Lovefast -1: Introducing Lovefast

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Day -1 of 30

By Phil Simpson from Mahabba’s Network Circle team

Introducing Lovefast, based on the 30 Days of Prayer booklet, but with a UK twist!

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Daily verse

“So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

— Hosea 12:6

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Thought for the day

Introducing Lovefast

Lovefast 2020 starts on 24 April 2020, again alongside the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World initiative.

Every year, following the lunar calendar, Muslims around the world fast and pray, earnestly seeking revelation from God and to become closer to him - this is the holy month of Ramadan.

Since 2014, Mahabba has run a prayer initiative to help Christians engage with Ramadan positively in prayer and action.

The aim of Lovefast is to couple prayer with action; that Jesus be unveiled to Muslims through practical acts of kindness by Christians in their communities.

The campaign is designed to complement and run alongside the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World booklet. It was inspired by Stewardship’s 40Acts challenge during Lent.

Join us again for prayer, action and encouragement in 2020 from 24 April to 23 May.

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Prayer for the day

Make a list of your Muslim contacts(Taxi-driver, doctor, local mum etc) and friends to pray for over the next 30 days Join in praying for them during LoveFast and share your story like this previous participant:

Lovefast has helped me to notice more Muslims in the crowd each day and I have felt prompted to pray for them during Ramadan. It’s great to be part of a community of people who are reaching out with God’s love and praying together. The daily email helped me not to forget! I have learned a lot more about Islam, and think more people should know about Lovefast!

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Daily action

If you’ve not done so already, order your booklet from 30 Days of Prayer and sign up to Mahabba’s Lovefast, so we can pray and act together as a Network for our Muslim friends.

Each day of Ramadan you will receive a short ‘thought for the day’ directly in your inbox. This will also contain ways to pray for Muslims and engage practically.

Once you’re done, share your interactions on social media!

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Your turn

Let us know how it went! Leave a comment below, or tag us on social media with the #lovefast hashtag on social media. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter!

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Resources

Do you want to involve your church in blessing Muslim people through prayer and friendship?

There are new 30 Days of Prayer church resources available for you:

• Pray Together as a Congregation

• Small Group Session

• Night of Power Prayer Meeting

• Prayer Walk Guide

What’s your next step after 30 Days? There are loads of resources to help you on your journey.

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Partners of 30 Days of Prayer

Fellowship of Faith for the Muslims

Global Connections

Simply Mobilising

Hope for Muslims

Operation Mobilisation

Interserve

Open Doors

WEC

Frontiers

London City Mission

Arab World Ministries

Elam

Frontiers Ireland

Mahabba Network

What's love got to do (with Muslims)?

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What does love mean (when it comes to our attitude towards Muslims)?

I grew up as a Muslim, in Kashmir where I lived with my parents. Ours was not a particularly religious world. Very few people in our village went to the mosque or followed some of the other duties expected of them by their religion. My father, however, was known as a religious man. He was my role model, so I tried to follow his example as I grew up.

He used to say to us that one’s religion was worthless if it did not benefit the needy. Slowly I began to understand what this meant. Ours was a welcoming and hospitable household. I could see that if people were hungry or thirsty or needed advice they would come to us. On occasions I saw my parents loan money to people (I am convinced some of it was not repaid).

After being sent to England, I moved away from my Kashmiri culture and my religion (the two were indistinguishable for me).

A Muslim Facebook friend recently posted that he had learnt about love from the Christians. It was the same for me. I could see the Christians I encountered were different from the other white people. Based on what I observed in them (and only that), after many years of little or no religious belief I was slowly drawn, and converted, to Christianity. As a follower of Jesus, I learnt that Love was a command in the Bible. We are told to ‘Love your Neighbour’. Jesus used the example of the Samaritans (a despised group) in order to explain what it meant. If he was telling that story now in the British context, it is likely he would use Muslims as the despised community, instead of the Samaritans.

The Bible also teaches us to love our enemies and pray for them; a very countercultural message indeed. There are plenty in our society (including some Christians sadly) who see the Muslims as an enemy. We are also taught not to oppress our neighbour (Exodus 23:9; Zechariah 7:10) . When it comes to Muslims in our society, many are oppressed and disadvantaged.

Many Muslims are immigrants, and even more are treated as such even when they are second or third generation British. We know that they are equally created in God’s image, and he would want us to welcome them and love them.

The Anglican report Faith in the City pointed out that many of us are willing to help individual victims of oppression, but fewer of us are willing to rectify injustices in the structures of society. This is because the former is easier. There is little risk involved.

But to be a protagonist of social change may involve challenging those in power and risking the loss of one’;s own power. Helping a victim or sufferer seldom involves conflict; working for structural change can hardly avoid it. Direct personal assistance to an individual may seem relatively straightforward, uncontroversial and rewarding; involvement in social issues implies choosing between complicated alternatives and accepting compromises which seem remote from any moral position.

And yet the Bible teaches us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves and execute justice for the immigrant (Deuteronomy 10:18). ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son’ (Jn.3:16). How far does our love extend when it comes to Muslims in our society?

Refreshed vision, renewed expectation

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Refreshed vision, renewed expectation

October update

Last year many of us contributed to a review of the Mahabba vision, seeking greater clarity and focus for the Network. In summary Mahabba, wherever it’s found, exists

‘to see ministry among people of Muslim heritage become a normal part of church life – it is a relational network encouraging prayer, enabling all Christians, envisioning the Christian community and engaging with Muslims’.

Work is continuing putting flesh on the bones of these words and this is a good time to expand on the vision and hear more from the network about how it is being worked out in practice.

Ministry among Muslims a normal part of church life – this is the vision, the picture of the future, we’re looking to, believing and working for. One church leader puts it like this:

“If you’d told me eight years ago that one day almost a quarter of our congregation would be people from a Muslim heritage, I’d have laughed in disbelief. Back in 2011 we took a risk. Having planted a small intercultural church in the city centre, we felt God leading us to bring the plant back into the sending church. We were joined by some returning missionaries and, with their help, the tiny handful of believers from a Muslim background began to grow.

Not everyone in our predominately white, middle class, congregation was enthusiastic about the changes. You might be greeted at the door with a warm Afghani handshake, or served coffee by a smiling group of Kurdish young men. Occasionally we would include a song from Iran in our worship. However, we were convinced that we were on a journey that reflected the heart of God. We taught from the books of Ruth and Acts about the importance of welcoming foreigners into God’s household. We listened month by month to baptism testimonies telling how Jesus is drawing people from the middle east to himself through dreams, visions and miracles. Gradually God has softened our hearts and deep cross-cultural friendships have developed.

There’s still a way for us to go, but as a church we’re not only beginning to reflect the diversity of the city around us; we’re also beginning to taste the rich cultural blend of the heavenly Jerusalem.”

Could you pause and pray now for a local church you know - that they will set out on that journey of prayer, welcome, bridge building, friendship and disciple-making. In the coming months these Network Updates will continue to unpack more of the vision.

Please share your thoughts, experiences or expectations on the Discourse discussion thread below or add a comment below.

May God give us renewed expectation as we catch more of his heart and journey together.

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Phil is a member of the Dashboard Circle team, with a particular focus on national development.

What could be a better time?

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What could be a better time?

Jill brings an encouragement from a local group getting together with Muslim friends to share God’s story

“What could be a better time than this for Muslim and Christian women to meet together in friendship?”

These were the first words that were said at the first of our Prophets’ Stories (see below for more info) meetings. It was the day after the Christchurch shootings and we were able to come with flowers and stand together with Muslim friends as they grieved. Then a month later when we met again, it was just after the Sri Lankan church bombings, and this time the Muslim ladies came with flowers and stood with us.

These two international tragedies cemented our desire to meet together in unity and look at the stories of the prophets. We had asked our friend, a young lady leading the women’s work at one of the town’s mosques, if she thought there might be a group of ladies who would like to look together at the stories we have in common and see what we can learn together about God and about ourselves. She was very enthusiastic and thus it was that our meetings began.

About a dozen of us, half Christian and half Muslim, have enjoyed getting to know each other. A few of the Christian women had never really met a Muslim, and some of the Muslim women had never met a real follower of Jesus.

“I walked in sceptical to other people’s views and worried about how they would react to opinions, but ended on a positive high.”

“I arrived, not really knowing what to expect. Now I’m really glad I came; I’m relaxed and excited for the next one.”

It was a great joy to see ladies who had only just met sharing deeply about their joys and their difficulties, and then discussing together what we learned about God from the stories of Jonah and Joseph. We talked, among other things, about what it means to trust God in difficult circumstances, being obedient to God, and the power of forgiveness in families.

Ramadan and school holidays interrupted our meetings – but we look forward to starting again in September and seeing what God will do!

Strident attitudes to Muslims

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August update

Things may seem to have gone quiet – but – a lot is happening behind the scenes. I was asked to update you now, to tide us over until September, when things pick up again in earnest.

My role in the Mahabba Network is to help implement our core purpose and vision; working with the network to ensure we have what is needed to flourish. A key part of this is to increase connectivity through sharing across the network.

An important felt need in the network seems to be how we respond to the current rise in strident attitudes to Muslims – especially in some Evangelical circles. This is being expressed verbally from some pulpits; online audio/visual materials; and in combative behaviour.

Since the change in political climate in the USA, I have noticed that some Evangelical groups in the UK are openly seeking to discredit Muslims, as though it were a new clause of the Great Commission. What’s more even fellow Christians are being denigrated publicly online and in print, for responding to Muslims with ‘grace and truth’. It would be great to hear from you if you are noticing anything along these lines, where you are.

It was suggested that the network should devise a “position statement” on ministry with ‘grace and truth’. This could be available on the website to point people to. It could be an effective way of dispelling misunderstanding that ‘grace and truth’ is a “soft” option; “naïve” or “liberal”. It would be to clarify where the term ‘grace and truth’ comes from; what the Bible says about it; why it is ‘Christly’; why it is part of historic Christian witness; how it can be modelled in practice; as well as identifying the political issues which are feeding ‘right wing’ strident views.

My sense is that people linked to the Mahabba Network, are engaging with ‘grace and truth’ on a spectrum from the ‘relational’ to the ‘robust’. So over to you – Do you concur? Would such a statement help us? How do you understand the term ‘grace and truth’? How far does it resonate with what you are doing and seeing in your area? My own feeling is that a position statement would also help to profile the unique contribution the Mahabba Network is making to the national conversation.

It would be great if you would add your thoughts to the Discourse discussion thread; or chat about your views to the Regional Facilitator in your area. Please be assured, whatever is important to you is certainly of keen interest to the network. Thanks for reading this and let’s keep one another covered in prayer through August.

Have a great remainder of the summer!

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Steve is a member of the Mahabba team, with a particular focus on development and strategy

All of them

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All of them

I have recently been running the ‘Come Follow Me’ course with a new Believer from a Muslim background one to one. I have been moved by the commitment of the student. One course question asks the student ‘What are the costly things you might have to give up’? ‘a. Your reputation in the community, b. your employment or business, c. your family, d. your property or inheritance, e. other’? His answer was ‘All of them!’ Matthew 19:29 is very apposite for such followers!

The method of learning used in Come Follow Me is ‘Head, Heart and Hands’. The ‘Head’ part is covered by the student reading the weeks notes alone and answering simple questions on them in their book before meeting to discuss it with their advisor. When the student has done this it works very well. I find that my student comes to meet with me already having a good grasp of the subject. Our meeting is where the ‘heart’ section of teaching applies. As we review the basic content of the weeks study together, perceptive questions are asked (given in the Advisors Guide). These really help to draw out the students feelings and experiences on the subject. This is a very important part of the course. The course outwardly may appear to be academic as it is in book form, but these questions really make it come alive. At the close of each week a practical assignment is given that relates to that weeks lesson. This is the ‘hands’ section. As the Advisor and student pray and live out the course during the following week, practical discipleship growth can take place.

The examples in the book are all taken from the Muslim cultural context, with Muslim sounding names and illustrations. Many of the examples are taken from real life. The other general examples are also extremely well informed on the Muslim experience of life. I have often heard my student exclaim ‘This was written for me!’ and ‘the author knows my situation!’.

The subject matter covers conventional discipleship matter such as ‘New Life in Christ’, ‘Talking with God’ and ‘God’s word for Us’. It also covers subjects you may not often find in a discipleship course such as ‘Reasons for Persecution’, ‘Husbands and wives’, ‘solving our disputes’, ‘Fate and Magic’. All of the twenty subjects draw on a wealth of understanding of Muslim culture and the challenges faced by a new disciple to Jesus. The Advisor Guide contains very helpful cultural clues about Islam, so that a novice to Islam can run the course very effectively.

The course is also available in numerous languages which enables an advisor and student to operate in two languages if necessary. In my case I have an English Advisors guide and my student both the English and Farsi translation. It is a little cumbersome getting four books out each time, but it has ensured that the meaning of weeks subject is communicated clearly.

Finally books only get you so far. The course requires an Advisor to be prayerful, hospitable and willing to walk the walk with the student. If they do, they will find it almost as rewarding as the student!

Further details on the course can be found here: https://come-follow-me.org/about

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Chas is a member of the Network Circle team and as a Regional Facilitator, supports groups in the London region.