting and to acknowledge the costs they are incurring by hosting the team. When I was a missions pastor I was given a generous budget and orders from our elders to not let our missionaries pay for anything when our team was on the ground. While I wasn’t always able to outmaneuver them, most of the time we covered all our expenses and the expenses of the family or team hosting us. From being on the receiving end of teams now for seven years, I know how helpful this kind of a posture can be. Planning is needed, however, if it’s a cash-only economy or if Western credit cards don’t work or aren’t accepted at local merchants. But in general, bring more cash than you think you’ll need. You may discover a significant financial need while on the ground and be able to cover it on the spot.
  7. Go hard while on the trip. Short-term trips are not a marathon, they are a sprint, so go hard while on the trip. Stay up late having pastoral conversations. Take that extra trip to visit isolated believers. Take part in potentially uncomfortable cultural experiences and cuisine (and bring your stomach meds). Preach last-minute if invited to. Short-term trips are not set up to be spiritual retreats or vacations, so gird up your loins, ready to work hard without grumbling. On the other hand, if the missionaries plan a slower pace for the week than you were hoping for, then use that time in prayer and exploring the local area.
  8. Invest spiritually in the missionaries and the TCKs. Missionaries are often in roles where they are constantly pouring out spiritually, whether sharing the gospel, discipling, teaching and preaching, or training leaders. They are in need of others to pour into them. Don’t underestimate how life-giving it can be to have friends open the word with you in your own language and pray for you. Don’t worry about needing to have missions-specific content to encourage them with. Simply point them to the gospel and to the character of God and this will be for them like drinking water in the desert. Speaking of water in the desert, offer to watch the kids so that parents can go on a rare date night and have the chance to connect deeply with one another also. And when spending time with the TCKs, really invest in them. Teach them new skills, learn their stories, and delight in them.
  9. Invest in the local believers. I have often been surprised at the lack of initiative short-term teams and visitors have taken when we are spending time with local believers who speak English. If you have the privilege of spending time with local believers on your trip, by all means, seek to make the most of the opportunity. Ask them their testimony. Tell them yours. Share what God has been teaching you and ask them what they have been learning. These conversations can be more impactful than you’d expect and can lend some welcome backup to the missionaries who are investing in these relationships. In the age of social media, you may also end up with a new long-term friend on the other side of the world.
  10. Invest in the short-term team itself. I remember hearing David Platt once speak about the tremendous discipleship opportunity provided with the team members on a short-term trip. It makes sense. Similar to a pilgrimage, a short term trip to another country can be a time of unique spiritual focus and intentionality. God can use these trips to implant a love of the nations, to spur on toward greater faithfulness, and to provide needed renewal in spiritual passion. So don’t neglect the members of the team itself and what God may be doing in their lives.
  11. Watch out for the trip home. Finally, be aware of the adrenaline drop that happens once the team gets on the plane to head home. After a week of pouring out and serving others, at this point its easy to feel entitled to some “me time” and to get short with the other members of the team. Even the thought of getting back to life as usual can bring some sadness and grumpiness. This final leg is not a throw-away part of the trip, but an important time, especially for the trip leaders, to care for the team and help them finish well.

Photo by Ross Parmly on Unsplash

The Traditional Bathhouse

My first friend in Central Asia, Hama*, was an eclectic fellow. He was a jaded wedding keyboardist who had lived for a number of years in the UK. This made him relatively progressive in relation to his culture. However, he still retained a deep appreciation for some of the most traditional places and experiences in the bazaar, things that most of his peers were distancing themselves from in their quest to be more modern.

For example, Hama was always ready to take me to eat a traditional dish eaten in the middle of the night, called “Head and Foot,” which could in some ways be compared to the Scottish dish called haggis. The base of Head and Foot is spiced rice sewn up in a sheep’s stomach, boiled in a broth made from the sheep’s head and feet. Sides include tongue, brain, and marrow. I usually just stuck with just the stomach rice and the broth. Paired with fresh flatbread this was a little greasy, but not bad. One intern who decided to eat all the sides as well, and record it for social media, ended up in the hospital. To be fair to the local cuisine, it was the middle of the night and it was his first time and he had also insisted on smoking a Cuban cigar immediately after eating brain and marrow. It may have been this peculiar combination of factors that did him in. As for the locals, the younger generation are starting to turn up their nose at Head and Foot, though the more traditional types still love the stuff. One incident several years ago involved a group of disappointed customers shooting up a Head and Foot restaurant with AK-47s because by 2 am they had already sold out.

But Hama was raised in one of the oldest bazaar neighborhoods, and something about things like Head and Foot spoke to his sense of where he came from. Perhaps it was his years living in Europe that awakened this appreciation in him. Or, like me, he was simply an old soul who found himself strangely drawn to the old ways, as if searching there for a hidden joy and wisdom that is almost out of our reach.

After finishing Head and Foot, the proper order of experience was to have a cup or two of sugary black chai, then to head to the traditional bathhouse. As far as I can tell, these bathhouses have their roots in old Roman culture, which eventually led to them spreading across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, remaining well-used there even when bathing became unpopular in medieval Europe. The most well-known of these distant Roman descendants would be the Turkish bath, but similar types of bathhouses are spread all over the region. In previous generations they served a very important public function: providing an accessible place where locals could get unlimited hot water and get deeply clean.

It’s only been in the last twenty years or so that hot running water at home became common for most of my peers in our corner of Central Asia. Before that, locals relied on visiting the gender-segregated bathhouses to bathe once or a couple times a week. Those as young as their mid-thirties grew up singing a song in grade school that went, “Today is Thursday; How wonderful; We go to the bathhouse!; Grab the soap; It’s on the window sill like someone sticking out his tongue at us.”

Even now the bathhouse provides a more reliable source of piping hot water than most homes, given the unreliability of government electricity. After Hama introduced me to the bathhouse in the fall of 2007, I found myself a frequent customer there that winter, the coldest the city had seen in forty years. With next to no electricity, frozen pipes, and ice-cold cement walls at home, the bathhouse was one of the only places in the city I could actually get warm – and take as long a shower as I liked. The mostly older locals eyed this skinny nineteen-year-old American peculiarly, but eventually got used to me, nodding in understanding at our mutual appreciation for endless hot water in the dead of winter.

The bathhouses of our area are typically made up of three rooms. First, you enter the reception area where the proprietor’s desk is, in a room with cement or plaster bench seating lining the walls. On top of this bench would be carpeting, and up on the wall lockers and hooks. Lots of natural light streams into this first room from upper windows. This room is a pleasant temperature and is designed for rest, drinking chai, and changing. To enter the second room, you need to be changed into your towel and to be wearing the provided toilet shoes. This second tiled room is warmer and contains some showers and an open floor area where an employee gives somewhat violent back massages for a small fee. The third room is the hottest. This room is heated by fire constantly burning underneath the floor, the hottest point being a raised octagonal platform in the center. Lining the walls are small sink areas built into the floor, each with a tap for hot and cold, a metal bowl for pouring the water over your head and body, and a small cement stool to sit on.

Those in the third room can sit at one of the sink areas to wash, stretch out on a part of the hot tile floor, or pace or exercise to work up a healthy sweat. The violent massage man will also aggressively scrub your back here, again for a small fee. Traditionally, most would be completely naked in this room, but undergarment-wearing patrons are now also very common. Most bathhouses also include some private shower rooms in addition to the open bigger room.

In addition to the blessedly hot rooms and water in the dead of winter, I always enjoyed the bathhouse for the reset of sorts I felt physically from the inundation of hot steam and water, contrasted when needed with bowls of cold. I also have fond memories of sitting with Hama in the rest room afterward, contentedly sipping chai and having good conversation. As other workers in Central Asia have found, the traditional bathhouse can be a place very conducive to friendship and spiritual conversation.

The bathhouse also gave me a picture that will forever be etched into my mind’s eye. I’ve never seen anyone scrub as long or as intensely as those older Central Asian men in the third room. At times it seemed as if they were trying to rub their skin off completely – as if they were even trying to get deep down and scrub their soul. Methodically, intensely, even desperately, they would scrub and rinse and scrub and rinse, using copious amounts of the old olive oil soap bars, over and over and over again. As I came to learn more about the nature of Islam, the image of these old men, ceaselessly scrubbing and yet never satisfied, came to serve as a metaphor for the desperation of those trapped in a works righteousness system. Lacking a way to wash the soul, Islam and other man-made religions rely on external cleansing. And yet the consciences of adherents have moments – or places – where the superficiality of this external “purity” takes over, and like Eustace the dragon, they claw at themselves, physically or emotionally, trying in futility to get another layer of scales off.

Those old men would likely have witnessed war, genocide, honor killings, wife-beatings, sexual and physical abuse, betrayal, slander, greed, and hypocrisy. They may have been victims, or they may have taken part in many of these acts of darkness, leading to an ever-lingering odor of guilt and shame. No wonder they scrubbed the way they did, almost trance-like, trying, consciously or unconsciously, to maybe this time find some way to clean the heart. All in vain. No bathhouse can ever bring the cleansing the mosque has also failed to provide.

There’s only one who is pure enough to clean the soul. He starts from the inside out, sovereignly reaching into our souls with his purity and miraculously making the unclean clean. We also use water, yes, even an immersion in it, but not as a means to become clean, but as a sign that he has already made us so. There is only one source of true cleansing for these old Central Asian men, for all of us. They must hear of Christ.

It is an amazing thing to step out of the dark Central Asian winter into the warmth and endless hot water of the traditional bathhouse. It is even more amazing to step out of the dark freezing hell of this present age and into the warmth, cleansing, and salvation provided by faith in Christ. There we will also find the water endless – even eternal.

*names changed for security

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Mercenary Dan

“I’m gonna invite you guys over for burgers, like I said. I make a mean American burger. But uh… well, you know how kids are always finding stuff?”

“Sure, they do find all kinds of things,” I responded into the phone, not sure what my friend was getting at.

“Well, I lost a hand grenade somewhere in my apartment. Don’t worry though. I duct-taped the pin so it’s not dangerous. But all the same, I’d hate for your kids to find it under the couch or something, you know?”

“Yeah, uh, that makes sense,” I responded, trying to sound normal.

How do you lose a hand grenade? Then again, I reminded myself that my friend Dan* was a mercenary. Everyone misplaces items from the office every now and then. Apparently mercenaries misplace hand grenades.

There are really only a few types of Westerners you run into in our corner of Central Asia. There are the missionaries, like us. The kids, collared shirts, and kind manners are usually dead giveaways here – as well as any proficiency in local language. Then there are some foreigners who are there only for business or adventure, but these tend to be a pretty questionable crew who can’t help but stick out by their awkward and sometimes scandalous conduct in the local culture. There are also the security contractors, the mercenaries. These former military types have their own dead giveaways. Cargo pants, scruffy facial hair, sunglasses, large muscles, and a kind of gnarled weathered look that comes from spending a lot of lot of time in the sun and in the dust.

The cumulative picture of this small foreign community is a bizarre one. Foreigners in Central Asia tend to eye one another warily from a distance, not sure whether they should interact, suspicious by default of what the other is doing in this desert on the other side of the world. One writer compared these expat dynamics to the desert moon of Tatooine in the Star Wars galaxy. Sure, there are some good guys scattered here and there. But most outsiders who end up in our corner of Central Asia are running from something, or are some kind of bounty hunter.

Dan and I met while I was out on a date with my wife at a local mall. He and his wife were at the same mall, spotted us as fellow foreigners, and asked us about the very restaurant that we were going to. Unlike most other expats, Dan didn’t seem standoffish at all. Instead, he was rather forward, even asking if they could join us for dinner. A split-second pivot from my wife and me had our date night quickly turn into an evangelistic opportunity with these new friends who seemed desperate for connection. Pro tip: date nights are hard to come by on the mission field, so only attempt this kind of move if you are absolutely sure you’ll be able to make up for it soon.

We sat down to dinner and began learning about their story. Originally from Portugal, Dan had been a gun-for-hire all over the world and had seen some truly terrible things. A serious injury landed him in Scandinavia, where his future wife nursed him back to health. They had been in our city for less than a year. Dan was working for a leader of one of the local militias, and his wife had gotten a job at an international school.

“I am the only person in the country with a license to open-carry a RPG!” Dan quickly let me know, proudly showing me the license itself. I was legitimately impressed.

As we talked, I learned that Dan swore like a sailor, was very proud of his Catholic military heritage, but really only believed in the power of weapons and the goodness of animals. He hated most people. But for some reason he liked me, and we began a unique friendship. Dan would tell me horrific stories of battle on behalf of corporations in African jungles. I would spiral the conversation in toward the gospel. Dan would eventually catch on, “How did you get me to talk about this again?” he would ask, squinting his eyes at me as if I were enacting some sneaky plan.

Dan would try to convince me that I would only be safe if I was packing adequate firepower. “I get it. You’re a Christian, you don’t want to kill people. How about a good shotgun? You wouldn’t have to kill them, just maim them with bird-shot! I can get you a real nice one at a great price.” I would shake my head and try to convince him that knowing the local language and culture and relying on local friends could get me safely into places Dan could never get into with his weapons. And that ultimately I was in Central Asia under God’s protection.

We got to share the gospel several times with Dan and his wife, including the time we facilitated a small wedding for them in the living room of the international church pastor. Turns out Scandinavian common law marriage is not recognized in Islamic societies that demand a certificate from an approved religious official. They were going to have to live separately, so we threw together a small ceremony for them and used it as another chance to point them to Jesus.

This meant a lot to Dan. And during the next security crisis he was sure to call me up to assure me that he had various options for armored convoys at a great price should our friends in another city need to evacuate. Then later on in the same crisis, he called me from the front lines, telling me that the news media was lying. Open warfare was taking place a couple hours from us, bodies were in the streets, in spite of the international media claims that it was just a “coordinated training exercise.” Now it was my turn to be grateful to Dan for alerting us to what was really happening when our own government and media were lying and trying to cover things up.

“Dan,” I asked him at one point. “There’s a little airstrip outside of town. If things got really bad and the airport were shut down, could you manage to hire some kind of Russian cargo plane to come in and evacuate us?”

“No,” Dan said. “I couldn’t do that… couldn’t do Russian, that is. I could get you an Emirati one though. But that’ll cost you. No friendship discounts there, ha!”

Eventually, though not surprisingly, Dan got kicked out of the country. Anyone with an open-carry license for a RPG is bound to get into serious trouble sooner or later. At the time of his departure Dan hadn’t yet professed faith in Christ. To my knowledge, he still hasn’t. He is one of many friends (though admittedly one of the more colorful ones) that God brought across our path for a short time and that we tried to share faithfully with. Even with our focus of reaching our Central Asian friends, we’ve never wanted to turn a blind eye to the gospel opportunities with others that may come about. Even if those opportunities are with those we never imagined we’d become friends with – like Catholic burger-cooking mercenaries.

Dan never found the grenade. We never had those burgers he promised. But given the strange way our paths crossed, I have a lot of hope that wherever he ends up God will bring him more believing friends who keep spiraling the conversation back to the gospel. And I pray that even mercenary Dan, who hates most people and has seen so much death, will one day be transformed.

*name changed for security

Photo by Sven Verweij on Unsplash

As Slow As It Takes

When we came to the field we thought that we were already on the slow track when it came to leadership development. Many popular missions methodologies advocate handing over significant authority to new believers very quickly, within a matter of weeks or months. Some even have unbelievers facilitating and leading Bible studies. These methods teach that the upfront direct leadership of the missionaries keep the local church planting work from multiplying and keep it dependent on the expert outsider. So, the direct involvement of the foreigner is kept to an absolute minimum, and leadership responsibility is handed over as quickly as possible. What of the biblical qualifications for elders/overseers/pastors? Often a new title is used to skirt these requirements, such as “house church leader.” It’s true, Paul never explicitly says that a house church leader/facilitator/trainer can’t be a new convert. Alas, play with language enough and you can get around just about any otherwise clear verse of scripture.

In this kind of atmosphere, we knew that we were in the minority with our conviction that we needed to spend three to four years pouring into local men before they would be ready to lead. This conviction came out of the desire to be faithful to leadership standards laid out in 1st Timothy 3 and Titus 1. They also came out of ministry experience in our own culture where it really took two to three years to truly know a man’s character. We added on a year or so to account for the difficulty of “seeing” character through a foreign language and culture. Our context in Central Asia had also already experienced several waves of church planting implosions. One dynamic that was present in all of them was local leaders who were given position and authority apparently before their character could handle it. The Central Asian tendency toward domineering leadership combined with a Western missionary culture terrified of being paternalistic and the toxic brew that resulted poisoned many a promising church plant. We came to believe that three to four years would be necessary to push back against this tendency toward domineering leadership and to model instead a humble, servant leadership. If we were viewed as paternalistic by other Westerners, then so be it.

The fascinating thing is that even our slow track was not nearly slow enough. A couple years ago I heard a Central Asian pastor from a nearby country being interviewed. He was speaking of the tendency Western missionaries have of giving a church planter salary to local believers way too quickly, and in a way that sidesteps the local church that might already exist and may have important insight into why that brother is not in a position of leadership yet. This pastor spoke of the slow labor of love it is to see a Central Asian new believer mature to a point where they can handle leadership in the local church.

“In our years of ministry here, we have seen it takes about seven years for a new believer to be ready to lead,” he said.

Then he continued, smiling, “It took Jesus three and a half years with his disciples (and they were still a mess). Why should we in Central Asia be surprised if it takes us twice as long as it took Jesus?”

This pastor’s experience and logic stuck with me and I began interacting with veteran workers and other faithful pastors from Central Asia and the Middle East on this question of timing. What I found was a general agreement among long-term workers (usually those who had experienced a church plant implosion or two) on the wisdom of this kind of seven-year perspective. The response from local pastors was even more vehement.

“Yes! Foreign workers always appoint men as pastors and leaders who are not ready! This is damaging the church severely. Please take the time necessary, perhaps seven years or even longer, to make sure these men are faithful.”

This feedback fits with our own experience in our local church plant. By three to four years in, the men who came to faith out of Islam were indeed growing tremendously in their biblical knowledge and even in their ministry ability. But it was the character piece that kept emerging as a red flag. Tragic immaturity in interpersonal conflict, a willingness to lie when convenient, a buckling under persecution, a tendency to excuse certain cultural sins – these sorts of issues kept putting the pause button on our team discussions about moving these brothers into more leadership.

We could see these things because we were interacting with these brothers in their local language and involved with them in a life-on-life discipleship. Had we taken a more hands-off approach (non-residential, not in the mother tongue, Westerner not leading) advocated by much of missiology, we would have been unable to see these character issues clearly. And we would have appointed these men as pastors or given them pastoral authority, perhaps without the official title. As so often happens, we would have promoted a man in the “potential leader” category to the “qualified leader” category prematurely. And we would have put him in an extremely dangerous position.

Instead, we learned that for the sake of the church, we needed to go twice as slow. Has this been frustrating and discouraging at times? Absolutely. Many of us cross-cultural church planters are more gifted as evangelists and starters and find ourselves now in temporary pastor-shepherd roles that feel a lot like two-to-three-years for a decade. But what else is to be done? Shall we continue to take shortcuts around the biblical requirements for a leader’s character so that we can get back to the ministry we feel more gifted at? Should we continue the pattern of appointing men who are not ready, only to see their lives implode and their churches fall apart? What of the pressing demands of lostness around us? Can this kind of time-consuming investment in the local church be justified?

We must be willing to go as slow as necessary in order to see faithful local leaders raised up. We can only do this by trusting God with the timing, the adjusted expectations, and the weight of the lostness around us. We need to remember that the existence and health of Christ’s church is not in opposition to his plan to reach all peoples. In fact, the healthy local church is God’s means of reaching all peoples. Or are we imposing our own arbitrary timelines on God’s plan to reach a people group? The promise, after all, is for a believing remnant from each people in eternity, not that we will saturate a people group with the good news in our own generation. Should we aim for gospel saturation? By all means, but not as a promise and not at the expense of laying solid foundations for the local church. To do so would be to try to fight a war and to ignore the need for supply lines. As those who study warfare say, amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics. An army is not judged by its ability to make a strong initial attack, but by its ability to sustain that attack until victory is achieved. And that involves a lot of less-than-exciting long-term planning, training, and preparation.

It may take a minimum of seven years to see faithful leaders raised up in Central Asia. It may take less, or more, in another unreached region. Are we willing to surrender our own expectations and dreams to see faithful men entrusted with the truth? May we not only be willing to go fast for the kingdom when necessary, but also to go slow, as slow as it takes.

Photo by Bogdan Costin on Unsplash

Sovereign Over Schizophrenia

Fifteen years ago he was the most gifted evangelist in the city. A passionate, funny, and winsome young man who almost single-handedly filled a house church with new believers, mostly other Central Asian young men. Adam* had come to faith after a discouraged house church pastor had shared the gospel with him in a tea house. That night he’d had a dream where Jesus handed him a white stone with something written on it (he had not yet read Revelation 2:17 at this point). Adam and this house church pastor would go on to reach dozens of other locals together. Adam was the persuasive gatherer, and the pastor the articulate shepherd-teacher.

During my gap year in Central Asia, Adam and I became fast friends, and even brothers. We talked of someday working together to see the gospel spread like wildfire in the region, then settling down as old men in his ancestral village, with our families living next door to one another.

Then I returned to the US to finish university. Adam fled to the UK, claiming death threats and persecution. I wrote a letter to a judge vouching for Adam’s story and his faith, and he was granted asylum status. We stayed in touch off and on during my seven years in the US, but it eventually became clear that he was not doing well. The love of the world and the heady freedoms and prejudices of life in the West began to choke out his faith. For a few years he ran hard after girlfriends, weed, and worldly success. Even from a distance I could tell that he wasn’t gathering regularly with other believers, despite his evasive answers. I chewed on the idea of visiting him in the UK in order to try and influence him back toward spiritual health. But it never materialized.

Eventually I moved back to Central Asia and got back in touch with Adam. At this point I started to notice that something was very wrong with the way that Adam was interpreting reality. He started regularly speaking of being watched, followed, and foiled by secretive government plans designed to keep him from achieving his full potential. He spoke of being someone with the ability to overthrow governments, to lead revolutions if he were only given the chance. And because of this, he suspected that secret agents were all around him, drugging his coffee and trying to drive him insane or cause him to give up on his destiny. Most Central Asians are vulnerable to conspiracy theories, but this was different. This was not just claiming that Israel created ISIS for its own schemes, but rather the kind of beliefs that were starting to make my friend deeply dysfunctional in his daily relationships.

During this time he never denied his faith, and when I would press him strongly he would admit that deep down he still clung to Jesus as his only hope. But it was clear to me that his version of reality had shoved Jesus far into the periphery. I remember a number of conversations where things got pretty heated as I called him on his abandonment of Jesus, and on his abandonment of his brothers. But these conversations never had their desired effect. Over time I noticed that any time we got close to an area where he might feel guilt or shame, the conspiracy talk would come out and take over the conversation.

Eager to help my friend, I tried to connect him with a solid church in the UK. This failed, so I worked to get him back to Central Asia, hoping that face-to-face believing community would help him recover and heal. By borrowing money and calling in favors from strangers and his few remaining friends, Adam eventually returned to his hometown in Central Asia. This return, however, did not have the effect I had hoped for. I’ve seen few with reverse culture shock as bad as Adam had it. For a time, he positively hated everything about his native culture and city. And the locals in turn mocked him and viewed him suspiciously.

My attempts to have him rejoin a family of believers failed also. Adam freaked people out. He had forgotten how to conduct himself respectably in his own culture and then as soon as the conspiracy talk came out people wanted nothing more to do with him. He wore a haunted look of bewilderment in his eyes, a mischievous smile, and a scraggly beard. His jaw regularly locked and tensed and he was losing teeth. This appearance didn’t help matters. He further confused people by telling them that he was actually an American, not a local at all.

My pleas with other believers to help him mostly fell on deaf ears or were met with apologies for not feeling like he was safe enough to have around. It began to dawn on me that Adam wasn’t healthy enough to be a part of a church made up of those from his own culture. He just kept using, burning, and offending the people that I introduced him to. Maybe he could find a home in an international church? Yet even there it became clear he wouldn’t be able to stabilize enough to find the community I was sure he needed.

Even around my own family, he had no discernment about what was not appropriate to talk about around our small children. I remember pleading with him to cut out all the dangerous political talk against the local authorities if he wanted to be able to hang out with my family. In a society where people are disappeared or assassinated for speaking out against the ruling politicians, I couldn’t afford for my family to be collateral damage for his subversive talk. Finally I had to make the decision that he and I could only meet outside the home, one on one.

All of my attempts to help Adam distinguish reality from the reality of his own mind’s making came to naught. The more I pressed directly to help him see he was believing lies, the more he doubled down on his own private reality. Even the indirect approach, where I didn’t push back against his perceptions, only worked until he felt guilt or shame, or until another conflict with his family would send him spiraling. I was one of his last friends left, and the yet the costs of our friendship were mounting. I had a church planting role to be faithful to, and I could precious afford the time it took to walk with a friend with this level of need and mental illness. This was especially so because it needed to be time spent isolated from other believers.

Eventually, we learned that Adam was most likely suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a diagnosis which if correct meant that there was very little we could do for him. His reality was one in which he was always tracked, always outmaneuvered, always kept down from achieving his destined greatness. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t help him to step outside this mindset, to step back from this view of reality and examine it to see if it was true or not. It was his mind’s experience and I learned what many others before me have also experienced – that it is next to impossible to convince someone that their experiences are sometimes not actually real.

We continued praying for Adam’s healing for years. Sometimes he would come around and seem to be doing better. Other times we wouldn’t communicate for months on end, usually following a hard conversation where I felt like I was losing my friend for good. After a Christmas Eve dinner this past year that went about as well as could be expected, Adam and I didn’t see each other for ten months. I never intended it to go that long. I knew that I was one of his only friends left. But Adam seemed to be beyond my reach, and I was no longer sure that my friendship was indeed helping. I was also tired of the sadness in my heart caused by the degeneration of my friend and brother.

We ran into each other several weeks ago at a hole-in-the-wall kebab place in the bazaar. It was a little awkward, but I was genuinely happy to see him again and asked him if we could hang out soon. I needed to share with him the news that we were leaving the country for some time for medical needs. So we arranged a time to meet up. I went into the meeting expecting the same dynamics – the grandstanding, the talk of big plans, the triggered defensiveness. I had no idea I was about to witness a remarkable answer to prayer.

I met Adam near a park and we walked together into a neighborhood with lots of hip cafes and restaurants. Adam wanted to introduce me to a new sandwich shop, one where he claimed to have had an amazing meal of avocado toast. While I found this amusing (just how did the cliche Millennial avocado toast manage to make it all the way over here?), I went along with Adam. His mental illness had never impaired his skill at finding new food and coffee joints that were, in fact, excellent.

It was while we were standing at the counter, waiting on our sandwiches, that Adam started telling me about how things were much better for him now. I listened, prepping myself for the grandiose plans I expected Adam to share with me next. Instead, he told me he had had a breakdown about a month previous, something he claimed was a psychotic episode. Very dark thoughts of self harm had led to him walking to a coffeeshop to calm down. Then, while drinking an americano he’d started feeling a strange sensation crawling up the back of his brain. His brain started feeling like it was tingling and fizzing all around, and this feeling continued for an entire week. Afterward, he had sought out counsel from a neurologist, had done some research, and was suddenly able to see his mental illness as such for the first time ever.

I started leaning in as Adam shared this story with me. This was different. He was actually able to use one part of his mind to step back and view the other part of his mind, observing its patterns of paranoia and knowing that they weren’t ultimately true. He had never been able to do this before, at least not for the previous 7 years.

As my avocado toast arrived (he was right, it was delicious), Adam kept sharing with me about his new-found self-awareness. He had quit coffee since he realized it had become his substitute for weed and had greatly aggravated his paranoia. He could now see how so many of his grand plans and feared conspiracies were only his mind’s strategies for dealing with deep shame. He was even content to take the trash out for his mom, knowing that even if he lacked the opportunity to do bigger things, something as small as that was still valuable and significant. He was back in a rhythm of daily prayer, telling me that it was only the love of Christ that had sustained him through his long exile from reality. He asked my forgiveness for sometimes believing that I was part of the grand conspiracy against him.

I finished my avocado toast, amazed at what I was hearing. Could I dare hope that God had at last answered prayer and provided some measure of healing to my friend’s mind? Does it ever happen that people with paranoid schizophrenia come back from the brink this side of the future resurrection? Yet it seemed undeniable. Whatever had happened to his mind when it fizzed and popped for a week, Adam was now able to see reality in a clearer way – and to notice the unhealthy pull of his other reality. The sandwich shop had messed up his order, and Adam told me that he noticed his brain wanting him to believe that it had been on purpose, just another part of the plan to foil him at every turn, to keep him down. But remarkably, he had noticed this and had successfully pushed back against that narrative, instead choosing to believe reality, that the mistaken order had been just that – an honest mistake.

Adam and I talked for another hour or so. I encouraged him to gently try to reenter believing community. I decided to take a risk and invite him to my son’s birthday party the next day. Many of the local and foreign believers would be there. I was eager to see if Adam would behave differently in that kind of a group setting than he would have previously. Adam agreed to come. He was eager to bring my wife a gift in recognition for all the food and coffee she had made for him when he was still trapped “in his shell,” as he put it.

Adam came to the party and didn’t freak anyone out. He actually made a lot of people smile and laugh and I caught glimpses of the old Adam, one of my best friends, the most gifted evangelist in the city. It’s not that there isn’t still a strangeness to him. A decade of severe mental illness will leave its scars. But unbelievable as it seems, somehow he has been pulled back from the brink, and God has given him back his mind. I shook my head as I saw him exchanging numbers with other men at the party. I prayed that the change would be lasting, and that healing would continue. Perhaps Adam will once again be an active member of a local church, sharing the gospel in the tea houses, inviting others to follow Jesus with him. Perhaps he will be of sound mind enough so as to be a healthy member again of a spiritual family. That would be a stunning answer to prayer. Even though we shortly afterward left the country and he was on his own, Adam reached out for the info and attended the international church service this past weekend.

I know God doesn’t always bring healing in this life to those facing severe mental illness. Many genuine believers even will be overtaken by the fog before seeing the face of Jesus at their appointed time of death brings sudden light and wholeness. But I feel as if I have just witnessed one of those instances where God reverses the natural order of things. My friend’s paranoid schizophrenia, his partial living in a reality that is not real, has been suddenly robbed of its power and control over his mind. I don’t understand how it happened, but I rejoice nonetheless.

Don’t stop praying for those that you love who are lost in the fog of mental illness. Even as they become risky to be around, work to keep the lines of communication open, if possible. I have just witnessed a brother I had nearly given up on supernaturally rescued, a friend restored. Oh, how I wish it had happened sooner, not right before a long separation like this. Yet I am simply astounded at what God has done for my friend. May our faith be strengthened that he is sovereign – even over schizophrenia.

*names changed for security

Photo by Mario Heller on Unsplash

Not Coming Nor Leaving as Christian Individualists

We don’t need anyone coming to the mission field – nor leaving – as Christian individualists. By Christian individualists, I mean those who decide on massive life/ministry decisions without a healthy involvement of their church, mentors, family, and believing community. The problem with Christian individualism – especially when it comes to missions or ministry – is that it baptizes lone ranger decisions with the nigh-untouchable “God is calling me to…”

Thankfully, many sending churches and organizations have realized the danger of Christian individualists going to the mission field. The occasional Bruschko may end up working out, but the more likely scenario is a missionary who goes abroad while still unqualified, unfit, or at least woefully unprepared. This can cause untold damage to missionary teams, local believers, and the reputation of the gospel itself.

There is a trend of missionary-sending processes that increase the involvement of the local church. This is a very healthy development, one which pushes back against a previous tendency to outsource the assessment process to missions agencies. In fact, a healthy local church should be the primary place where a prospective missionary is assessed, affirmed, and sent. The church members and the leadership should be able to wholeheartedly vouch that the candidate’s character, knowledge, skills, and affections align with that of a qualified missionary-in-training. Individuals who do not meet these standards should be kindly redirected toward a different timeline or a different vocation.

Praise God, there is somewhat of a consensus – in reformed evangelicalism at least – on the need to not go to the field as individualists. This is a remarkably good thing given the militant individualism of Western culture. The difficulty of someone actually getting to the mission field without some degree of church and pastoral backing testifies to how the Western sending church is pushing back against its own culture with biblical wisdom.

However, we seem to have a blindspot when it comes to those who leave the field. Often this decision to leave is made with barely a fraction of the counsel, input, and testing that went into the decision to go in the first place. Sadly, many who come to the field, sent by their community, leave the field as Christian individualists. When wresting with leaving, they think and pray in private and then unexpectedly drop the bomb that God is calling them to leave the field, much to the dismay of their local friends and colleagues. Often, even if counsel is sought, the decision has already been made.

Several things make these dynamics understandable. Sometimes missionaries are simply too beat up or too burnt out to feel like they can handle the inevitable disappointment and pushback that comes when they float the idea of leaving. It can feel safer, or at least more bearable, to process privately and then try to go out quickly and quietly.

Leaving the mission field also means moving from a vocation that requires higher qualification, back to a lifestyle that does not require that same level of assessment. Leaving the role of a cross-cultural church planter to return to that of a church member in one’s native culture is a step back in terms of the leadership standards one must be held to – though basic standards of Christian faithfulness remain the same. So it makes sense that leaving would not naturally result in the same kind of robust processes and conversations.

Yet there’s also a lot of shame attached to the thought and reality of leaving the field. Does this mean failure? Are we leaving when just a little more pushing would have resulted in things changing? How can we let our colleagues down when they are already overwhelmed with life and ministry? How can I make sense of this to the local believers? I’m convinced that this sense of shame keeps the conversations from happening as openly as they might otherwise.

So the pattern repeats itself. Family after family announce their departure, rather than allowing it to be a decision which is not made until robust counsel has been sought and weighed. We revert to our enculturated individualism, and in our Christianese we tell ourselves and others that God has called us to a new chapter. Perhaps he has. But why have we not confirmed that calling in the same manner as we have in the past? What does that discrepancy mean? What have we been so afraid of?

I write this post in a season where we are very much wrestling with our family’s future on the field. Medical conditions have continued to pile up for our family, and in several weeks we will be returning to the US for yet another medical leave – one which may last quite a while. Will we be able to find the diagnoses and healing we need in order to be back on the field in a healthy place in six months? Or ever? We’ve not yet experienced this level of uncertainty regarding our future ministry in Central Asia. And it’s very sobering.

We are, however, trying to live out our convictions on this point of not living like Christian individualists. We have attempted to invite many into this process with us, so that they might pray for us and give us their counsel. If there is anything we are missing, we want to hear it. We will wait to make any big decisions until we can do so in the light and wisdom of many counselors. At the same time, I feel more than ever the pull of wanting to privately make a decision on our own, to protect myself from the uncertainty and the emotions of my friends’ responses. It is a very strong pull, even with my cross-cultural upbringing that slightly tempers my individualism.

Practically, I do have the spur of having advocated publicly for healthier departures from the mission field – and that means I now have the chance to eat my own words. This is a gracious thing on the hard days.

Our coworkers, leadership, local friends, and family have all been very kind counselors as we’ve tried to process this upcoming leave and its possible implications. Similar to confession of sin, I’m so glad we’ve been open about this. Whatever God wants us to do, we are hopeful that when clarity comes, it will come with the assurance that God’s people are actively speaking into the hard decision to leave, or the hard decision to stay.

Perhaps this is an area where churches and organizations can develop helpful structures and processes. Given the rate of attrition from the mission field, I wonder if an intentional and robust process which helps struggling workers wrestle with their desires to leave the field might not help clarify those who should indeed leave, and those whose calling has not changed, worn out though they are – some kind of a track that is the inverse of those used for mobilization, i.e. “So You Wanna Stop Being a Missionary?” I wonder if something like this could offer some protection from the dangers of subjectivism that come from being prone toward Christian individualism. Even after years of discipleship, we can be so adept at reverting to our human culture and playing cards that make our decisions almost unapproachable.

I believe we need to continue strengthening our commitment to not have any come to the mission field as Christian individualists, but rather with the backing of a healthy sending church and sending org. I also believe we need to awaken a commitment to not leave the field like Christian individualists, but as those with a spiritual family – churches, colleagues, and local brothers and sisters.

If leave we must, this won’t make it necessarily easier. But it will make it healthier. We would still grieve, but it would be good grieving, with less regret and less shame.

Pray for families like ours facing uncertainty on the field. Even in the midst of the strangeness of these conversations, pray that we would honor Jesus – and also honor his bride.

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

A Call For Trailblazers

Our mountainous corner of Central Asia is extremely language-diverse. The language my family has learned is the mother tongue for only about a quarter of our focus people group. Other colleagues are learning another of the major language/dialects, one which goes by the same overall name as ours, but is about as different as English is from German. Together, we can speak the mother tongues of maybe two-thirds of the locals of this region. The other one-third is made up of a linguistic stew of a dozen or so minority languages/dialects, mostly belonging to UUPGs.

A UUPG is an unengaged unreached people group. This means not only does this people group not have an indigenous church, but there are no organizations that have personnel actually learning their language and culture and attempting to plant churches among them.

There are reasons these groups remain unengaged. Some of them are hidden, barely even showing up on the radar of obscure linguists and anthropologists, let alone Christians and their sending organizations. We have local gypsy groups, for example, that no one has any solid data on. Other groups are known, but so little research has been done that it’s unclear if they warrant a specific focus or if they can be reached through a majority language strategy. Still others are known as distinct ethnic and linguistic groups warranting their own church planting teams, but they live in dangerous or politically inaccessible places for Westerners. Again, there are reasons why these groups remain unengaged.

Yesterday I met with some members of a Bible translation team. They have begun publishing newly translated books of scripture for one of our UUPG groups, which makes us very excited, not only because we have long prayed for this group, but also because we have open positions for a new team to at last come and engage this mountain people. We don’t have any takers yet on these positions, but having a few books of the Bible available in their language now and some job positions open is an encouraging start. Potential takers will be able to begin their work with some of the Word of God already available! This is no small thing. However, once again, there are reasons we’ve had no applicants for these positions.

Anyone who desires to engage these groups will be faced with an extremely challenging task. First, they will have to learn at least two new languages, the majority trade language the minority group uses in the marketplace and government offices as well as the mother tongue. They may be the first outsiders to ever attempt to learn said language. It may be only an oral language and not yet be written down or have its own alphabet. Most of these groups live in dangerous border areas which present difficulties for residential work, such as the ability to get a visa and the ability to have a work identity in the community that provides access and makes sense. Most also live in small towns and villages, a fishbowl type of setting where everyone will be aware of the presence of foreigners from day one – and where most are much more devout in their Islam or minority faiths.

As I mentioned above, foreign Christians living among these groups will need an identity that provides legitimacy and access. At the very least, they will need to open up a branch of an existing NGO or business, or they may need to build this kind of a platform from scratch. And then run it as they are also full-time learning language. Oh yes, and these are areas without any local or international churches or even other residential Christians. So the team will need to be able to thrive spiritually by themselves abiding in Jesus and by covenanting together as a healthy house church, perhaps made up of only the team for a long season. Homeschool or online school will be a must for any school-age kids, even if they are able to attend local school for the sake of language and relationships.

These areas are less developed, meaning spotty electricity and water supply. This exacerbates the blistering hot summers and the very cold winters. Decent medical care will be at least a couple hours drive away. Good medical care will be a couple hours drive and then a flight to another country. This will hit home when one of your kids has an appendicitis scare, as our daughter did this week.

In all likelihood, after one or two terms of residential work, once the mother tongue is learned and some have come to faith, the team will get run out of town by the local religious leaders. At that point they’ll need to relocate to one of the bigger cities of our region and continue their work in the homeland from a distance and with whatever displaced population of their focus group lives in the city. Par for the course with our regional people groups, group implosions, betrayal, false conversions, and heartbreaking apostasy await – a long string of deep disappointment with locals they had hoped would be future leaders.

Sounding impossible yet? Not so fast. We know that Jesus has his sheep, even among these unengaged groups. They will hear his voice (John 10:16). The harvest is ripe (John 4:35). All we lack are some laborers, some seemingly-crazy trailblazers who embrace the shame of a foolhardy task for the joy set before them, knowing that the kingdom is unstoppable and the mouths of all scoffers will one day be shut as even the most unlikely bow the knee to king Jesus. These groups will have churches among them, sooner or later. God will not use dreams and visions alone. These only ever precede and accompany his workers. He will use his chosen means, his Church and his Word, his proclaiming people.

Perhaps you feel a strange burning in your chest as you read of these impossible tasks. Maybe instead of balking at the unlikelihood of success, you feel overtaken by an unusual confidence, perhaps even a jealousy for God’s glory among these forgotten peoples. Pay attention to those desires if they keep surfacing and if they align with gifting and opportunity. If they do, talk it over with your pastors and your closest believing friends. You may be called to be a trailblazer. We are sure praying that some of you will be.

My friend Reza* is one of only a handful of believers we know about from one of these UUPGs. What a joy it was to see one of the very first from this people group born again, knowing that he is a forerunner of many to come. What a joy it has been to get to share the gospel in the trade language with those from other UUPG groups, knowing that someday others will share the gospel with them in their mother tongue, and perhaps even give them a gospel of Luke or an entire Bible. They will demonstrate for these groups – some a half million strong – the powerful truth that God knows their oppressed minority language and even will speak to them through it.

This is a call for trailblazers. A few are called to this hard and wonderful work. A great many will be called to the crucial work of sending and supporting them. May God show us which one he is calling each one of us to.

*names changed for security

Photo by Hossein Amiri on Unsplash

When My Iranian Friend Took Mohler’s Parking Spot

The year before I got married was the only time I lived on campus at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary during my studies there. Two single men from my church had an opening for a roommate, and it proved to be a great opportunity for fellowship as well as saving some money for marriage.

At the time, a group of us were attempting to get a Bible study going among Iranian refugees in Louisville. My roommates agreed that we could host the first one. The only problem was that the individual buildings on campus didn’t have separate addresses. This meant that we could only give the main campus address to our Iranian friends for them to navigate their way there. The plan was for them to call us once they arrived somewhere on campus and for us to direct them to our hall.

I was excited for this Bible study to begin, and while we waited I prepped some chai in the coffee maker and fried up some chicken. Soon, a couple of the attendees arrived. We waited to get started until another new friend, Reza*, had arrived. He seemed to be taking longer than he should. Maybe he had gotten lost?

My cell phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is campus po-lees,” began the thick Kentucky accent. “Are you A.W.?”

“I am. Is everything OK?” I replied, suddenly nervous.

“Well… I got an Eye-rain-eeun here who says he’s comin’ to your place, but I caught him parkin’ in the president’s parking spot.”

I bit my lip so as not to laugh. Anyone who’s been around SBTS knows that the campus police and staff are very serious about guarding Dr. Mohler’s official spaces, parking or otherwise. Of the hundreds of parking spots on campus, how had Reza managed to park in the only one reserved for the seminary president of all people? I shook my head as the guard continued.

“When I approached him, he took off runnin’! But I caught him and he’s tellin’ me a story I’m not sure I believe. You got some kind of Eye-rain-eeun Bible study goin’ on here like he says?”

“Uh, yes sir, we do. You can let him go and send him over to Fuller hall.”

“Alright, then… well, tell him next time not to park in the president’s spot. Have a good day,” the officer concluded, sounding not quite convinced by our story.

Reza arrived, looking relieved and a little winded. We all had a good laugh as he described what happened.

“I just followed the address on the GPS and it took me right there! I didn’t know that was the president’s special spot!”

“But Reza, why did you run from the campus police?”

“I’m a Middle-Easterner and an Iranian! When the police are coming after us, we have learned to run!” To be fair, Reza’s father had been imprisoned in Iran and Reza had himself to flee the country while still in high school.

We all sat down, passed out the chai, and began our time in the word. We ended up in Romans 5 that day, discussing how in Adam, all die, but in Christ, all can be justified. I distinctly remember when our point landed home for Reza.

“So you’re telling me that I am part of the wrong human family, one that is condemned, and I have to join a completely new human family?”

He seemed very surprised and somewhat incredulous.

“Yes, that’s exactly it!” we replied. “You have to become part of a new humanity, to be born spiritually into a new family by believing in Jesus.”

That day may have been the first time Reza had ever clearly understood the claims of the gospel. Unfortunately, that particular Bible study group soon after fell apart as one attendee claimed that another attendee was a spy – a common reason for group implosion among this particular demographic. However, Reza and I continued our friendship. He later came to faith and is still one of my best friends in the whole world.

The next day I was walking down the hallway on the way to class when I overheard one of the missions professors asking a colleague, “Did you hear about the Iranian who parked in Mohler’s parking space?”

I smiled, quietly enjoying the small disruption our little outreach had caused. From the few brief interactions I’ve had with Dr. Mohler over the years, I’m sure that if he did hear of it, he would have smiled as well.

*Names changed for security

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Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

Why We Go Light on Polemics

“You don’t have to point out what’s wrong with our religion. Deep down, we know more than you ever could regarding the dark things in Islam.”

This comment years ago from a Middle Eastern friend has always stuck with me. Over time, it has proven to be sound advice, wisdom that has been borne out in countless relationships with Muslims who are coming from honor-shame cultures.

I’ve never had a personality that naturally goes hard after polemics, which is the practice of highlighting the weaknesses and errors of other religions and worldviews as a method of thereby getting to the gospel. But when locals outright deny, brush under the rug, or just plain don’t know about the the scandalous or dark parts of their holy books or prophet’s life, it is awfully tempting to start attacking these foundations of their belief, even for me.

I am not saying there is never a time to do polemics. After all, Paul says that we “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor 10:5). There will be times when we follow the Spirit’s leading into saying something true that makes our hearers very angry – let’s not forget about the example of Stephen in Acts 7. And sometimes a direct assault will land home and result in further questions. But let’s also remember the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4, where Jesus doesn’t take the bait of entering into religious controversy in order that he might more effectively speak to the heart of his hearer. Many times, arguments about controversies are mere talking points or smokescreens meant to deflect from the real heart issues going on.

The main issue I’ve faced with polemical approaches is that they risk triggering a defensive response, where someone is overtaken by the sense that they are duty-bound to protect their community’s honor from the attacks of an outsider, whether they internally side with their community or not. Westerners might feel this way if the attacks aren’t perceived to be fair and balanced. Those coming from honor-shame cultures often feel this fire to defend simply because there is an attack at all – fair or not. This means that someone who might otherwise listen to the gospel can go into fight mode if I start “dishonoring” the creed and traditions of his people – and then the chance to get to the gospel can be lost.

This is where my friend’s comment has proved to be so helpful. By sharing what he did, he let me know that things in Islam’s sources and history like child brides, slavery, wife-beating, the killing of Jews and infidels, the hypocrisy of the religious establishment, and the jihad-gained wealth of Muhammad and his companions are not only known to many locals, but can even keep them up at night. Many Muslims are already wrestling with these things, albeit quietly.

Since this is the case, I don’t have to go to these risky places of conversation early on in my relationship with my Muslim friend. When I share with him about Jesus or we study the Bible together, often he is automatically comparing what he hears with what Islam has taught him. And our conversation can keep on going since no open attacks on honor have yet taken place. Instead, a thousand indirect attacks are taking place and are mounting through the simple explanation and illustration of gospel truth.

Taking a look at how husbands are called to love their wives in Ephesians 5 or how Jesus calls us to love our enemies in Matthew 5 holds up a powerful contrast for a Muslim friend. He must then wrestle with this contrast that his mind is now faced with, the stark difference between texts like these and his own. In this way, polemics are in a sense happening, but indirectly, as a kind of open secret. We both know what is going on, but without verbally acknowledging it we have room in an honor-shame culture to skip the usually-required defense.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for this kind of beginning to eventually lead to an explicit discussion of Muhammad, the Qur’an, or those seventy virgins promised in the Islamic conception of paradise. But the respectful long approach to these topics and the relational credibility established by that point often mean a very different kind of conversation – one where my friend lets me know he’s ready by asking my thoughts on these topics, where he is free to share his own doubts and questions, and where I can say direct things, knowing that they will be heard in love.

There is also a big difference in this area between ourselves and local believers. We’ve found that local believers are able to engage in helpful polemics much more quickly than we are, because they are not viewed as outsiders. This seems to mean that the honor-shame defense mechanism doesn’t trigger in quite the same way for them as it does for us foreigners. This can go too far as new believers from a Muslim background do tend to go overboard with polemics – and at times forget to talk about Jesus. But it generally holds true that they have more of a chance than we do of having their attacks actually heard.

Now, when we’re on a visit and someone publicly goes after the reliability of the Bible, I want to still be ready to respond back with a defense and questions of my own. The door to a kind of “challenge-riposte” conversation has been opened by a local, and to not defend and counter would be viewed as dishonorable. However, even in this kind of context I will hold back on the most controversial topics, knowing that, unfortunately, those from honor-shame cultures can dish the attacks out, but they struggle to take it back without losing their heads. Alas, every culture has its weaknesses.

However, our usual approach to polemics is to go light and indirect, the equivalent of giving a man some roast lamb before we try to take his poorly-cooked rice away. Once faced with the choice, he will want to choose the lamb. But if rice is all he has, he will fight for that bowl of starch with all that he has. Instead, set the lamb down, let him smell and taste it, and then attempt the rice away. This kind of contrast – and timing – can make all the difference.

Photo by Hans Ripa on Unsplash