In the middle of Sydney’s Muslim Ramadan street party—where food trucks line the streets and thousands celebrate—there’s a surprising presence: The Peace Tent. A Christian outreach, this space invites seekers to discover the peace of Jesus in the heart of the festival. If you want to grow in confidence sharing Jesus across cultures, this episode is for you.
What We Discuss
0:00 – Introduction
2:18 – The Peace Tent
8:22 – How do people come to the Peace?
14:37 – How to Keep People Coming Back
15:55 – A Story of a Follower of Jesus
20:41 – Advice for Those Thinking of Joining the Peace Tent
Toolbox
Connecting Muslims: A Guide to Communicating Effectively by Fouad Masri
Telling the Gospel Through Story by Christine Dillon
Where to Start with Islam by Samuel Green
Reaching Australian Muslims with Samuel Green (Reach Australia Podcast)
Faraj has more coming in a future episode in the Reach Australia Podcast
Credits
This episode was brought to you by Youthworks
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia
To pray for Reach Australia, join our WhatsApp Group.
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
To support the Reach Australia Online Library head here.
Transcript
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service.
0:10
G’day, I’m Pete Hughes and welcome to the One Thing podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip from Gospel centred ministry every week. The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic and multiplying churches all over our country, including all sorts of different cultures because God is calling all sorts of different people to himself.
0:28
Today we have with us Faraj Yusufov. No.Hi, guys. And he does outreach to people from a Muslim background.Yeah, mate, before we get into this, you you and I have known each other for a little while.You used to be a bit of a cello theme.
0:43
Like you used to play cello play.Are you still playing?Yeah, I still play.I really enjoy whipping and out every now so often when I visit my parents place and try the old Bach, the old Vivaldi give it a crack and particularly showing off in front of my wife who hasn’t really seen me play that much.
1:04
But it I am getting rusty.It’s it’s, yeah, it’s been a.While are you playing anything else at the moment, ’cause you, you were getting into harmonica as well?Oh, cause ’cause that’s the natural transition from cello to harmonica.Yeah, yeah, well, the cello was a big slog for me, learning in lessons after school.
1:21
And so after I finished, you know, get into 8th grade, I didn’t want to pursue it any further.It did give me a lot of skills to tempt new instruments.So, you know, haven’t cracked guitar.Piano was a compulsory, you know, side instrument with the cello.So by then drums was something I tried during high school.
1:40
During the time that I was getting to know you of my uni days, I was trying out the drums and harmonica is the last time I saw you was I was having a crack at the harmonica.And I think I’ve got a good Blues scale, just one rudimentary blue scale up and down and all the little thingies make it sound like I’m very good at it.
1:59
But we’ll see.That’s what I love about Blues is you always, I think you can get away with sounding better than you actually are.That’s that’s been my experience playing guitar in that.Way see what happens.Yeah, we could keep talking about musicians and instruments and that sort of thing, but, and if you want to employ Farage, yeah, contact me and I’ll put you in contact and you’ve got a certain professional decision.
2:18
But now you’ve clicked play on the one thing why you should send people to the peace tent.Today’s podcast is brought to you by Youthworks.Youthworks is a Christian, not for profit organisation based in Sydney.They seek to equip and empower every church to run effective youth and children’s ministries.
2:35
They collaborate with local churches, schools and organisations to Orient young people for life in Christ.Find out more at youthworks.net.And now back to the podcast.For Raj, the peace tent.
2:51
Just for those who’ve never heard of anything like this.What?What are we talking about here?Awesome.It’s our main ministry we have running over Ramadan.OK, let’s just pause that.Tell us about Ramadan.Yes, So in for a Muslim within Islam, one of the things you’re required to do is fast once a year for 30 days.
3:14
And it’s a fasting period that so lasts for 30 days at what’s it called dawn.And until sunset, you abstain from water and food or the entire duration of sunlight essentially.And so at sunset, you then break your fast with your family, people in your community and you kind of come together.
3:37
It’s a big festive time every night of Ramadan where you finish your fast with your friends and family.And it’s in that context there’s a festival that runs in southwest Sydney during Ramadan and where we set up a big tent, a marquee kind of set up.
3:56
We’ve this year and last year we had a wooden floor where we can run on rainy days as well in the context of the festival, as people come and buy their food to break their fast with friends and family, we invite people into the marquee where there’s lovely cushions, lights set up and hear stories about Jesus the Messiah, the Prince of Peace.
4:21
And so hence the the peace tent.And so as people come in, they often are curious about what’s, you know, what’s this all about?Why does it look so nice?Are we Muslims or who are we?And we say, well, we love Jesus the Messiah, the Prince of Peace come in.
4:36
We’d love to share you stories about who he is in from the the scriptures of God.And so as they come in, we’ll share a story about who Jesus is from the Gospels.Some from a previous episode that I was here that I may have shared about things like Jesus healing the paralytic and in there you see him give sins or with the Samaritan woman at the well, the the Jesus interacting with the thief on the cross.
5:03
And any really Bible story that we think would be relevant in that context of a conversation with a guest.And we, we have picked that up on a, another episode of the Reach Australia podcast.It’s in the, the toolbox there, so you’ll be able to find it.But it, it’s just give me a picture of how this is, are, are there like hundreds of people around?
5:22
Is it like, yeah, and, and about people there ’cause there’s like food trucks or something like that because they’re just going, hey, I haven’t eaten since the sun’s come up.So give me a picture of how, what it’s like, how’s it feel?What’s it smell like?What’s it sound like?Oh, absolutely.
5:38
The so the context of this festival, it’s a street lined with food trucks, right?And I was.Kidding about the food trucks.So they’re literally.Literally food trucks and food vendors.So you get a little stall, you know, restaurants will get a little stall on this strip of the street.
5:56
And so there’s food everywhere.And last year or perhaps the year before, just after COVID, one of the years it was the second largest event in Sydney, having 1.2 million people come through that strip over the 30 days.
6:14
And I think the following year was, which I think may have been the last year or the year before where this figure comes from, it was 1.45 million people that came through over the 30 days, 30 nights over that Ramadan month.And so.This is in Sydney.
6:30
This is in Sydney, OK, You can look it up.It’s called Ramadan nights in Sydney.And so in that context, we set up a marquee, big tent.It’s on a church property.We, it’s a Uniting Church there where I have a relationship with the minister there.
6:49
So he’s allowed us graciously to use his front bit of the property.So thankfully we’re not subject to, you know, the council’s rules for what you can do there.We’re on our own bit of property.And so as folks come in, we’ve got this big marquee tent set up, wooden floor and it’s lined with these beautiful like Turkish cushions or Jordanian cushions.
7:16
They have these beautiful red and yellow kind of designs you might imagine.And we all sit on the floor, beautiful carpets, brass little tables, trying to make it look as hospitable as possible.And so as folks come in, we offer them a little, a little tea or a little coffee and a biscuit and we sit and we have volunteers in the tent, then welcome the guest in and say, OK, welcome to the peace tent.
7:42
You know, have you been here before?How’s your evening been?Well, would you like to hear a story about Jesus Messiah, the Prince of Peace?And so then a conversation kicks off and hopefully go.And, and you’re really relying on that story to to kind of get the conversation going and to to help people get an idea of where people are at in terms of how open they are to continue that conversation, which I think is.
8:05
Yeah, it’s a really great way of doing things.Now.I think the first time I heard about the peace tent was you were you or somebody else was looking for volunteers and you approached the church I was attending, which looked to be really, really blunt was pretty much a white breed kind of church.
8:22
There were not a lot of Muslims, not a lot of people, you know, basically everyone looked wide.How do you people come and actually help and volunteer there?Is that right?Tell tell me a little bit about the volunteers that are at the peace then.Absolutely, yeah.By God’s grace, we’ve got about 100 to 150 volunteers that come and suspend with us each night over the 30 days.
8:48
So we have teams, the first few years it was team would do two nights.Now we’ve got enough volunteers where a team will do one night from, you know, sundown till quite late in the evening up to midnight or maybe a little bit later.But we get volunteers from all across Sydney.
9:06
And so it’s quite a big mix of folks and it’s interdenominational as well.And so we’ll have folks coming across from all across Sydney.Some came, flew down from Queensland to be a part of this ministry and some came up from Newcastle, down from Newcastle to be part of this.
9:25
So we have folks coming in to be a part of this ministry from all across Sydney and all walks of life and cultural backgrounds.Although we do have, you know, a statement of faith, which is essentially the basic evangelical profession of faith that Christ is Lord and, you know, the scriptures are, you know, from God and then they reveal who he is.
9:50
Few things like that just so that we’re not getting just anyone but and.Do you do training with them?Yeah, that’s right.So the last, this year and last year, I’m on the team that organises the training for our volunteers.We’ll have a big day.Well, they’ll come in.
10:05
We’ll run through the material of what it looks like to prepare a story, what they might expect in the tent, the rolls in the tent.We have folks who welcome at the front and engage folks.You know, we’re not pamphleting, so we’re not hounding people to come in.But we’re ready.
10:22
We will say hi.And if someone asks, then we’ll invite them in.Particularly because we wanted to be mindful that this is not our festival.And in some ways, this is their festival and in, so to speak, in their territory.
10:39
Yeah, we’re, you’re there as a visitor, so to speak in and and so you’re not there as part of the family, so to speak.Yep, Yep.Do you find when people are coming in volunteers, they’re they’re fairly intimidated or like is there a certain amount of nervousness as they’ve, I mean, they’ve volunteered so they do want to be there, but it must be hard.
10:58
Yeah, we’ve got an array.Some folks, you know, grew up amongst Muslim background people in cross cultural context that perhaps for them it’s a little bit easier to engage.And there’s definitely some who come in.Maybe you’re expecting more conflict than there will actually be where you know, some perhaps maybe they’ve had an experience in speaking to a Muslim friend or Muslim neighbour, which which has been in the context of an argument.
11:23
But that’s the aim of the Peace Tent is that we, if any of, of our guests wish to engage that way, we’ll go.That’s great.No, look, it’s good to get to the bottom of what we believe and why we believe it.Let’s do it at another time.Let’s meet up and talk about these things.
11:40
But in the tent, we’d love to just share stories and let’s just talk about, let’s just engage over these stories that we have here.So Peace Tent also is, is a way for us to cut through how some of our Muslim friends and neighbours think we should engage with Christians through argument.
12:01
But we wanted to say, no, let’s actually let’s cut through that.Let’s engage over this story of a scripture.And that also means that we move away from other issues that might come up with an argument in the tent, which often can escalate or so a big thing is building bridges and relationships.
12:22
It’s a sewing ministry rather than a harvesting ministry.Of course it’s not.We can’t delineate like that, but the work is bringing the scripture for some for the first time before them.So for for people who’ve been around the Richer Australian network, sometimes we talk a little bit about contact, connect and then talking about the gospel.
12:43
So this is really in that connecting.So you’re building the relationship, you’re building the the bridges, you’re telling the stories so that people are interested in taking that next step to find out more.That’s the kind of focus there.Do you find that the the volunteers who come when they leave, how confident are there?
12:59
How have you seen a a rise in confidence of them going?I could do this not just with Muslims, but anywhere.Yeah, absolutely, because it’s such a simple thing, I guess.I mean, it’s easy to say, harder to put into practise, but it it is at the heart though, see how simple it is to share a story about who Jesus is, to share something you already know and about someone whom you really love.
13:24
And just having a go at it in this kind of context where you’re speaking to a stranger, a guest who’s coming off the street, definitely sets you up to feel a bit more confident to share a story, maybe with a friend or your parent or a family member, colleague, neighbour.
13:45
So yeah, absolutely.I, I mean, for me personally as well, it has definitely when I first started in this ministry as an apprentice, so to speak, a learning the ropes and Ramadan ministry kind of was the first thing in the calendar.
14:03
I finish college, come over to start doing this ministry in, in training.And then Ramadan happens pretty much straight away at that time.And so straight away having that experience and speaking to strangers and just sharing simple stories, it was a great little boost to see how simple it is to do that.
14:22
And then I can, yeah, I can tell a story.I can do it with a person I’ve just met or someone I already know.So it really does equip them quite well.And you know, God willing, they’ll they’ll continue to be sharing stories well into the future.
14:37
And you see volunteers come back year after year, although I mean, you see a lot of new ones as well, obviously, because you built the teams.But have you seen people come back?Yeah, absolutely.Sometimes it’s a bit tricky.We get too full too quick.Sure it varies, but yeah, I think when we moved to teams serving a single night, we were able to get back a lot of the older volunteers who are working, who have families were retired as well as two nights was pretty full on.
15:11
And the years we were doing 2 nights we were getting a lot of uni students which was great.But we really want to have a diverse in terms of maturity and age range of believers who offer their own aspect of, you know, some have been Christians for 20 years, 30 years.
15:32
That’s a rich contribution to sharing the gospel.That’s really interesting because I, I, you know, I, I think I just in my head, I’ve got this, you know, it’s the young adults, they’re the UNI students coming in because they’ve got time on their hands really.But you’re saying actually what you really need is a range of different people who, you know, different life experience, able to talk to different people with this similar life experience.
15:52
So.OK, that’s interesting.Tell us a little bit about now we’ve talked a little bit about the volunteers, but the effectiveness in terms of reaching someone.Is there a story that you can see of, of someone that was was met in the peace tent and has gone on to become a follower of Jesus?
16:09
Now, of course, we can’t mention names, so we’ll just use letters if that’s OK.Yeah.Is there a story you can tell us of that?Absolutely.There’s, there’s a handful of little anecdotes, excuse me, but I’m not sure if just maybe one or two.There’s a particular one, very brief one.
16:27
There was a lady who came in a few years ago to the peace tent several years ago now, because it’s been running for quite a bit of time even before the festival began.So at first it was just really a marquee during Ramadan as folks would go to the restaurants to get their food.
16:45
It would just be generally more populated and so they would invite people into a smaller, that time Marquis to have those conversations.As it became a formal festival, more people came on.My key got bigger and it kind of was formalised, so to speak, into a big ministry with 120 or so volunteers plus.
17:07
But early days, someone who came into the Peace Tent heard the stories, came to faith and is now returning to serve on the Peace Tent as a volunteer, which is one incredible story of of that coming full circle.But one gentleman that I was connected with last year or maybe in the year prior, he’s he’s moved on now, but he came to faith in the peace tent And for him it was the last step in his journey.
17:36
So he’s been engaging with Christians, he’s been thinking and talking.And then when he arrives in the peace tent and he just sees the consistency and the conviction and the love of believers in sharing their faith, that that was the last kind of moment that he needed to put his trust in Christ.
17:56
And he, he, he really counted the cost of it because soon after that he was heavily persecuted by his brothers in, in being physically beaten or coming out as a believer.And, you know, his life has been difficult, hasn’t been easy.
18:15
But for him, the peace tent was that final point in his journey in coming to faith.And so, as we say, it’s a sewing ministry, but by no means it, do we?But does the Lord limit it to that?He uses it in, in any way that he wishes.
18:32
And so that those are two big ones, but there’s been some interesting ones as well.I think we’d be keen to share with you.I may have mentioned one in in the previous episode, there was a gentleman who came in a particular person.He was just ready to argue.He he didn’t want to hear stories and our volunteer wasn’t budging.
18:49
He was just saying, no, no, I don’t want to argue.I love you.I just want to share with you who Jesus is.He stuck to it.He didn’t budget on taking the bait, so to speak.And at the end, the guest said, look, my whole life I’ve been taught to believe that Christians hate Muslims.
19:08
And I don’t know why they would say that.I didn’t see anything like this.And so he went away learning that Christians love Muslims.We don’t we don’t hate them.And so that was impactful.
19:23
And it’s something that I have personally encountered as I speak with guests that come in the thing that they might not react to a story well, they might be indifferent to it.It might trigger them a little, but the thing that they’re that’s most been impactful is that they see the sincere love of neighbour as God’s people are witnessing to them.
19:46
And it’s quite impactful for them for most, for most Muslims in their communities.You know, the, the framework of love.That’s that’s actually uniquely Christian thing.Love your neighbour and love your enemy.
20:03
That’s not a framework in in their faith.And so it plays out in different ways in their communities.So experiencing sincere love is incredibly impactful, and it’s surprising because you grow up in that sphere, you know, amongst Christian love.Sort of, I was going to say, yeah, it’s such a big thing in Western society because Western society has been so shaped by Christendom.
20:23
Yeah, we kind of take that for granted.Yeah.And the idea that you need to be loving, I mean, even get watered down a little bit to tolerating everybody else.Yeah.That that’s we forget that that’s actually somewhat of a an unusual thing in compare comparison to other cultures.
20:41
Faraj, I want to ask you, this is the one thing I want to ask.If it was one thing that you wanted to say to someone who was thinking about joining the Peace Tent, what would you say?Yeah, well, do it.I think one thing you might want to consider is, you know, what do I under the Lord, right.
20:59
I think the best thing is to think how can I be faithful with what I have?And so definitely the first thing would be is to think about being faithful with the people around me, to think how you can obviously be a witness to them.And if it’s something that’s on your heart to be a witness to those, to kind of go that extra step to be a witness to those whom you don’t know or cross cultural from you, where you will have to seek them out at your own kind of emotional, psychological energy cost, then definitely give it a go.
21:36
Ramadan’s coming up in in March.Definitely.I think this year spaces are are limited.It’s hard.But that’s not to say that, you know, we have different next year or the year after.But really thinking about how can I be faithful with what God has given me in terms of who’s around me, how I can share and then in terms of what opportunity I can take in sharing with those or not in my immediate circle.
22:03
That’s something for you reflect and consider, and then perhaps reaching out and getting in touch to serve on the peace Tent as well.So yeah, it sounds like the Peace Tent is a great opportunity for you to extend and to challenge your evangelistic skills to reach those from other cultures.
22:20
Yeah.In the toolbox, we’ve got a couple of books for you Connecting with Muslims by I’m going to get you to say because I’ve butchered this so many times in previous takes from this.Let’s do it.Faoud Mastery.Thank you.We also have another one, Telling the Gospel through Stories by Christine Dillon.
22:38
That’s been a great kind of resource for you as you’ve thought about telling the stories and using that as evangelistic things.I also want to throw in Engaging with Muslims by Sam Green.That’s going to be in there as well.We also have another interview with Sam Green on Reaching the Nations and or from our Reach Australia podcast and of course the Reach Australia podcast that Faraj was on that is there.
22:59
So there’s heaps and heaps there.But the main thing is if you want to contact Faraj resources at reachaustralia.com dot AU, email me.I’ll put you in contact with him.You may want to be involved with the peace tent.You may be in another city and go actually, I want to set up a peace tent here.
23:15
Faraj will be more than happy to help you work out how to do that.Or perhaps you just want to find out a bit more about how does he rich people from a Muslim background and what does he do there?Broj mate, thanks for joining us.Amazing.Thanks, Pete.Thanks for having me.
23:30
I’m very excited to be here. I’m Pete Hughes. Chat soon in the tool, in the in the tool box that’s going to make it to the Kia sometimes puts an outtake at the end that’s probably going to take it to the outtakes. Yeah, in the tool box.
