How do I begin to meet and witness to Muslims in my community?

To reach Muslims we must be pro-active. We must plan ahead and be intentional in our efforts. We have broken the process from the first contact with a Muslim up to discipleship into 4 intentional environments. These environments are based on the “invest and invite” principle: when you invest in a friendship with that person and then invite them to attend one of these environments. The four environments represent the front door, dining room, living room, and kitchen of a house. We want to progress Muslims from the front door where we first meet them all the way to the kitchen where we labor together for the Gospel’s sake.

1. With-ness Enviroment                 -Connecting people

Front door- Where we meet them

                        To reach a Muslim for Christ you have to somehow meet them. Pretty elementary but it’s true. We often skip that step and go directly to witnessing to them and then grow frustrated when there is no one to witness to. We have called this first environment the “with-ness” environment.   

There are great tools for reaching people that churches utilize such as tract distribution, tv and newspaper ads, and such. However, if you haven’t noticed, Muslims (and any other religious group for that matter) aren’t pouring into Bible-preaching churches just because they received an impersonal invitation. People respond to a message when they have a personal relationship with the person sharing the message. Unless you meet someone, you will never gain his trust.

Here we get into their lives,whether we create and promote the environment ourselves or join a pre-organized environment. To be a true with-ness activity it must include people have not yet had a chance to get to the Evangelistic environment.

Examples of good with-ness environments we have done:   

• Cookout in their neighborhood


• Volunteering to help with English or after school program at the university


• Soccer or other games with high interaction levels


• Door-to-door visitation where we know Muslims live (you can find out by looking under “Mohammed”, “Ali”, “Osama”, and other Muslim names in the phone book.)


• Frequenting their grocery stores and gas stations

You will find Muslim populations in any large cities in the following areas:

·        Middle eastern and international grocery stores

·        University ESL department

·        In the phone book by doing a last name search

·        Neighborhoods (often there will be a large concentration of a particular nationality in certain neighborhoods)

Environment details:

1. Must bring Christians into purposeful contact with the target

-Planned activities work best.

2. All involved must know their next goal: Bring them from their environment to ours at a Velcro environment.

2. Velcro Environments               -Sticking people

Dining Room- Where we sit down with them and befriend them

Velcro Activities stick people to us before they have been interested enough to stick themselves to the gospel. These activities are designed around people we have met during the With-ness environments. These can be planned around the already attending lost people to ensure that they will come and we are doing something they want.

Examples of Velcro environments:

·  Bowling on Friday night

·  Soccer on Saturday morning

·  At a friends house to hang out after church

·  Cookout on labor day, July 4^th, etc

·  Special American holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas

Environment details:

2. This replaces their current social circle so that the gap is not so hard to jump when they do decide to accept Christ. The statistics say that a person will have 7 Christian friends before accepting Christ.


3. New or weaker  Christians can have a big part of the organization. Teach them their goals: To bring up the subject of Christ in the context of a growing friendship.


4. The second contact should be a Velcro environment. Now we must involve them in an Evangelistic environment.

3. Evangelistic Environment            -Convincing people

Living Room- Where they are convinced

In this environment we present the gospel. Whether it is a Sunday school class, a Bible study, or something else, the gospel must be clearly presented. We need them to come to enough of these until they are convinced. It probably won’t happen the first time. The main purpose for an evangelistic environment is to “bring up the subject”. Often times we need to attach something entertaining with the evangelistic environment so that they’ll want to come.

            This environment is really the goal of building the whole relationship. Until they hear the pure gospel presented to them they won’t accept Christ. Until they have a friendship with a Christian they won’t come to an evangelistic environment where they will hear the gospel.

Examples of evangelistic environments:

·        Sunday School

·        Small group Bible study

·        Special event at the church (Mathew’s Banquet, China night, a Kurdish Celebration, Etc)

Environment details:

1. Must be run and preached with target audience in mind (lost people)


2. Don’t try to answer every question. Just one point of the large picture. It will give the Christians a talking point during a later conversation.


3. The subject does not have to be based on the gospel. But it must be based on something that will help lost people and show them to value of Christ and the Word of God.


4. Everyone who comes must be being guided by a Christian who is personally bringing this person to the gospel one on one as well.


5. No Christian should be left in this stage. They need to be brought into both of the discipleship branches.

Note: The Velcro Environmnts and the Evangelistic Evironments will need to alternate with a healthy balance until the person is convinced of Christ. Even if it takes months or years, as long as they are still willing to come to the Evangelistic Environment then keep them Velcroed.

4. Discipleship Environments            -Growing people

Kitchen- Where they are taught and put to work

These activities should not be promoted to lost people. They are for those born-again people of the Spirit of God. During this discipleship time we want to grow believers in the faith and in the work. During this time we teach other believers about the strategic environments we want them to lead people through. We cast the vision for why, when, and how of the environments so that the new Christians know how to get involved and can invite their friends.

Examples of Discipleship Environments:

·        Sunday night or midweek services

·        Small group (made up of Christians)

·        One on one discipleship

2 branches of Discipleship that everyone must go through:

1.      Personal- Whether one on one or one on 5 we must take them step by step through a discipleship course. If the class only has 5 people, do it with everyone together even if they’ve been through it before, so that when the class grows everyone will be able to disciple somebody.

2.      Group- There must be a time where you get your SS class together and disciple. If your Sunday morning is meant for evangelism then you need a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly activity where you disciple. A good time for this would be after evening services once per week. They are going to go hang out with each other anyway. Invite everyone to a house, have food, have fun, and teach a short Bible lesson or have a purposeful discussion. They must know that they can invite Christian friends but not lost people.

Bottom Line: It doesn’t matter which services or activities fit these environments. What matters is that all of these environments are happening every week so that people are taking steps.

Lost people must be going from our front door to our dining room to our living room and then to the kitchen. Once at the kitchen they can work to escort people through the house.

When the group is small this will all function in one unit. Once the core group of Christians hits 10 or 15, then leaders can be trained to multiply these environments to see more people reached with the gospel. As the group grows there must be many front door environments to introduce ourselves to the largest group of people. There must be many discipleship environments to train people effectively. There must be many Velcro environments to allow for a lot of friendships to be established. There may, however, be one main evangelistic environment where everyone comes, brings there lost friends, and the gospel is presented in a very attractive, understandable, relevant way.

The Story of a Muslim College student who took these steps:

            “I met Phil on my campus playing soccer about 6 months ago. I’d played with him a couple times and we always had a good time. He invited me one time to a cookout on memorial day along with some other mutual friends. We all went and had a real good time. Phil seems like kindness just flows out of him. He always says it is because of Jesus Christ. After the cookout he invited me to their church for a Sunday. I liked Phil but I’d never been to a church. I went and the music really spoke to me. The message helped me out with some things I was facing that week. I remember this illustration that the teacher used. He was a great communicator. Phil and I kept hanging out with some more people from his group at the church. Playing soccer or something else. I am not sure whether it was the love of the people at the church or why but I kept going back to the church. After about a month I began to ask a lot of questions about Jesus Christ and Phil would always have his Bible and show me the answers. Last month I accepted Christ as my Savior. It has been awesome. I am now going through the discipleship lessons with Phil and some other guys from the class. The messages on Sunday night and Thursday night are really helping me grow stronger. My friends Ihsan and Ishmael are starting to hang out with Phil, too and come to church on Sunday morning. Phil and I are praying that they get saved.”

Focus: Don’t do anything that won’t lead people through these environments. If you can’t see what you are doing is taking people through the front door all the way to the kitchen, there is a problem in what you are doing.

Balance: Don’t be too unbalanced on any side or the system will stop flowing. Close the front door and you’ll have noone coming into the living room. Stop inviting people effectively to the living room and you’ll have a lot of people eating in your dining room (costing time and money) but never making it to the kitchen. If you fail to design the living room to be effective you’ll never see anyone saved, no matter how many come to church.