Talk to Muslims -- not at them

I have a Muslim friend named Alaa who arrived in America with his wife and four children last year.

They escaped Iraq about half a step ahead of death.

Alaa celebrated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Later, he aided a U.S. soldier who was shot during a skirmish with Iraqi insurgents on Alaa’s street in Baghdad. Within 72 hours, Alaa had been targeted for revenge by local militia thugs. His second son was kidnapped. The kidnappers crushed the boy’s hand with a trunk lid as they tossed him in the back of their vehicle. They beat the child daily while demanding a small fortune for his life.

Desperate, Alaa ransomed his son with his life savings and the help of relatives. He went into hiding with his family. His house was destroyed by insurgents. Three months later, the family fled Iraq. After two years in another country, they finally entered the United States as refugees.
Alaa and his family have received a lot of practical help since they got here, from lodging and transportation to medical and job assistance. Most of it has come from Christians — and Alaa is very thankful. “They help me every time!” he says with amazement, smiling broadly.

The family is struggling to learn English and make ends meet, but they love America. The kids make good grades in school. Better days lie ahead.

Does Alaa sound like the kind of guy who secretly plans to take over America for radical Islam?

He experienced his fill of radical Islamists in Iraq: They nearly killed him. Today he’s mainly interested in becoming an American citizen. He also welcomes discussions of the Gospel, because he’s seen it lived out by people who care about him and his family.

I thought about Alaa as 3,000 or so Muslims gathered to pray Sept. 25 near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The event was billed as “Islam on Capitol Hill,” an opportunity to “illustrate the wonderful diversity of Islam.”

Various Christian groups expressed concern about the event, which failed to draw anywhere near the 50,000 Muslim pilgrims organizers had anticipated. National Muslim organizations reportedly declined to participate. Questions were raised about the motives of the sponsors, who proclaimed “Our time has come” as the event’s theme. One organizer, Hassen Abdellah, was part of the legal team that defended one of the attackers in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The public-relations timing of the rally also was less than ideal, coming as new plots by homegrown Muslim terrorists to attack U.S. targets, foiled in recent days, grabbed headlines.

Most of those who actually showed up for the Washington gathering quietly prayed in the shadow of the Capitol. The colorfully dressed crowd appeared to be a mix of U.S.-born and immigrant Muslims.

One of the main speakers and organizers, Imam Abdul Malik of Brooklyn, N.Y, made no secret of his ambitious agenda. “America, I announce to you it is my intention to invite your children to the worship of one God (Allah),” said Malik during a 40-minute address. “It is my intention to remove every idol from every place. Nothing physical — it is a confrontation of ideas.”

He also paid tribute to the freedom of speech and religion America affords: “What we’ve done today, you couldn’t do in any Muslim country. If you prayed on the palace lawn there, they’d lock you up.”

Many Christians living in Muslim lands would heartily agree with that statement.

Some Christians who came to the Washington event protested it — and Islam — with banners, chants and at least one blaring megaphone. Others watched, listened, prayed and sought opportunities to engage Muslims in conversations about God and faith.

The second approach is a more effective mission strategy — if you’re interested in talking to Muslims rather than at or about them.

“I say for people to get out and interact with people, to get to know Muslim people,” said Daryl Thomas, a Muslim carpenter from New York who attended the Washington gathering. “That’s basically what it is, just not knowing. So whatever’s in front of you, whether it’s the media or someone who doesn’t like Muslims, you start to believe it. So you’ve got to get to know (us) for yourself. Get out and visit mosques just a like a friend would invite you to another church.”

He’s right.

Like it or not, we now live in the crossroads of the world. America has become a fragmented, chaotic marketplace of ideas, cultures, religions and philosophies. It’s frightening and frustrating at times.

It also presents one of the greatest mission opportunities in the history of the Christian church.

Chances are Muslims live, work or go to school near you — or soon will. Befriend them. Help them. Listen to them. Share Jesus with them.

That’s what I’m doing with my friend Alaa.

Note to the boss: Thank you

Dear Jerry Rankin: I knew this day would come, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.

You’re retiring next summer as president of IMB (International Mission Board). When you made the announcement to our trustees, I thought back to the days leading up to your election 16 years ago.

At the time, you were a missionary and mission administrator who’d been in Asia for 23 years. By your own admission, you were quite happy on the field where God had called you — and you weren’t all that excited about dealing with Southern Baptist bureaucracy and politics back home.

You said you felt “inadequate to the task.” You were reluctant to take on the gargantuan job of leading the largest evangelical missionary-sending agency during “a peak of controversy regarding control of leadership roles among Southern Baptist Convention entities.”

You weren’t the only one with doubts. The convention was still reeling from years of painful struggle over its theology and identity. Your distinguished predecessor, R. Keith Parks, had crossed swords with multiple critics while leading the mission board toward new strategies to reach the world with the Gospel.

I can’t speak for other folks, but some of us grizzled reporter types in the old IMB newsroom thought you were going to get taken apart limb from limb in the first year.

It didn’t quite turn out that way. I think we all underestimated you.

You’ve led us through some tough times, to be sure. You’ve taken your share of criticism — some of it fair, some of it misguided and wrong. I’ve grumbled myself a few times.

Today, though, I want to thank you for stepping up and taking the heat, even when it hurt. For spending countless nights away from home in dodgy airplanes and dingy Third World airports. For attending innumerable meetings. For preaching thousands of mission messages to churches at home. And for walking beside thousands of missionaries and Christian servants in some of the darkest places on earth.

More than that, thank you for being a disciplined and visionary leader from day one.

I’ve never heard you speak to an audience or congregation without using these three words: “a lost world.” Not once. I got tired of hearing it — until I realized it wasn’t a phrase but a consuming passion within you. The fact that so many millions of people have yet to hear the name of Jesus Christ actually breaks your heart. I want it to break mine.

By far the biggest challenges IMB missionaries and staff have faced during your tenure have involved not convention politics or economic difficulties but the “main thing”: How do we reach a lost world with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ? As a leader, you have never taken your eye off that all-important task, given to us by the Lord Himself in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations …”

All nations, not just the ones that are open, friendly or willing to grant missionary visas. And not just all “nations” as we understand them in the political sense, but all peoples — in all their staggering cultural, ethnic and linguistic variety. That is how God sees the world, and He wants all the peoples of the world to worship Him in spirit and truth.

The magnitude of that command led you to become not a denominational bureaucrat but a revolutionary. As a field missionary who started out in an earlier era, you first had to revolutionize your own thinking about missions. You embraced new strategies you once questioned and aggressively spread them throughout a global enterprise.
You declared that the International Mission Board would no longer talk about reaching the whole world while sending missionaries only to part of it. Rather, we would mobilize Southern Baptists and other Great Commission-minded Christians to do whatever it takes to plant churches among every unreached, unevangelized and unengaged people group.

In a day when people demand hands-on involvement, you declared we would move beyond simply sending missionaries. Instead, we would make local Southern Baptist churches — regardless of their size — full strategic partners in the task of global missions. That is their biblical role, after all, something often forgotten in the age of professional missions.

It’s not always easy working with a revolutionary — especially one who advocates continuous revolution in pursuit of a grand vision. You have initiated two major IMB reorganizations (the latest is still unfolding) and many smaller ones during your tenure. Missionary and staff assignments have changed and changed again. Strongly held beliefs about mission methods have been repeatedly challenged. Comfort zones have been abolished.

And you’re still pushing and prodding us to take the next step.

Has it been worth all the blood, sweat and tears? As an occasionally queasy rider on the “Rankin Express” for the past 16 years, I say yes.

A large, traditional mission board now embraces new and even experimental strategies to impact lostness. An organization once known for going it alone now aggressively pursues mission partners overseas and church partners at home. I’m not exactly objective, but in an era suspicious of all institutions, I honestly believe IMB is more relevant than ever to people who seriously want to reach the nations.

You helped get us to this point, Jerry. Where your continuous energy comes from, I don’t know. Deep prayer, I suspect, and powerful coffee.

Thank you for being passionate and not just talking about it. Thank you for taking spiritual warfare seriously. Thank you for being obsessed — in a holy way — with a lost world.

When a reporter asked about your legacy a few years back, you responded: “I would like to be able to say, ‘We can no longer identify a people group that doesn’t have access to the Gospel.’ To me, that’s the essence of what we’re about.”

We’re not there yet, Jerry. But we’re a lot closer than we were 16 years ago.

Human family: 7 billion by 2011

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The latest world population numbers and forecasts tell us what we already know: The human family lives more and more in the global South and East.

The rest of us are becoming country cousins, scattered through the isolated hinterlands of the North and the West.

That’s an absurd exaggeration, of course — but not as absurd as you might think.

Most of humanity is in Asia and Africa. If “God so loved the world,” as Scripture says, it stands to reason that He would focus passionate attention on the places where most of “the world” lives. So should we.

The global population will reach 7 billion in 2011, only 12 years after topping 6 billion in 1999, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). The Washington, D.C.-based agency released its annual World Population Data Sheet in August with accompanying analysis of global demographics by region, age, income, gender and other categories.

“Even with declining fertility rates in many countries, world population is still growing at a rapid rate,” says Bill Butz, the bureau’s president. “The increase from 6 billion to 7 billion is likely to take 12 years, as did the increase from 5 billion to 6 billion. Both events are unprecedented in world history.”

Africa’s population just topped 1 billion and will double by 2050. Asia, now at 4.1 billion, will increase to 5.3 billion by mid-century. The population of Latin America and the Caribbean, 580 million, will climb to 724 million by then.

With 307 million people, the United States is the third-largest country in the world — far behind China and India with more than 1 billion each, but ahead of Indonesia and Brazil. U.S. population is projected to reach 439 million by the year 2050.

But Eastern and Western Europe are shrinking as growth rates decline and even reverse — the potential death knell of nations in the long term. Europe’s current population of 738 million is projected to fall to 702 million by 2050.

Future growth will come almost entirely (97 percent) in the developing world, according to projections, with the fastest growth in the poorest countries.

Here’s a stark example: Canada and Uganda have nearly the same populations today — 34 million and 31 million, respectively. Uganda, however, likely will more than double Canada’s population by 2050.

“The great bulk of today’s 1.2 billion youth — nearly 90 percent — are in developing countries,” says Carl Haub, PRB senior demographer and co-author of the data sheet.

About one in every five people on earth, then, is between the ages of 15 and 24. Eight in 10 live in Africa and Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s youngest population and will for many years to come.

True, the overall world population is aging: Global median age is projected to increase from 28.9 to 38.4 by 2050. But for now, youth rules — demographically speaking.

The implications of these numbers for Christians are many. I’ll emphasize just one: responding to the ongoing youth explosion in the developing world.

“During the next few decades, these young people will most likely continue the current trend of moving from rural areas to cities in search of education and training opportunities, gainful employment and adequate health care,” Haub predicts.

Major investments in their health, education and job training will pay major dividends, says the PRB report — stating the obvious. The lack of such investment, on the other hand, will result in massive frustration, suffering, criminality and violence.

The same is true in the spiritual realm. The church universal must — must — do whatever it takes to assist, evangelize and make disciples among the young people of the global South and East in this generation. They deserve the very best we have to give.

Anything less would be a tragic abdication of obedience to God’s mission in our day.

Back to school for 130 million

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Another school year is gearing up — a good time to focus on one of the fastest-growing “people groups” on the planet: college students.

Worldwide, the number of college students has more than doubled — to 130 million — in the past 50 years, according to Ken Cochrum, global campus strategist for Campus Crusade for Christ.

“If taken as a whole, this generation of college students would constitute the world’s 10th-largest country,” Cochrum reports in the August edition of Lausanne World Pulse. “Governments of developing nations have realized that their future depends upon a well‐educated population who can compete in today’s borderless ‘glocal’ economy.”

Those governments, joined by corporations and advertisers, “invest millions of dollars each year attempting to influence students and the choices they will make for the rest of their lives,” Cochrum observes. “What about the church? What level of urgency and intentionality do we give to making disciples and building Christ-centered movements among students today?”

Good question.

Cochrum lists some of the major urban centers that have become magnets for students — Moscow with 1.2 million, Mexico City with 400,000, Rome with 250,000. The list grows, along with the hopes of millions of families riding on their sons and daughters seeking higher education.

I met several elite university students in Moscow a few years ago. They attended a professional development seminar based on Christian principles.

The seminar stressed the “soft skills” seldom seen in Russia’s highly competitive business climate: relating to others, constructive criticism, encouragement and teamwork.

“We’re really trying to help students with their understanding of human relationships,” explained one of the seminar leaders, a Southern Baptist worker. “How do you treat people if you want to build trust? One of the most important principles we focus on with them is the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like to be treated — with dignity and value.

“We’ve had students who’ve finished the initial phase of training say to us, ‘This is going to change my life.’ Or they’ll say, ‘The Golden Rule is the most important rule in all of life.’ These are lost people saying what Jesus said. It really is business training, but it’s amazing what the Holy Spirit can do when we present truth.”

Maxim, an international business major, had tears in his eyes after the final session as he thanked the leaders. He wrote on his seminar evaluation form:

“I’d like to find out my values. Would you help me? Do you think that career is the meaning of life? When I’m dying, I want to be sure that I was a good man, that I’ve walked through a right life. Is there truth in business that’s going to help me?”

The next step: an invitation to one-on-one mentorships with Christian business professionals. After that, responsive students are invited to home worship groups to delve more deeply into the Gospel. When they become disciples, they will become leaders for Christ in Russia.

Churches and mission ministries probably will never have enough resources to reach every searching student like Maxim. The way to keep up with the global student explosion, Cochrum believes, is to nurture student-led movements that multiply disciples and leaders.

“Healthy student-led movements of spiritual multiplication serve as a leadership engine for the body of Christ,” he says. “Students don’t remain students forever. Within five years most of these 130 million will be on their journey to the marketplace. They will begin leading families and paying taxes. They will shape fields such as government, scientific research, education, sports and entertainment.

“Today’s students will determine tomorrow’s culture. … The next few years represent a significant window of opportunity.”

And let no one underestimate their spiritual potential. American Protestants counted fewer than 1,000 missionaries worldwide before the YMCA launched the Student Volunteer Movement in 1888, led by John R. Mott. By 1920, the movement had directly mobilized more than 8,700 missionaries for reaching the lost — and influenced many more to go — setting the stage for an unprecedented era of Christian expansion worldwide, despite the wars and upheavals of the 20th century.

A new student-led movement might do the same in our time.

Doomsday (the movie)

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Don’t make any long-range plans: The world will end in fire and flood on Dec. 21, 2012.

If not that day, then definitely no later than Dec. 23. It depends on how you calculate the ancient Mayan calendar, which supposedly ends on one of those dates after 5,125 years, at which time earth will be destroyed by a massive solar flare or a collision with another planet.

On the bright side, it might not be the end at all, but rather a galactic realignment or transformation of cosmic consciousness. Or something like that.

Those are the confident predictions of assorted mystics and “experts” who want to sell you their books and videos for only $19.95. But wait; there’s more! A Major Motion Picture about it is coming to a theater near you — this year, of course, so it has plenty of time to go to DVD before the apocalypse.

End-of-the-world stories have flooded multiplexes, TV networks and bookstores in recent years. Meteors. Storms. Epidemics. Aliens. Flesh-eating zombies. Are such stories an excuse for movie producers to create cool digital effects and fill theater seats? Partly, yes. But they also reflect the fears and anxieties of people living in unstable times, according to pop culture critics.

The golden age of bad horror movies arrived in the 1950s, when the postwar world began living under the shadow of a terrifying new threat: nuclear annihilation. Cheesy disaster flicks abounded in the 1970s, after American society seemingly had disintegrated in the wake of protests, riots, assassinations, Vietnam and Watergate.

The latest invasion of doomsday films is understandable, what with the psychological dislocations caused by the turn of the millennium, 9/11, wars, terrorism, pandemics, economic havoc and climate-change fears.

“Terrorists are coming to get you! And the world is going to end, six different ways! But first a word from our sponsor,” is how TIME columnist James Poniewozik describes the media frenzy. “Super-terrorists, natural disasters and mega viruses are not imaginary. But they’re more viscerally scary and easier to apprehend than vital but boring systemic problems like the economy and public health.”

Beyond real or hypothetical disasters, the relentless pace of change makes it harder and harder for people to cope with day-to-day life. Temporary escape into apocalyptic fantasies is appealing.

I love disaster stories. I’ve been a science fiction buff since I was a kid. But that doesn’t mean I believe the planet will explode next week. Nor do most Americans. A study released by LifeWay Research earlier this year found that only 11 percent of 1,600 survey participants agreed with the statement, “I believe that the world will end in my lifetime.”

Still, preoccupation with doomsday scenarios distracts many people from more immediate issues. It also distracts Christians, some of whom spend more time debating the exact meaning of the imagery in the Revelation to John than living and proclaiming the Gospel of John.

A young man I know who is seeking to follow Christ stops by the house about once a week. We walk around the block, talk about the challenges he’s facing and what the Bible says about life. Recently he asked with an anxious tone, “Is the world gonna end in 2012?” He’d heard about the Mayan calendar thing, too. He also described the frightening dreams he had after reading the most difficult and mysterious passages in the Book of Revelation.

I quickly directed him to perhaps the most relevant portion of Revelation for our time: the first three chapters. The risen Christ chastises the seven churches of Asia Minor for leaving their first love of God, for their lukewarm spirituality and for tolerating sin in their midst.

“Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God,” Christ warns the church in Sardis. “So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I come to you” (Revelation 3:2, 3, NASB).

That passage clarifies several things we know from other parts of Scripture: Jesus Christ will return to earth. We do not know the day or hour. Until that day arrives, our best course of action is to repent of our sins and halfhearted worship, return to our first love for the Lord and obey Him in all things.

There’s something else we must do to prepare for His return: Proclaim the Gospel to all peoples. Jesus’ clearest statement about the apocalypse appears in Matthew 24:14 (NASB): “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

Then and only then. So let’s get to work.

To the desert

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The story is told of a third-century Christian monk, Abba Agathon, who lived alone in the Egyptian desert:

One day Agathon was going to town. On the roadside, he met a man with paralyzed legs who asked him where he was going.

“To town, to sell some things,” Agathon answered.

The crippled man replied, “Do me the favor of carrying me there.”
So Agathon carried him to town. When they arrived, the man said, “Put me down where you sell your wares.” After Agathon sold something, the man asked, “For how much did you sell it?” Agathon told him. The man said, “Buy me some food.” Agathon did.

When Agathon had sold all his wares and was preparing to leave, the man asked, “Will you do me the favor of carrying me back to the place where you found me?” Agathon picked him up and carried him back to that place.

As the monk prepared to leave him, the man said, “Agathon, you are filled with divine blessings, in heaven and on earth.”

Raising his eyes, Agathon saw not a crippled man, but an angel of the Lord.

Tall tale? Perhaps. The story comes from Sayings of the Desert Fathers, a compilation of maxims and legends attributed to some of the earliest Christian hermits and mystics. They went to the deserts of Sinai, Palestine and other places in the Holy Land, partly to escape the corruption of the cities — but mostly to seek God and do battle with the temptation in their own hearts.

Some of them became unhinged after years alone in the desert. Some were fools. But they were holy fools. Another story about Agathon:

Several monks came to find him in his solitary cell, having heard of his great discernment. Wanting to see if he would lose his temper, they asked, “Aren’t you that Agathon who is said to be a sinner and a proud man?”

“Yes, it is very true,” he answered.

“Aren’t you that Agathon who is always talking nonsense?” they asked.

“I am.”

Again they said, “Aren’t you Agathon the heretic?”

“I am not a heretic,” he instantly shot back.

“Tell us why you accepted everything we cast at you, but repudiated this last insult,” they asked.

He replied, “The first accusations I take to myself, for that is good for my soul. But heresy is separation from God. I have no wish to be separated from God.” They were astonished at his discernment and returned home, edified.

That’s about as complicated as the theology of the early desert monks gets. They didn’t talk much.

“A monk ought not to inquire how this one acts or how that one lives,” advises another saying. “Questions like this take us away from prayer and draw us on to backbiting and chatter. There is nothing better than to keep silent.”

Here is a complete sermon from Abba Paul (died circa 415 A.D.): “Keep close to Jesus.”

What significance do the voices of a few ancient hermits have for our frenetic lives? The answer to that question may lie in another question: If they felt compelled to seek holiness in the wilderness, long ages before the countless distractions of modern life, what about us? We, too, need to seek God in the desert — the desert within our hearts. That’s where most spiritual battles are fought.

The Apostle Paul’s admonition to “fight the good fight of the faith” (1Timothy 6:12) has “nothing external about it at all,” writes Andree Seu. “You will never see someone ‘fight the good fight of the faith.’ It all happened when you weren’t there, alone on a long country walk, just between him and the Lord. That’s where the blood and sweat and dying occurred. By the time you spotted the fellow out in public — in the visible battlefield … pushing away some lucrative job offer or not leaving his wife — the heavy lifting was already done.”

The same applies to the battles that decide whether whole nations and peoples will hear the Gospel. The big, history-changing spiritual struggles begin in prayer. The strongholds of darkness are defeated by people on their knees. Will a gifted young person pursue a prestigious career or serve in a place most folks have never heard of? Will a potentially great church commit itself to reaching the lost or continue playing it safe?

And always, silent skirmishes rage within each soul. Will you serve Christ today, or will you serve your own desires? “If there is no constant battle, there is probably no authentic life,” Seu contends. “The battle can be joyful, but it is a battle.”

The desert monks understood that.

Imam on the move

Listen to an audio version at http://media1.imbresources.org/files/82/8231/8231-45836.mp3

Yusuf* was a young man in a hurry when I met him in London nearly two years ago.

Just back from a much-needed holiday, the 20-something imam (prayer leader) of one of London’s Muslim mosques was playing catch-up: juggling meetings, e-mails and text messages when he wasn’t leading prayers. The busy round of activities for the holy month of Ramadan was gearing up.

But Yusuf took a short break to talk about his life and work. And his hobbies: soccer, tennis and a punching bag he pounds at home.

“I love theme parks, too,” he added enthusiastically. “I love the extreme fear rides” — the faster the better.

The recreation gave him a brief respite from his many responsibilities, which included teaching Islam, overseeing the mosque’s school, counseling and office management. He wanted to spend more time introducing what he called the “right message” of Islam to the community — and countering the media-fueled image of Islamic radicals in London. He referred to the radicals as “so-called Muslims who give Islam a bad name.”

But the mosque council — Yusuf’s deacon board, you might say — wanted him to handle even more of what he called “stupid, like, administration stuff” around the mosque.

“You don’t need an imam to do that,” he complained, shaking his full-bearded head and adjusting his skullcap. “The true way of the Prophet (Muhammad) we try to emulate is that he went out and got people and brought them in. But the committee members I am under, their mentality is you need to be here. I have so much stuff to do here that I don’t actually get out and do the stuff I really want to do.”

Yusuf’s family came from abroad, but he’s a Brit — born and bred in England. He attended school with other children but also memorized the entire Quran, Islam’s holy book, in Arabic. Then came time to choose a course in business, law or continuing Islamic studies.

“I prayed and asked God for guidance, and I asked my family members and teachers, ‘What way should I go?’” he recounted. “I went to sleep and I got a sign that following and understanding the Quran and the saints and the prophets in detail is the way for me to go.”

So, at 18, he began an intensive, eight-year course at an Islamic school. Even after that, not all Muslim scholars become imams. “As an imam, you have to be a counselor to people because you are a leader of a community,” he explained. “People come to you with their problems and you’ve got to be able to help them.”

People come to him with plenty of problems — especially family issues. Many Muslim marriages are in crisis. Couples enter his office asking for divorces; he tries to help them reconcile. Immigrant parents come to him deeply worried about their children, who get into drugs, drinking and other kinds of trouble in secular London.

After describing his busy life, Yusuf looked at a text message on his cell phone. He apologized for cutting short our visit and got up to rush to the next appointment.

I’ve wondered in the months since how Yusuf’s life is unfolding.

Does he spend more time in the community, as he wanted, or is he still swamped with “stupid, like, administration stuff”? Many a pastor can sympathize with his frustration about conflicting demands.

I mention Yusuf because Ramadan is approaching once again. The annual season when Muslims fast and seek God begins Aug. 22 this year. For some, it’s little more than a family ritual. For sincere spiritual seekers, however, it’s a time of deep repentance and prayer. That’s why followers of Christ pray for the world’s more than 1 billion Muslims throughout Ramadan.

Imams influence millions of Muslims. Who influences imams? If frequent reports from around the world are true, Christ Himself. As with so many other Muslims who begin to seek Christ, the encounter often begins in dreams.

In Southeast Asia, an influential imam became a believer after repeated dreams about a white-clothed man who told him to study the Bible. He reportedly has led some 3,000 other Muslims to faith in Jesus. He asks them if they have had similar dreams of a man clothed in white robes. If so, he tells them, “That is Jesus. He wants to speak with You, because He wants you to follow Him.”

In North Africa, an ex-imam was jailed years ago after becoming a follower of Christ. He led many fellow Muslim inmates to faith, however. The “Christian imam” has been transferred from one prison to another. The same thing happens each time: He starts churches in the prisons.

In another region, an evangelistic team arrived in a Muslim village to show the JESUS film. The largest wall in the village was the wall of the mosque, so team members asked the local imam for permission to project the film onto it. He granted their request. That night, after the film was shown, he was the first to respond to the call of Christ. Hundreds followed.

Perhaps Yusuf, the busy young imam in London, will respond to Christ one day. Pray for him — and for all the imams of the world.

*(Name changed)